The IOF recently shared a free course from the IUCN Academy exploring the connection between sport and nature.
The course, Sports and Nature: Foundations for Actions, takes you through the relationship between sport and the natural world, how sport can play a role in protecting and restoring nature, and how both can benefit one another. While this course isn’t orienteering‑specific, it offers a valuable overview of the wider environmental impacts of sport and highlights many factors relevant to our own activities.
It also introduces simple tools to help you assess how your club or organisation affects nature and identify related risks. Thinking ahead now, understanding how our training, travel, events, and even things like single‑use signage or tape impact the environment, will help secure the future of orienteering.
The course can be completed in your own time, and will take around two hours.
If you’d like to learn more or take the course yourself, you can visit the course page here: https://iucnacademy.org/courses/sports-nature-foundations-for-action/
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