If you read only the news headlines, you’d have learned that last month’s global summit on biodiversity — known as “COP16” — was not a success:
“COP16 fizzles out as rich countries block global nature fund”
“The COP16 biodiversity summit was a big flop for protecting nature”
“COP16 ends in disarray and indecision despite biodiversity breakthroughs”
Despite the summit’s shortcomings — chiefly on how to pay for halting biodiversity loss globally — there were a few “breakthroughs.”
One of them was agreement on a plan to promote actions that benefit both biodiversity and human health — an accomplishment that, some observers say, deserved more attention and acclaim.
The Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health, six years in the making, “is the highest global agreement that we have on planetary health to date,” said Dr. Neil Vora, an epidemiologist at Conservation International. “This is a monumental achievement: 196 countries now agree that biodiversity is a key determinant of health — that’s big news because all too often we don't think about that connection.”
What is that connection, and why don’t we think about it? And in the face of so much global inertia on other fronts, can this plan actually lead to action?
On these questions, Vora is well-placed to explain, having co-authored a newly published article in the medical journal The Lancet about the biodiversity plan. He spoke with Conservation News about the article, why it’s aimed at doctors, and about how the biodiversity crisis is much closer to impacting us than we think.
Question: So COP16 happened. And one of the things coming out of it is this “Global Action Plan On Biodiversity And Health” — for a non-expert audience, what is this? Why is it significant?
Neil Vora: I would start by taking us back all the way to COP 15 (in 2022) when the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was passed. The GBF was a landmark agreement that sets the agenda for biodiversity conservation for the next decade — it’s well-known for the “30 by 30” goal, and there are a number of targets in the GBF that highlight the interlinkage between biodiversity and health. It's not just about infectious disease, but stuff around plastics, chronic disease prevention, mental health — there are many health benefits that we derive from nature and biodiversity, and the GBF began to draw those connections.
- Further reading: Countries agreed to protect 30% of the planet. Now what?
So this Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health was passed during COP16 last month. This action plan lists a number of ways that human health depends on nature, and it gives some high-level actions for how countries can coordinate across health and environmental sectors to achieve joint outcomes for both biodiversity and health.
Q: About those actions: What is one thing you want people to know about what needs to happen here?
NV: I have a few thoughts to start.
The first is that I want people to realize that there is no future for humanity without nature. That's the bottom line here. And all too often, we act as if we live separately from nature. But this Action Plan underscores that humans are a part of nature, not apart from nature.
The second is that I think this Action Plan is a first step toward raising that level of awareness. And it gives a foundation for more collaboration across the health and environment sectors. It's not easy to work across sectors; they each have different languages, different ways of working, different priorities. And it's already hard enough when you're working within your own sector.
But when you have two or more sectors that have to work together, the challenges just become exponentially more difficult. But we have got to work together. The world is facing a number of converging existential threats today. And the solutions to those existential threats will not be found in any single sector, discipline, person or institution. We have to work together and see the big picture rather than only focusing on narrow, specific topics.
Q: Speaking of the Big Picture: The article you co-authored is in The Lancet. It is aimed squarely at medical and public health professionals. Why write this article for them? Why do they need to know about global biodiversity frameworks?
NV: It is clear that people in the environmental sector understand that human health has these linkages to what's happening to the planet. That understanding is not as common in the health sector.
The way that many people will experience the climate crisis, for example, is through its impact on their health.
I’ll tell you a story. My favorite thing to do outside of work is Brazilian jiu jitsu. Last summer, it’s June in New York City, and one evening I went to the gym on a beautiful day and trained for an hour and a half. I leave the gym, I'm in Manhattan, and it was like the apocalypse had happened in the last hour and a half. The sky had turned red; you couldn't see to the end of the block — all because of smoke from the Canadian wildfires that had drifted over. It was very clear in that moment to every New Yorker that no matter how rich you are, no matter where you live, whether you're in the Bronx or you live in Manhattan, or anywhere, no one is immune to the effects of the climate crisis.
- Further reading: On U.S. East Coast, smoky skies latest sign of a changing climate
And the climate is all around us, right? So that's why in the last year, since [the UN climate talks in 2023], we have seen this climate and health movement take off across the health sector. Now you have doctors talking about climate change; health-focused philanthropies talking about climate change; the World Health Organization talking about climate change, and so on. So there's all this movement happening for climate and health.
What worries me is that we are not seeing the same thing for biodiversity and health. The mass extinction that we are now experiencing because of human activities is an existential threat, yet this gets barely any coverage in the news, and I think that's because most of us now live in urban settings. We are disconnected from nature, and we are not feeling the impacts of the mass extinction — yet — in the same way that we are feeling it for climate.
We are playing catch-up when it comes to climate change. We don't want to be doing that for biodiversity, too. We still have a shot at doing more to protect what's left.
We have made some monumental achievements, and we have a pathway for action. What's missing is political will. And I think that health actors, if they were to get involved, particularly doctors, it could be a game-changer.
Q: Last question: What about the connection between biodiversity and health do you want people to keep in their minds after they’re finished reading this interview?
NV: To put it simply, everything we get physically for our sustenance ultimately comes from nature. We are made of nature. We have iron running through our blood! We have these basic elements in our body because we are a part of nature, and we sometimes forget that.
I would also emphasize that it's not just our physical health that depends on nature. It's also our mental health. We can think back to COVID: Many of us, if we were lucky enough to have access to parks or to nature, found refuge in them when we were having to separate socially from other people.
And just imagine a planet without nature. I think, again, as a New Yorker, I'm lucky if I see five stars at nighttime, right? But if you think back thousands of years, human civilizations would look up into the sky and see the Milky Way galaxy and thousands of stars in a single moment — or they’d look at forests and the ocean and get so much inspiration out of that. And what happens to us culturally, spiritually, mentally, if we don't have this anymore? That's a component of human health and well-being. Nature nourishes us at a very deep level. And I think sometimes we forget that.
Bruno Vander Velde is the managing director of content at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.