Bernadette REY
PRESIDENT
Very sensitive to nature and forests since her childhood, Bernadette Rey is attracted to their benefits. In 1998, after a brain aneurysm, she decided to reconnect with practices allowing her to reduce her stress level through activities based on efficiency, effectiveness and performance.
A Bois de Boulogne college graduate in applied sciences, she enrolled in architecture, art history and anthropology at UdeM. She pursued a professor career at colleges and universities for 35 years.
In 2009, during a stay in Japan, she learned about Shinrin Yoku. Her travels to Japan increased. She would become a certified Nature and Forest Therapy guide by the AFNT.
In 2015, willing to honor Shinrin Yoku practices and their origins, she corresponded multiple times with Qing Li, a Nippon Medical School of Tokyo doctor and author of Forest Medicine. In the late spring of 2017, Dr. Li gave her mandate to be President of the Canadian chapter of the Japanese company that he was the founder of: INFOM, the International Society of Nature and Forest Medicine.
In 2018, Bernadette Rey was invited to the INFOM Japan symposium in Tokyo and was granted with the official Japanese certification of Shinrin Yoku Guide.
Patricia BALDWIN
copresident
A 1979 graduate from the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto, Patricia Baldwin was destined to retrain in the healthcare field where she worked for over thirty years. The discovery of the new field of forest medicine was a perfect marriage of interests.
In 2016, she returned to the University of Toronto to do a directed-studies course in forest medicine under the supervision of Dr. Sandy Smith from the Faculty of Forestry. In March 2018, Patricia Baldwin had the privilege of joining interested non-medical individuals from around the world to obtain a certificate in Forest Medicine from INFOM.
Over the past four years, she has conducted nature based walks and activities through volunteer work. This includes both individuals with exceptionalities and residents from an emergency shelter.
Dino RICCIO
community Liaison
Specialized guide in Asia since 1982 in ecotourism and sustainable tourism, Dino Riccio has already travelled more than six million kms in Japan and all around Asia.