April 2019 Newsletter – Biodiversity

With the release of David Attenborough’s most recent show (at the age of 93 years old!), and the recent climate change #fridaysforfreedom strikes it is a very apt month to focus on damage to biodiversity and the links to human health. 

As the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have highlighted how human well-being is affected by the state of the global environment and the sustainability of ecosystems, the huge range of benefits which biodiversity provides to our health and well-being is largely underappreciated and unrecognised within the health community, and fails to inform critical decisions on global and regional health strategies. (1)
Human health ultimately depends on ecosystem products and services – and biodiversity loss can have a significant direct effect on human health if ecosystem services can no longer reach human needs. (2) (3)

References
(1) What is biodiversity? March 2019 Guardian
(2) WHO Biodiversity factsheet
(3) Ecosystems & Human Well Being