In this episode, we head back up to the province of British Columbia, Canada for a conversation about Restorative Natural Areas with Vancouver-based Katherine Howard and Jo Fitzgibbons

Joanne "Jo" Fitzgibbons is a Ph.D. doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia and a Sustainability Scholar with the Urban Biodiversity Hub

Katherine Howard is a Project Manager with the City of Vancouver currently working on its comprehensive master plan, she was involved with developing VanPlay, the city’s parks and recreation services master plan.

Jo and Katherine share how the development of the Restorative Natural Area (RNA) Index tool assisted the City of Vancouver and contributed as a layer in the Equity Initiative Zone mapping as part of VanPlay, the City's Parks and recreation services master plan.

Additional Helpful Links:

Equity Initiative Zones article that Katherine wrote for TheCityFix

Fort Collins, Colorado - Nature in the City

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Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2021

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.