Forest Union CEO Zhiyuan Hong graduated from the Department of Forestry at National Taiwan University and subsequently worked in the National Taiwan University Experimental Forest for 10 years. Because he entered the forest and got to know the forest while studying forestry, Zhiyuan believes that in addition to the function of recreation, forests also have health benefits. Therefore, he established Forest Nation in 2021, hoping to bring the concept of "healthy forest" to everyone, hoping that everyone can find strength and health in the forest.
However, when Forest Nation was first established, because "forest therapy" was still a new field and a new term, Zhiyuan spent a lot of effort to introduce and promote forest therapy.
For example, they wanted to start with forest guided tours, but since there were no forest therapy guides in Xitou at that time, they needed to be trained from scratch. Even if a group of forest guides had been trained, they still needed to convince the public to participate and surrounding accommodation operators to cooperate. For example, when designing a forest firefly tour, Zhiyuan also needs to convince the experimental forest to allow them to bring tourists into the experimental forest for night viewing, and they must also get the experimental forest to agree with their teaching plan and the safety of tourists.
But after years of communication and promotion, Forest State's business has finally improved. For example, the night viewing of the forest often had no participants in the beginning, but now there are 40 or 50 tourists in a group on holidays. Even during the firefly season, there can be 500 tourists in one night.
We also offer forest therapy courses such as physical fitness for the elderly, parent-child communication, soundscape therapy, aromatherapy, singing bowl therapy, forest yoga, tree climbing experience, and walking with a stick. There are also hand-made DIY experiences such as night observation, herb balls, cypress chopsticks, tea balls, and hammer dyeing. Every student has a great time and feels the healing of their body, mind, and soul in the joy.
Zhiyuan said that through the guided tours of Forestland, tourists gradually discovered that Xitou is actually very interesting. "Tourists will hear different sounds and smell different smells in the forest. This allows people to have memorable highlights during their travels." In the future, in addition to the guided tour business, Zhiyuan hopes to focus on the health benefits so that people with stress syndrome can come to Xitou to relieve stress. He hopes to use the forest to help more people get healthy, happy, and even find themselves. In addition, because forest therapy is popular internationally, Zhiyuan hopes to have more opportunities for international cooperation so that more foreigners can get to know the beauty of Taiwan' s forests.
