Excursions and Speakers: Excitement is building for PHAM2024
The Planetary Health Annual Meeting 2024 will include an experiential learning trip, enabling delegates to get out into Malaysian nature as a preparation for a dynamic meeting. Two trip options — Jungle School Gombak and Rimba Ilmu Universiti Malaya — will be held concurrently on April 15, 2024. Participants will experience guided tours, talks, planned hands-on activities and workshops and can engage with local communities, explore urban nature, and learn about Planetary Health concepts being implemented in Malaysia.
Rimba Ilmu (Forest of Knowledge) is an 80 hectare (198 acre) tropical rainforest botanical garden set up in the University of Malaya (UM) campus in Kuala Lumpur. It primarily emphasizes the flora of the Malaysian and Indonesian region together with plant species from other parts of tropical Asia, the Pacific islands, Australia, South America, Africa and Madagascar. In addition to the living collections of over 1,600 species, the Rimba Ilmu also houses the UM herbarium and has its own Environmental Education Programme. The Rimba Ilmu is a member of the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and the Southeast Asia Botanic Gardens Network. Rimba Ilmu’s mission is to generate and promote awareness and knowledge of tropical plant life and its environment, ecology and conservation through the development and management of facilities and activities appropriate to its function in a university located within Malaysia’s most developed and populated landscape.
The Jungle School Gombak (JSG) is a leadership experiential empowerment program which uses nature in Malaysia as a venue. JSG helps to empower the Indigenous people in Gombak to share their cultural knowledge and expertise. JSG’s mission is to educate and motivate the Peninsular Malaysia Indigenous People or ‘Orang Asli’ community to empower and share their cultural heritage to the public whilst elevating their income. Programmes include survival skills of Orang Asli, learning about the use of flora and fauna, basic skills of food searching and traditional ways of hut making, camping, awareness of rainforest sustainability, law of the jungle, traditional food preparation, and tree planting.
Speaker Spotlights
Dr. Sam Myers — Dr. Sam Myers is a Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and and is the founding Director of the Planetary Health Alliance.
Dr. Britt Way — Dr. Britt Wray is the Director of CIRCLE at Stanford Psychiatry, a research and action initiative focused on Community-minded interventions for Resilience, Climate Leadership and Emotional wellbeing in the Stanford School of Medicine.
Dr. Maria Guevara — An intensivist and pulmonary physician, Dr. Maria Guevara is the MSF International Medical Secretary based in Geneva, Switzerland since February 2021.
Dr. Simon Zadek — Dr. Simon Zadek is Executive Director of Nature Finance, Senior Advisor to the Task Force on Nature Markets and Convenor of the Sustainability-linked Sovereign Debt Hub.
