of more than . New research in 2022 led to the recommendation that a commuter should walk at least 6000 steps, each weekday throughout a year, to reach optimal health effects. Governments now recognize the benefits of walking for mental and physical health and are actively encouraging it. This growing emphasis on walking has arisen because people walk less nowadays than previously. In the UK, a Department of Transport report found that between 1995/97 and 2005 the average number of walk trips per person fell by 16%, from 292 to 245 per year. Many professionals in local authorities and the National Health Service are employed to halt this decline by ensuring that the built environment allows people to walk and that there are walking opportunities available to them. Professionals working to encourage walking come mainly from six sectors: health, transport, environment, schools, sport and recreation, and urban design. One program to encourage walking is "The Walking the Way to Health Initiative", organized by the British walkers association The Ramblers, which is the largest volunteer led walking scheme in the United Kingdom. Volunteers are trained to lead free Health Walks from community venues such as libraries and doctors' surgeries. The scheme has trained over 35,000 volunteers and has over 500 schemes operating across the UK, with thousands of people walking every week. A new organization called "Walk England" launched a web site in June 2008 to provide these professionals with evidence, advice, and examples of success stories of how to encourage communities to walk more. The site has a social networking aspect to allow professionals and the public to ask questions, post news and events, and communicate with others in their area about walking, as well as a "walk now" option to find out what walks are available in each region. Similar organizations exist in other countries and recently a "Walking Summit" was held in the United States. This "assembled thought-leaders and influencers from business, urban planning and real estate, [along with] physicians and public health officials", and others, to discuss how to make American cities and communities places where "people can and want to walk". Walking is more prevalent in European cities that have dense residential areas mixed with commercial areas and good public transportation. Origins It is theorized that "walking" among tetrapods originated underwater with air-breathing fish that could "walk" underwater, giving rise (potentially with vertebrates like Tiktaalik) to