Protecting Health and Biodiversity through Nature-based Solutions

Key Messages

• Nature-based solutions (NbS) are interventions that support biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, and social well-being, while delivering a wide array of potential health benefits. NbS also offer an integrative pathway for advancing “One Health,” addressing the interconnected health of people, plants, animals, and ecosystems.
• Biodiversity underpins life on Earth, with many direct and indirect connections to health, but is threatened by rapid ecosystem degradation, habitat loss, and species declines that in turn affects ecosystem functions and services.
• Health sector leadership, research, capacity strengthening, policy coherence, and guidance would be beneficial for scaling health-positive, nature-based solutions in line with the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health and the Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health.
• There is need for countries to identify and address environmental risk factors for disease and assess the role of NbS in health protection.
• A robust evidence base that integrates various forms of knowledge on NbS, including scientific data and Indigenous Knowledge systems, is essential to guiding biodiversity and health outcomes. Recognizing that NbS have been tested, refined, and sustained for millennia by Indigenous Peoples, such approaches offer a holistic understanding of health that extends beyond single health outcomes.
• Equitable NbS require centering Indigenous Peoples as rights holders and supporting their leadership in the development and implementation of NbS initiatives. They must also meaningfully include the leadership of women, youth, and other underrepresented or marginalized groups in decision-making and benefit-sharing processes.