About the Author

Yoshifumi Miyazaki is a retired university professor, researcher and the deputy director of Chiba University's Centre for Environment, Health and Field Sciences. He has published several books on the effects and benefits of forest therapy, and the concept is spreading with dozens of forest therapy centres now in existence and growing in Japan. In 2000 Professor Miyazaki received the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Minister Award for clarifying the health benefits of wood and shinrin-yoku, and later an award from the Japan Society of Physiological Anthropology in 2007.