ForestWISE highlights and shares the new “Toolkit: Art and Community Engagement as Restorative Practices in Contexts of Environmental Trauma and Grief”, developed within the framework of the Prototopia project and supported by our team through the FIRE-RES project.

This toolkit brings together innovative participatory methods designed to support communities affected by rural wildfires and other extreme events. Through artistic practices and collective activities — such as the creation of an “emotional map”, where communities represent objects, memories and indicators of the affected territory — the toolkit promotes:

• The expression of emotions and post‑trauma experiences;
• The symbolic reconstruction of affected territories;
• The strengthening of community bonds;
• Processes of collective healing and resilience.

Explore the full toolkit here.

This initiative has been recognised by the European Commission as a Success Story, featured in “Healing communities through art and science”, for its innovative approach to post‑trauma recovery through art and science.