biodiversity and human health · 2 of 7 biodiversity and human health . human health is influenced...
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Stand: 22.11.2017
Foto: Rainer Schliep
Ich bin eine H2
Biodiversity and Human Health
NeFo CBD fact sheet in preparation of SBSTTA-21, 12/2017
Rainer Schliep, Kristina Raab
www.biodiversity.de
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Biodiversity and Human Health Human health is influenced by a range of interacting social, biological, physical, economic and envi-ronmental factors and is a fundamental indicator of sustainable development. According to the WHO (1946), ‘health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the ab-sence of disease or infirmity’. The roles of environmental and ecosystem change in determining health status are increasingly recognized. Biodiversity supports human health in many ways, includ-ing through the delivery of basic goods and services from ecosystems (see fig. 1). “In addition to its direct effects on health, biodiversity is integral to key development sectors that modulate health outcomes directly or indirectly, such as forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and tourism, on which an estimated 1.5 billion people depend for their livelihoods. The impacts of environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss in particular, on health outcomes are most significant among vulnerable popu-lations, particularly those most reliant on natural resources and less covered by social protection mechanisms such as health coverage. Vulnerable groups include women, children, Indigenous Popu-lations, and others highly dependent on biodiversity and ecosystem services for survival, such as subsistence farmers.” (see Document UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/21/4, p. 5)
Fig. 1: Biodiversity and human health (source: WHO/SCBD 2015)
The issue of human health is in many ways interlinked with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity as confirmed by the CBD’s Conference of Parties at its last meeting in Mexico in 2016 (Decision XIII/6). Indeed, “Biodiversity is a key environmental determinant of human health; the conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity can benefit human health by maintaining eco-system services and by maintaining options for the future.” (WHO/SCBD 2015: 1) Multi-disciplinary
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research and approaches can provide valuable insights on the drivers of disease emergence and spread, contribute to identifying previous patterns of disease risk, and help predict future risks through the lens of social-ecological systems. Integrative approaches such as these can also extend to e.g. the assessment of environmental health exposures and outcomes, better understanding of the health services provided by biodiversity, and of how anthropogenic changes to an ecosystem or biodiversity may influence disease risks (ibid.). For its fourteenth meeting, the Conference of the Parties will thus focus on mainstreaming biodiversity in the health sector, among others (see NeFo CBD fact sheet in preparation of SBSTTA-21 on Mainstreaming of Biodiversity and document UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/21/5).
Recent activities
Mainstreaming of biodiversity has been the main issue in a number of meetings and publi-cations in recent years (see Literature and further reading). Human health was chosen by CBD COP-13 to be discussed at the forthcom-ing CBD COP-14 in Egypt which is to be pre-pared by the next two SBSSTA meetings at the end of 2017 and in summer 2018.
WHO and CBD have been cooperating to pro-mote policies and actions on the interlinkages between human health and biodiversity by convening experts from relevant organizations and organizing regional capacity-building workshops for experts from the biodiversity and health sectors in e.g. the Americas and Africa (WHO/SCBD 2015).
In the European region, recent key events in the field of biodiversity and human health in-clude e.g. the European One-Health/Ecohealth Workshop in Brussels (2016) resulting in key conclusions such as the necessity for transdis-ciplinary education, integration of social sci-ences, and science-policy interfacing. The Eu-ropean BfN/ENCA Workshop on Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change in Bonn (2016) concluded inter alia that the evi-dence base and awareness has to be in-creased, that nature-based solutions should be fostered, and work on green spaces is needed. A regional capacity-building workshop on bio-diversity and human health for the WHO Eu-
rope region was convened by the Secretariat of the CBD (SCBD) and the WHO in Helsinki (2017). This crosssectoral workshop aimed to strengthen collaboration, engagement and policy coherence between national agencies responsible for biodiversity and those respon-sible for health. It also aimed to assist policy makers in mainstreaming biodiversity-health linkages in national biodiversity strategies and action plans and national health strategies in order to support the implementation of CBD COP Decision XIII/6.
Besides the comprehensive assessment on the interlinkages of biodiversity and human health by WHO/SCBD (2015), a number of WHO pub-lications tackle the topic of human health in urban environments (e.g. WHO 2016, 2017). The CBD produced a “Guidance on Integrating Biodiversity Considerations into One Health Approaches”, which is contained in Part III of the document CBD/SBSTTA/21/4 presented here, highlighting the importance of ecosys-tem-based solutions for the delivery of multiple benefits.
Biodiversity and human health: interlinkages
Biodiversity interacts in various ways with human health and natural systems provide a plethora of services to humankind (see fig. 1).
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• Freshwater: Ecosystems’ provision of clean water underpins many aspects of human health. However, “up to 95% of wetlands have been lost and two-thirds of the world’s largest rivers are now moderately to severely fragmented by dams and res-ervoirs. Freshwater species have declined at a rate greater than any other biome, with the sharpest decline in tropical fresh-water biomes. More than one-third of the accessible renewable freshwater on earth is consumptively used for agriculture, in-dustrial and domestic use (…). Ecosystem degradation – for example through eu-trophication caused by excessive nutrients – is a major cause of declines in water quality. Left untreated, poor quality water results in massive burdens on human health, with the most pronounced impacts on women, children and the poor.” (WHO/SCBD 2015: 3) This illustrates that the degradation of eco-systems may result in significant social and economic costs. Because ecosystems pro-vide a variety of services to humankind, different sectors of human activity may be affected by the deterioration of one single ecosystem.
• Air quality: Further interlinkages relate to the fact that ecosystems affect air quality (mainly concerning three aspects: (1) eco-systems remove air pollution, (2) affect lo-cal temperature, precipitation, air flows, etc., or (3) through emissions of e.g. natu-ral volatile organic carbons that play a crit-ical role in atmospheric chemistry and air quality regulation).
• Biodiversity is key for healthy food produc-tion and nutrition. Regarding the latter, the decline of agrobiodiversity and the rapid erosion of genetic diversity in production systems through monocropping of uniform crop varieties or animal breeds have led to the reduced provision of regulating and supporting ecosystem services, creating
negative feedback loops (WHO/SCBD 2015).
Other relevant topics more closely related to human health are:
• Infectious diseases • Environmental microbial diversity and non-
communicable diseases • Biomedical discovery • Health care • Pharmaceuticals • Traditional medicine • Mental and physical fitness • Cultural dimensions of health
Finally, there is a tight link between climate change, biodiversity and human health (see e.g. Watts et al. 2015) affecting inter alia food and water security, biodiversity as a basis for traditional medicine, and patterns of animal, plant and human diseases (WHO/SCBD 2015).
As the complex relationships between hu-mans, microorganisms, animals, plants, agri-culture, wildlife and the environment are of pivotal importance for human survival on planet Earth, strategies should be developed with “the aim of ensuring that the biodiversity and health linkages are widely recognized, valued, and reflected in national public health and biodiversity strategies, and in the pro-grams, plans, and strategies of other relevant sectors, with the involvement of local commu-nities.” (WHO/SCBD 2015: 19)
NeFo observations
The draft recommendation of the document UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/21/4 could further be elaborated, e.g. building on recent experienc-es in the IPBES Regional Assessment for Eu-rope and Central Asia where health issues were reviewed, including via an expert consul-tation. A potential IPBES Assessment on Biodi-versity and Human Health would support sub-
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sequent policy steps. Also, connecting to exist-ing environmental health processes (e.g. Na-tional Environmental Health Action Plans) and/or initiating specific Biodiversity Health Action Plans could be considered. Further-more, a more leading role for the health sector with respect to biodiversity and health linkag-es should be considered, including structural preventive health actions. Special attention should be paid the importance of social sci-ence to take into account cultural differences and vulnerable groups (see Korn et al. 2017).
Main issues for consideration by SBSTTA-21
Taking into account recent experiences of IP-BES (see above), SBSTTA should consider in-viting the IPBES to include an assessment on biodiversity and human health in its next work programme in order to support translating existing knowledge on biodiversity and health into policy recommendations (Korn et al. 2017).
The Executive Secretary should be requested to continue organizing regional capacity-building workshops on biodiversity and health as the last ones already took place some years ago (ibid.).
Glossary
One Health Broadly defined by the World Health Organization as “an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes.” (http://www.who.int/features/qa/one-health/en/)
Ecohealth Holistic, transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach, that emphasizes the intimate interconnections between ecosystem health, human health and social justice. “In particular, it aims to consider how biological, physical, social and economic environments mediate human health outcomes in research, policy and practice. Ecohealth is inherently founded upon and guided by the princi-ples of the ecosystem approach. Lessons learned from the application of this approach should be considered in the implementation of One Health policies, plans, projects and research.” (CBD-SBSTTA 2017a: 6)
Literature and further reading
BfN / ENCA / UFZ / iDiv – German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation / European Network of
Heads of Nature Conservation Agencies / Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research /
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (2017): Homepage of the European
Conference on Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change. Challenges, oppor-
tunities and evidence gaps. 27-29 June 2017, Bonn / Germany. – Online, URL:
https://www.ecbcc2017.com/european-conference-on-biodiversity-and-climate-change-
ecbcc/home/ [23 November 2017]
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CBD-SBSTTA – Convention on Biological Diversity/Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and
Technological Advice (2017a): Document UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/21/4: BIODIVERSITY AND
HUMAN HEALTH. Montreal, 18 p. – Online, URL:
https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/116a/87f4/bc31e371b99e7b3d828d83a3/sbstta-21-04-en.doc
[23 November 2017]
CBD-SBSTTA – Convention on Biological Diversity/Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and
Technological Advice (2017b): Document UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/21/5: MAINSTREAMING OF
BIODIVERSITY IN THE ENERGY AND MINING, INFRASTRUC-TURE, MANUFACTURING AND
PROCESSING, AND HEALTH SECTORS. Montreal, 18 p. - Online, URL:
https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/8f3a/1121/6734c3a8082948ad3ee71a44/sbstta-21-05-en.pdf
[21 November 2017]
Keune, H., Flandroy, L., Thys, S. et al. (2016): European One-Health/EcoHealth Workshop Report.
Workshop organized by the Belgian Community of Practice Biodiversity & Health and fa-
cilitated by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform. 6-7 October 2016, Brussels / Belgium. –
Online, URL: http://www.biodiversity.be/3445/download [23 November 2017]
Korn, H., Dünnfelder, H., Schliep, R. (Hg.) (2017): Report of the European Expert Meeting in Prepa-
ration of SBSTTA-21. November 1 - 3, 2017. BfN-Skripten. German Federal Agency for
Nature Conservation – BfN. Bonn, 51 p. – Online, URL:
http://www.bfn.de/fileadmin/BfN/service/Dokumente/skripten/Vilm_Report_2017_SBSTT
A-21_prep_gesamt.pdf [21 November 2017]
Watts, N., Adger, W. N., Agnolucci, P. et al. (2015): Health and climate change: policy responses to
protect public health. Lancet, 386: 1861-1914. – Online, URL:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673615608546?via%3Dihub [23
November 2017]
WHO – World Health Organisation (2017): Urban green space interventions and health: A review of
impacts and effectiveness. – Online, URL:
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/337690/FULL-REPORT-for-LLP.pdf
[23 November 2017]
WHO – World Health Organisation (2016): Urban green spaces and health – a review of evidence. -
Online, URL: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/321971/Urban-
green-spaces-and-health-review-evidence.pdf [23 November 2017]
WHO – World Health Organisation (1946): Preamble to the Constitution of WHO as adopted by the
International Health Conference, New York, 19 June - 22 July 1946.
WHO / SCBD – World Health Organisation / Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity
(2015): Connecting Global Priorities: Biodiversity and Human Health, a State of
Knowledge Review. – Online, URL: https://www.cbd.int/health/SOK-biodiversity-en.pdf
[23 November 2017]
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IMPRINT
The Network Forum on Biodiversity Research Germany (NeFo) is funded by the Federal Ministry of
Education and Research (BMBF). The project is jointly operated and coordinated by the Helmholtz
Center for Environmental Research - UFZ Leipzig and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN).
Please find further information on the NeFo project and team at www.biodiversity.de.