https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-...

The Kennedy Center's international REACH to FOREST festival (February 20–March 3, 2024) explores the symbiotic relationship between forests and the human world with two weeks of free programs, films, art installations, conversations, and more.

Forests have nourished humans for millennia. They cover 31% of the Earth’s land area and shelter over 80% of terrestrial biodiversity. More than 1.6 billion people depend on them for their livelihood. We’ve uncovered new dimensions of their wonder, from “forest bathing” to eco-tourism to pharmaceutical research.

But the relationship is also marked by struggle. Humans have left paths of irreversible destruction and wounds through deforestation and pollution. Even as climate change threatens them, we’ve learned that forests may be our lifeline from that damage—absorbing harmful chemicals and buffering us against extreme weather.

REACH to FOREST is the second edition of our international festival series exploring art, nature, and the environment. This year, we will explore the beauty and the challenges of the changing and sometimes disappearing forests and their inhabitants as well as the relevance they have to our lives and our planet.

This year, we have named a nine-year-old conservationist as our Kennedy Center Youth Ambassador for the Arts and Environment: Aneeshwar Kunchala. His message through his television programs, speeches around the world, paintings, poems, and first book will help to convey the importance of the arts to raising the level of awareness of the crisis of our environment and the planet we live on.

Subscribe to The Kennedy Center! http://bit.ly/2gNFrtb

#thekennedycenter #reachtoforest #environmentalfestival