Environmentally Speaking: Forest Bathing

Anxious about the climate? Find the perfect - and perfectly appropriate - antidote in forest bathing. Ecologist Robert Brand explains what forest bathing is and its many benefits, and demonstrates the practice outdoors in Kopf Reservation behind the library.  

Robert is a vegetation ecologist with a specialty in wetlands. He has worked as the Watershed Program Manager for the Cuyahoga County Board of Health since 2017 and understands the importance and benefits of trees for health, climate mitigation, adaptation, and as green storm water infrastructure.

Since 2019, he has been a member of the Healthy Urban Tree Canopy committee, which is a competitive grant application process to plant trees and grow canopy as a result of a rapid decline in canopy trees over the last 20 years. Also, in response to ongoing clearcutting for development, he and several others concerned with trees, watersheds, and health organized "Tree Symposium: Nature & Science-based Method of Planting Trees", presented in September 2022. The symposium was so successful, they plan a follow-up this September. 

Robert's other current projects include a soil mycorrhizae inoculation project, started in 2021 with Holden Gardens and Forests, to improve tree growth and survivability in harsh, urban environments; creating a tree policy for Cuyahoga County to protect native canopy trees that will involve a change in land use practice and incorporate environmental law and ethics; and studying trees and their influences on mental health and wellbeing, climate anxiety and ecological grief, and aesthetics and the Japanese concept of forest bathing - Shinrin-yoku.

This program is part of a year-long environmental series, presented in partnership with the Avon Lake Public Library and Avon Lake’s Environmental Affairs Advisory Board (EAAB), that addresses the environmental concerns of Avon Lake's residents expressed via the EAAB survey. Each session focuses on a different topic presented by experts who will educate, as well as provide tools and resources for making an impact in our community.