Meet the Team
Founder & Director
Stefan Batorijs
In 2008 Stefan established the highly acclaimed Ecotherapy Project with Plymouth NHS, for people with severe and enduring mental health needs.
Stefan is currently an Associate Lecturer at Plymouth University. He teaches the role of Nature and the benefits of natural immersion for mental health and recovery from trauma on the Clinical Psychology Doctorate Training.
Stefan is passionate about trees, birds, sacred land and community. He loves being in the sea, and watching films, but not at the same time.
Stefan is a member of INFOM, the International Society of Nature and Forest Medicine and a member of the Eco-psychology Network.
Operations and Marketing Manager
Primrose Russell
Head of Fundraising ( Nature and Therapy CIC)
Natalia Whately
Natalia is a passionate advocate for bringing together nature, wellbeing, and community empowerment. After growing up in London, her career has spanned diverse landscapes—from social enterprise work in London and China to pioneering eco-initiatives in Africa. Her earlier projects included creating spaces where migrant communities, families and young people could come together through food, gardening, music and creativity – fostering wellbeing and connection, regardless of circumstance. More recently, she secured funding to train young people in Ghana to transform intensively logged land back into lush rainforest ecosystems.
Natalia’s approach is deeply informed by her ongoing studies in Internal Family Systems Therapy, mindfulness practices, and her love for the natural world. Natalia is inspired by the profound impact Nature and Therapy’s work has on transforming lives and looks forward to supporting the team to expand their reach even further.
Praxis Mentors
Carlos
Forests have always been his passion and fortunately he’s had the chance to “mingle” with a very diverse range of trees, like ancient eucalyptus specimens in his childhood in Argentina; maple, birch, oak and a extensive selection of conifers during his life in Canada and now, the European families of beech, chestnut, linden together with spruce and fir in his new life in Bavaria. His instinctive attraction to trees was then strengthened by learning about the Japanese practice of Shinrin-Yoku or Forest Bathing.
He studied Shinrin-Yoku techniques in England, Germany and Japan. He developed a Forest Therapy program influenced by his mentor Dr. Yoshifumi Miyazaki and his 30 plus years of research showing the overwhelming evidence on body and mental health benefits of “Forest Therapy” (Dr. Miyazaki coined this term himself back in 2003).
Carlos co-founded Universe Mindfulness with his wife Emma, with the idea of offering wellness escapes throughout Europe with the main theme of Mindfulness in Nature, guiding participants to become reacquainted with nature and to reconnect with it in a deeper and more healing manner than ever before.
Emma
Since 2017, Emma has worked as an accredited counsellor in outdoor spaces and now works solely in woodland spaces as a counsellor, integrating her qualification as a certified forest therapist. Emma offers both one-on-one and group sessions with her clients and intuitively works with woodland folklore stories, symbols, and imagery to support her clients. She specialises in bereavement, grief, and loss, supporting young people and families and young people with special educational needs. Emma currently works alongside Dorset schools and young people professionals to support the mental health and wellbeing of young people in outdoor spaces.
Jan
She spent time in Japan, where she learned to appreciate a different sensitivity to nature and beauty. She also worked as an Educational Ranger, taking city kids into the countryside and giving them the chance to explore, learn to trust, and then to love nature. She now runs a clinic as a holistic therapist in the Bowen Technique, working alongside her clients to help them overcome their physical ailments and proactively focus on their well-being.
She now practices as a Forest Bathing guide in several ways: one-to-one with some clients in her clinic as a healing practice, group walks focused on wellbeing in partnership with local organisations, and online. She runs a YouTube channel where she explores and shares her reflections on nature connections.
She is passionate about sharing forest bathing, not least because it means so much to her personally; her daily walk has helped her tremendously in times of difficulty, and she has seen what a powerful positive impact this seemingly simple practice can have on people’s lives. She also believes that connecting with nature holds answers to our current environmental crisis: ‘what we love, we protect’.
Karen
Academically, she has an Environmental Science degree and a Masters and PhD in Environmental Geochemistry and Ecotoxicology – a deep understanding of the damage mankind has done to our precious planet. As an academic, she regularly taught ecology, conservation studies, soil science, and environmental law at three universities.
For the past 30 years, Karen has also been pursuing her spiritual connection with Mother Nature and has explored and trained with many teachers on the ancient ways of understanding our relationship with the Earth, bringing in the shamanic traditions of North America, South America, and Celtic Shamanism. Teaching and guiding people to work with Plant Spirit Wisdom, Bird Spirit Wisdom and Deep Earth Connection.
She has also been a falconer for the last 20 years, with eight birds of prey in her family. Based in Somerset, she regularly holds clinics for people co-working with her Birds of Prey and the forest for a deep animistic healing experience. She is the director of a new CIC ‘Wild Connections Centre’ offering Animal & Nature Assisted Therapy to those groups that are in need of mental health and wellbeing services, due to be launched in February 2022.
Her passion has always been to connect people back to the non-human, back to who they really are, and to get people to listen to the wisdom of the world around them.
Katie
Lindsey
Lucy
Being outdoors in nature has always been how Lucy relaxes, gets life in perspective during stressful times, and connects to the other than human world – keeping an open mind to what ‘spirit’ or ‘life force’ could be at the centre of our lives. Listening to a bubbling burn (stream) in Glen Esk telling her “All is well, all will be well” at the age of 10 was a memorable deep connection to the natural world. From an early age Lucy has been acutely aware of human’s impact on the natural environment, becoming vegetarian at 16 due to the environmentally destructive and cruel practices of the factory farming system. Lucy’s climate activism started at age 21, campaigning with Greenpeace against fossil fuel giant Shell, sitting on their petrol station roof with banners. 30 years later and unfortunately the threat of climate change, and the heart breaking loss of biodiversity is acute, and Lucy has been taking part in Extinction Rebellion protests, most recently marching for the protection of the natural world, and for the future of humanity, at Cop 26 in Glasgow.
Working for National Parks for 15 years in community education and communications – promoting and providing experiences of special places to the public – to a diverse range of people, has led Lucy to believe strongly that if people learn about and experience nature they will appreciate and look after the natural world. This strong belief and love of being connected to nature led her to Shinrin Yoku – Forest Bathing. Lucy started her Shinrin Yoku journey in November 2019 with Nature and Therapy UK, completing the diploma as a Forest Bathing guide in Autumn 2021. Lucy has particularly enjoyed Stefan’s approach of enabling participants on the course to follow their own journey and has enabled the experience to be intensely personal.
Having recently moved to West Wales, Lucy is building new contacts to offer Forest Bathing in the local woodlands and also to take people to a very special nature regeneration project that her partner manages, which includes areas of pristine Atlantic Rain Forest. Lucy and David are presently renovating a traditional welsh farmstead, overlooking Cardigan Bay and Aberystwyth. Lucy will be offering forest bathing retreats and nature walks to community support groups, health workers and anyone who is looking to experience what trees and nature have to offer for wellbeing and a sense of awe of our world.
Nicola
She started her journey with Nature & Therapy UK in May 2019, and completed her Diploma training in 2021. She currently works in green social prescribing, developing links between social prescribers and those who offer green activities, increasing awareness and opportunities for wellbeing through nature. She also offers nature-based activities and forest bathing through her local Wildlife Trust and through her business Company of Nature.
Ruth
Claire
Daniela
My background is in complementary health-care and in facilitating Mindfulness courses for stress & health management, including nature-based Mindfulness.
Based in Totnes, Devon, I am a seasoned Shiatsu, Seiki-touch, Mindfulness and Amerta Movement Practitioner and Facilitator with long term experience of working with people through meditation and compassionate embodiment as a therapist and as a trainer for shiatsu schools, organizations and independently organised groups.
I have enjoyed facilitating workshops and day retreats in the natural environment for several years, recently in partnership with Wood for Wellness, Dartington. One of my interests is working with sensitive people. During the Forest Bathing and Nature Therapy Training I carried out a research on “Forest Bathing and Sensitivity” that can be accessed via through the link below:
Laura
Tilly
Panel /Consultants
Dr Qing Li
He is a professor at Nippon Medical School, President of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine, Director of the Forest Therapy Society, Vice-President and Secretary General of International Society of Nature and Forest Medicine (INFOM)
Prof. Li is the world’s foremost expert in forest medicine and immunology. He has received Society Award from the Japanese Society for Hygiene in Forest Medicine in 2022 and University Award from Nippon Medical School in Forest Medicine in 2011
Some people study medicine. Some people study forest. Dr. Li studies forest medicine to find out all the ways in which walking in the forest can improve our well-being. He started the forest medicine research (Shinrin-yoku/Forest bathing/Forest therapy) from 2004 and has published many articles in scientific journals and books in forest medicine.
His book: Shinrin-yoku has been translated into 26 languages.
His book: Forest bathing was ranked in the bestseller list in the US.
Kirsten McEwan
Kirsten is happiest spending time in nature and was pleased to be able to bring together her passion for the outdoors and health and well-being research by becoming a Forest Bathing researcher and practitioner.
Most of her current research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of Forest Bathing and making it accessible to wider audiences.
Layne Hamerston
Currently Community partnership manager for Bournemouth University, Director of Resurface Therapy, and founder of an immersive wellbeing community for men, Layne will be sharing his personal and professional journey with nature connection and its profound effect.