Nature's Health Capital: Unlocking the Potential of Biodiversity and Natural Resources for Sustainable Human Health

Abstract

One of most important and least recognized aspects of sustainable development is the complex link between biodiversity, natural resources and human health. This research paper explores the concept of the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services as 'health capital', which forms the basis of human welfare in all its aspects: physical, mental and social. We provide a comparative analysis across tropical and temperate, and arid biomes highlighting that ecosystem services are vital to human health, including clean air and water, nutritious food, medicinal resources, disease regulation, and psychological services, which are all essential for human health. Building on the concept of assessments of the economic value of ecosystem services, we have created a new Biodiversity-Health Capital Index (BHCI) to quantify the health value of ecosystem services through 6 pathways. We find that a decrease in species richness of 10% is associated with an increase in incidence of vector-borne diseases of 6.3% and a decrease in pharmaceutical discovery potential of 4.1%. The results highlight the importance of policy integration between the conservation and public health fields, confirming that conservation of biodiversity needs to be a primary public health task and forerunner in the journey towards the Sustainable Development Goals.