The materials are structured so that teachers and training organizers can design their own courses and adapt them for different audiences.
Why is this important?
Every day we benefit from nature — clean water 💦, fertile soils 🌱, floodplains that protect against floods and support biodiversity. Yet these benefits often remain “invisible” in spatial planning and resource management.
Authorities and businesses often focus on investments, taxes, and jobs 💰. Meanwhile, the benefits provided by nature — such as mushrooms and berries 🫐🍄, tourism potential, clean water and air, as well as the losses communities face when these resources disappear — are often not considered in planning and are rarely measured in financial terms. In many cases, these losses may be greater than the economic gains from new jobs.
That is why approaches that help integrate the value of nature into decision-making are increasingly used worldwide.
This is more than a training resource. It is a tool that helps reconsider the role of nature.
Who is it for?
The guide can serve as a reference for researchers, practitioners, and educators, helping them better understand the importance of nature for society and develop effective and sustainable responses to today’s challenges.
It will be useful for teachers, students, researchers, and practitioners working in nature conservation, forestry, water management, and agriculture, as well as for anyone working with natural resources.
The guide is accompanied by numerous training materials and presentations that can be used to develop your own course. All additional materials are freely available.
To download them, please contact the Danube-Carpathian Programme: https://www.natureexperts.org/contact/
Authors: B. Prots, N. Stryamets, V. Strus, O. Peliukh, N. Fedorova (Lviv: HALYCH-PRES, 2025)
The guide can be downloaded via the link
