Joop van Hezik is Managing Director of the Nature Assisted Health Foundation, a Swedish/Dutch iniative to translate scientific research on nature and health linkages into concepts for improved health and wellbeing. The current focus of the Foundation’s work is on exploring the effect of nature on people’s quality of life, with a special emphasis on ‘burn out’, dementia and oncology. A former Member of Provincial Parliament for North-Brabant, Joop is currently involved in Dementia Friendly Municipalities, a project bringing together municipalities from the Netherlands (provinces of Brabant and Limburg), Belgium (Flanders) and Germany (North-Rein Westfalen). He is also a Senior Advisor on Sustainability and Green Economy to the European Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC). Joop is a Member of Congress of the European Green Parties. He graduated from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands with an MSc in Cultural Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy and Economic Antropology and also has a postgraduate qualification in Environmental Expertise for Europe from the University of Eindhoven.