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Natural landscapes are intricately tied to human health and well-being. While contemporary lifestyles have caused people to feel disconnected from the natural environment, this relationship is now recognized as vitally important, with landscapes increasingly valued for their stress-reduction, aesthetic, and restorative benefits. Providing an overview of the history, theoretical concepts, and individual and societal implications of human connection to natural landscapes, this book considers natural landscapes'role as an antidote to our modern, predominantly urban society. It also delivers: - A robust, research-backed overview of the intersections between natural landscapes and human health; - A compendium of applications such as nature-based therapies, urban greenspaces, and adventure-based programming that promote health within specific populations of society and individuals; - Due consideration of crucial factors that can adversely affect health and landscape, such as climate change. Of critical importance as we continue to define the role that natural landscapes will play for future generations, this book should be required reading for policy makers, urban planners and industry practitioners. It provides a thorough grounding in understanding the intersections between health and natural landscapes, and will be a valuable resource for academicians and students from a broad range of disciplines including public health, leisure and tourism, environmental sciences, and geography.

This Handbook serves as a starting point for critical analysis and discourse about the status of women in outdoor learning environments (OLEs). Women choose to participate actively in outdoors careers, many believing the profession is a level playing field and that it offers alternatives to traditional sporting activities. They enter outdoor learning primarily on the strength of their enthusiasm for leading and teaching in natural environments and assume the field is inclusive, rewarding excellence regardless of age, gender, socioeconomic status, disability, or ethnicity. However, both research and collective experiences in OLEs suggest that many women feel invisible, relegated, marginalized, and undervalued. In response to this marginalization, this Handbook celebrates the richness of knowledge and practices of women practitioners in OLEs. Women scholars and practitioners from numerous fields, such as experiential outdoor education, adventure education, adventure therapy, and gender studies, explore the implications of their research and practice using poignant examples within their own disciplines. These insights emerge from similar life experiences as women and outdoor leaders in the 1970s to the present. Social inequalities still abound in OLEs, and the Handbook ensures that the contributions of women are highlighted as well as the work that needs to be done to make these spaces inclusive.Global in perspective and capacious in content, this one-stop volume is an indispensable reference resource for a diverse range of academics, including students and researchers in the fields of education, psychology, sociology, gender studies, geography, and environment studies, as well as the many outdoors fields.

The role natural environments play in human health and wellbeing is attracting increasing attention. There is growing medical evidence that access to the natural environment can prevent disease, aid recovery, tackle obesity and improve mental health. This book examines the history of natural environments being used for stress-reduction, enjoyment, aesthetics and catharsis, and traces the development of the connection between humans and the environment, and how they impact our personal and collective health.