The PHorestAll project was represented by its Portuguese partners, Destinature and the University of Coimbra, at the ceremony marking the award of the International Healing Forest Certificate to Mata do Bussaco. Mata do Bussaco is the first forest in Iberia to receive this distinction.
During the event, the PHorestAll project was presented as the next step in strengthening Bussaco’s position as a place for health, well-being, research, and innovation. The certification is therefore not an end point, but the beginning of a new phase focused on producing scientific knowledge about the relationship between forests and human health.
At Mata do Bussaco, the project will assess the effects of forest therapy interventions by linking the analysis of biodiversity, the soil microbiome, and biogenic volatile organic compounds present in the forest environment with participants’ health and well-being indicators.
A path that brings together nature, science, and health, helping to establish Mata do Bussaco, together with the other forests in Portugal, Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, and Taiwan, as living laboratories and international references for the development of Healing Forests.