The inaugural International Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress 2010 was conceived in 2008 and delivered successfully two years later. Ambitious attendance records were set at 1,000 – and then were exceeded, with 1,200 participants from 37 nations.
The Congress was developed to explore how nature significantly contributes to wellbeing and to broader societal benefits. The Congress objectives were to:
* Explore the many societal benefits that parks and nature provide.
* Build the relevance of parks and nature to society.
* Share knowledge, initiatives and innovations achieved by collaborating across sectors.
* Develop an international agenda that reunites nature with social health.
* Identify opportunities for better collaboration at global, international and local levels.
* Establish an information exchange network.
The Congress was successful in achieving all of these objectives.
The Congress was a milestone, as we begin to realign nature with broader social health objectives. By reinforcing the connections between the health of our community and the health of our parks, we can nurture a truly sustainable society, one which recognises its dependence upon and place within the natural environment. Striking a balance between developmental and human needs for environmental services requirements is a challenge that governments in a number of developing countries face. This congress provided a platform for raising awareness and calling for greater responsibility on all leaders to recognize this contribution and guard it with zeal.
Congress Hosts, Parks Victoria, developed the Healthy Parks Healthy People philosophy seeking to reinforce and encourage the connection between a healthy environment and a healthy society. The Congress has ensured this philosophy is now on the radar for government, education and business sectors globally.
Healthy Parks Healthy People
Parks Victoria’s Healthy Parks Healthy People philosophy seeks to reinforce and encourage the connection between a healthy environment and a healthy society. It has long been recognised that natural spaces provide many, often intangible, societal benefits. Healthy parks sustain healthy people. The approach is based on research conducted by Deakin University in 2002.
Apart from the obvious benefits of parks for physical activity, they are sanctuaries from urban stress, places for people to connect and havens for children to explore the wonders of the natural world. Parks help provide us with a sense of place, cultural identity and spiritual nourishment. We experience a greater sense of health and wellbeing, of connection and meaning when immersed in the living systems that sustain us. For the Indigenous people parks supply a profound spiritual link to ‘Country’.
As the custodian of four million hectares of parkland, Parks Victoria has a clear role to play connecting people with nature and the organisation is in the process of repositioning itself as a provider of broad societal benefits above and beyond those traditionally associated with parks.
To achieve this aim, there is a need to dissolve disciplinary barriers and realign common interests with other services, such as those within the health and community sectors. We require people from a whole host of sectors to imagine the potential of parks from the outside-in. The realms of park management and health have developed almost independently of one another, despite sharing issues of common concern. It is time we reunite them.
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