Director and Chartered (Urban) Forester - Keynote speaker on community urban forestry
Other countries are leading the way with urban greening, urban forestry and access to nature such as the USA with its inspiring inflation reduction act. The act looks to green areas with low canopy cover and high deprivation as it recognises that people who live in areas of low canopy and with limited access to nature die younger which is just not right. Meanwhile in Wales we are going in completely the opposite direction. Cutting key front line roles at our public visitors centre and the last remaining posts that promoted greening our cities as this is just not seen as core business for NRW! All this is going to do increase pressure and costs longer term in the Welsh NHS. NRW has always struggled to understand the need to green our urban environments and loosing educational roles previously means public engagement is going backwards. This should not be happening but perhaps this is an opportunity to look and see if this function should be moved into the Welsh NHS. We need to look at access to nature, greening an health in a different way. Research shows us that early interventions work and could ultimately save the Welsh NHS money in prescriptions. There is so much opportunity in Wales it's just being missed. Eluned Morgan. #UrbanForestry #PublicEngagement #HelpingCommunities #Healthoutcomes
Some press coverage on the impact of the proposed changes at Natural Resources Wales. https://lnkd.in/eJE8XUnZ
