"Depression: Let’s Talk!" (World Health Day, 07.04.2017)

Today on World Health Day, the world is focusing on the issue of depression, which has emerged as a major health problem, affecting over 300 million people every year. We now know that mental health is affected by a range of biological, socioeconomic and environmental factors. Increasing people’s engagement with nature and biodiversity can contribute to addressing this illness. American non-fiction author and journalist Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods, released over a decade ago, gave us a compelling account of the rise of “nature deficit disorder” among children, resulting from decreased exposure to the outdoors. More recent studies have shown that contact with nature can have a wide variety of beneficial effects on humans. These include positive effects on cognitive abilities and mental restoration from stress and health.