WCC 2016 Res 064 - Activity Report

• Parks Victoria, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning have commenced the development of new shared priorities and a targeted work program to implement the Victorian Memorandum for Health and Nature (April 2017).
• Parks Victoria is working with local governments across Victoria to ensure that their Municipal Health and Wellbeing Plans recognise the physical and mental health benefits from connecting with nature and that the Municipal Plans enable a range of new and innovative partnerships that deliver programs, experiences and research to improve the health of communities and nature.
• Parks Victoria is working with the State’s health promotion foundation, VicHealth and the YMCA to deliver a ‘Camp Out’ in Victoria’s Government House grounds for disadvantaged children in November and to leverage this event as a promotion campaign on the benefits of time outdoors in nature for the upcoming summer school holidays.
• Parks Victoria in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services and Nutrition Australia has developed Healthy Eating in Parks guidelines to promote healthy eating as part of healthy active lifestyles for community health.

• Parks Victoria facilitated a World Leadership Dialogue entitled ‘Nature is Good Medicine’ at the 15th World Congress on Public Health 2017, bringing together the IUCN and the World Health Organisation to demonstrate the strong links between biodiversity and health and their commitment to working together https://www.cbd.int/health/wcph2017-nature-is-goodmedicine.pdf.

• Parks Victoria has released a new Guide to Healthy Parks Healthy People, which provides information on what Healthy Parks Healthy People is, why it is important, the role of parks for community health and wellbeing, building knowledge, and commitments and priorities in Victoria.

• Parks Victoria is recruiting nine new ‘community engagement’ rangers and 40 seasonal rangers to develop and maintain diverse health sector partnerships for community activation, such as health programs, volunteering, learning and nature play.

• Parks Victoria is leading the establishment of a new IUCN WCPA Health and Well-being Specialist Group https://www.iucn.org/theme/protected-areas/wcpa/what-we-do/health-and-wellbeing

• Parks Victoria is working in collaboration with the University of Melbourne (School of Population Health) to develop a new framework for evaluating the health and wellbeing benefits of being ‘on Country’ for Indigenous Australians.

• Parks Victoria’s Valuing Victoria’s Parks report, which outlines a new framework for environmental ecosystem accounting of protected areas and provides estimates the ecosystem services and benefits from Victoria’s parks (including health benefits) has been presented at four international conferences since 2016.