The first year of the implementation of the Nature-inclusive Agenda 2.0 of the Nature-inclusive Collective is over.
At the beginning of 2025, we look at the results of the Health domain and note the following.
Awareness
The awareness of the importance of nature-inclusive health has received a surprisingly large boost in the health sector in 2024.
Partly due to actions from the Health domain and partners, nature-inclusive health is increasingly becoming a concept in healthcare sectors such as mental health care and care for the disabled and is also becoming increasingly well-known in primary care. The enthusiasm for integrating nature-inclusive health into policy and practice is considerably greater in the health sector at the end of 2024 than at the beginning of 2024.
However, there is still a world to be won by scaling up and broadening, also to the “hard side of care”, especially health insurers. Nature-inclusive health has also been explicitly addressed in mainstream healthcare media, such as Zorgvisie, GGZ Nieuws and Psychiater op de Cast.
Nature-inclusive healthy neighbourhoods
Several municipalities in the Netherlands are in the starting blocks to prioritise nature-inclusive healthy neighbourhoods, partly due to the Nature-inclusive Health in the Neighbourhood campaign and the Top 10 Nature-inclusive Building for Healthy Residents together with the Construction domain and partners.
Green world and health
In ‘the green world’, the importance of nature-inclusive health will be increasingly well-known by the end of 2024, partly due to campaigns such as National Parks and Health, in collaboration with the National Parks Agency and a growing network of national parks and health experts.
Monetary indications
There are clear monetary indications from both the public and private sectors that nature-inclusive health is increasingly being embraced, in particular through the financial allocation of the National Postcode Lottery of almost 2 million euros for greening mental health care (programme “Te Gek Groen”) and 1.8 million euros from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (programme “Green for Health”);
Young people and nature
At the end of 2024, a significant step was taken together with young people to work on their health through more contact with nature. On 19 December, the Green Escape initiative was launched during the beautiful Green Christmas seminar ‘Buiten Gewoon Beter’ (Outside Just Better).
Domain-connecting collaboration
And, more than that: great steps have been taken in collaboration with other domains, especially Agriculture, VTE, Water and Construction, resulting in energy-rich initiatives such as Breathing Space, Harvesting Health and Drinkable Streams and Rivers.
Grateful
We are happy and grateful that we have been able to take these steps forward together within the framework of the Collective Nature Inclusive and we are full of plans for 2025! For more information, see this website.
