Skip to main content
IUCN CEC/WCPA NatureForAll Intercommission
IUCN COMMISSION GROUP

IUCN CEC/WCPA NatureForAll Intercommission

project image

Overview and description

A global movement to inspire, celebrate and restore love of nature. Share your love of Nature!

Group leadership

Dr Vasanti RAO

Co Chair IUCN #NatureForAll  

Steering Committee Member IUCN Commission on Education & Communication

Dr (Ms) Vasanti Rao is the Director General of CMS (Centre for Media Studies) - a research based think tank in India (www.cmsindia.org) and also directs CMS VATAVARAN, the Asia’s largest international film festival and forum on environment & wildlife (www.cmsvatavaran.org).

Vasanti has her PhD in Media Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University and has double Masters degrees in Psychology and Management. She specializes in strategy development, designing, researching and evaluating development programs communication initiatives. Vasanti also advises, studies and writes on: the communication media and regulatory issues; mass and new media trends and consumption patterns; strategies for development programs & social issues in popular media (entertainment & NEWS); Communication & Media Research; Behavior & Social Change Communication & Entertainment Education Strategies.

Conservation, Gender and Children are three key areas of her concern and passion. Vasanti has to her credit numerous policy inputs, program evaluations, designing and organizing multi stakeholder events and research based publications.  

 

 

Co Chair IUCN #NatureForAll  

Steering Committee Member IUCN Commission on Education & Communication

Dr (Ms) Vasanti Rao is the Director General of CMS (Centre for Media Studies) - a research based ...

Dr Cheryl CHARLES

#NatureForAll Co-Chair

Cheryl Charles is an innovator, entrepreneur, educator, author and organizational executive. Throughout her career, Cheryl has focused on the well-being of children, families, communities and the environment that supports us all. She is the Co-Founder, President and CEO Emerita of the Children & Nature Network (www.childrenandnature.org), an international NGO with its mission to connect all children, their families and communities to nature in their everyday lives.

Cheryl serves as a member of the Steering Committee for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Commission on Education and Communication (CEC). A member of the Commission since 2005, she previously served on the CEC’s Steering Committee from 2006—2012 and again beginning in 2018. Deeply committed to the importance of connecting people of all ages with nature for their own health and well-being and that of the Earth itself, she is one of those who helped develop the concept for IUCN’s #NatureForAll and serves as one of its three international co-chairs. She was lead author and coordinator of #NatureForAll’s report, Home to Us All: How Connecting with Nature Helps Us Care for Ourselves and the Earth.

Cheryl currently is Research Scholar and founding Executive Director of the Nature Based Leadership Institute at Antioch University New England (AUNE), and an elected school board member. She is a member of the board of trustees of both the Brandwein Institute and the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. She served as foundation National Director of the pioneering K-12, interdisciplinary environment education programs, Project Learning Tree and Project WILD.

Cheryl is author, editor and designer of a wide variety of publications including books, articles, and educational materials. Cheryl has given hundreds of public presentations and workshops including scores of keynote addresses; and has facilitated a wide variety of civic, business and educational meetings on a range of topics from developing community leadership to leading the worldwide effort to reconnect children with nature. Cheryl has a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Washington. She lives near her son, daughter-in-law and nature-based grandchildren on a forest family farm in southern Vermont, USA.

#NatureForAll Co-Chair

Cheryl Charles is an innovator, entrepreneur, educator, author and organizational executive. Throughout her career, Cheryl has focused on the well-being of children, families ...

#NatureForAll is a global movement to inspire, celebrate and restore love of nature. It is not an entity but rather a community of interested organizations and individuals who are inspired to work together to effect positive change. At its core is a very simple idea: the more people connect with, learn about and share their love, the more support and action there will be for its conservation.

#NatureForAll aims to foster enabling environments to reduce barriers and connect people with nature in different regions, contexts and realities. Through partnership, we share knowledge, strategies, and actions – amplifying our collective reach and impact to engage new audiences.

#NatureForAll aims to facilitate the development of communities throughout the world where partners connect and learn with the shared purpose of facilitating a love and actions for nature in urban and other environments. This includes the creation of communities (communication spaces/conversation circles/action pools, etc.) where partner organisations and individuals can facilitate action. #NatureForAll helps connect people with nature so that the future is one in which everyone, everywhere, loves and cares for nature.

Objectives

  • Raise awareness of nature and its important values and benefits
  • Deepen understanding of the relationships between nature conservation and climate resilience
  • Increase the numbers of people with empathy, care and connectedness with nature, across the diversity of human cultures where connections have been lost
  • Inspire opportunities for all peoples to experience and connect meaningfully with nature, in ways rooted in their cultures and languages
  • Help drive policy and support action that enables safe access and enjoyment of nature on a daily basis, inclusive of the full diversity of communities
  • Grow a cohesive community of shared commitment, collaboration and action worldwide

Thematic Areas

Youth and Nature

Children, education and nature

Regular time outdoors is essential for children’s healthy development. However, today’s youth are less connected to nature than ever before. #NatureForAll promotes nature as a setting for fun and adventure. Nature promotes health and wellbeing, acts as a laboratory for endless scientific exploration, and connects young and old generations to cultural roots. When young people forge personal connections to nature, the benefits to individual and societal health are lasting and they lay a foundation for lifelong support of nature conservation.

Urban Nature

Urban Nature

There is a growing global consensus that open green and blue spaces in our urban centers are critical in supporting people’s mental, physical, and social wellbeing, as well as increasing economic opportunities. These “urban nature” spaces assist in tackling pressing environmental challenges such as storm water management, pollution reduction, and climate resilience. Additionally, the shift to an increasingly urbanized population has contributed to negative health outcomes, like obesity, diabetes, anxiety and depression.

Health and Nature

Parks and Protected Areas

Personal experiences and connections with nature provide powerful benefits for individual and societal health, well-being, and resilience and are also the foundation of a lifelong support for nature conservation, including parks and protected areas, and the achievement of biodiversity and sustainable development goals and targets. #NatureForAll brings together a diversity of players to share actions, collaborate, and amplify our collective reach to engage new audiences to connect with and fall in love with nature, and ignite action for conservation.

Health and Nature

Health & Nature

Nature-derived health services have irreplaceable potential to individuals and society. #NatureForAll partners are actively working with the health sector and other key partners to make access to nature and its benefits available to all. Connecting with nature is a potential public health strategy that is accessible and affordable for many populations, with research demonstrating not only protective values but restorative benefits as well. Personal experiences and connections with nature provide powerful benefits for individual and societal health, well-being, and resilience. 

#NatureForAll Resources

How to get involved?

Weaving communities is about focusing on building the community with existing partners while welcoming new partners, especially those not traditionally part of the conservation sector. In order to do that, #NatureForAll supports the global dissemination of tools that partners already have or are working on collaboratively, and promotes existing platforms to facilitate knowledge sharing within and outside the #NatureForAll community.

IUCN Commission members are already doing their part for #NatureForAll by inspiring others to connect with, experience and ultimately fall in love with nature. Members are invited to:

  • Promote #NatureForAll by using the hashtag on social media.
  • Share personal stories of inspiring love of nature as a blog or a video. 
  • Participate in thematic or regional #NatureForAll communities.
  • Organise #NatureForAll activities in their community or region.
  • Share resources and events on the #NatureForAll Discovery Zone.
  • Play, and promote, the #NatureForAll Trivia Game.
  • Share nature sounds through the Sounds of Your Park platform.
  • Use and share the various resources and toolkits available for free.
  • Become a #NatureForAll social media creator.
Return to group directory