Side Event

Biodiversity and Health: Linkages and Benefits

Organizer
EcoHealth Alliance, DIVERSITAS, and the Secretariat of Convention on Biodiversity (CBD)

Date and Time
1 May 2012 18:15 - 19:45

Meeting
Sixteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice

Biodiversity and health have inextricable links, with biodiversity offering critical health-supporting ecosystem services, and public health arguments increasingly acknowledged as an opportunity for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Emerging infectious diseases presents an example of a direct link to biodiversity and ecosystem interactions with human health. Anthropogenic practices such as land use change, expansion of agriculture, and trade of wild animals and livestock, present opportunities for zoonotic disease spread as well as direct detrimental effects to biodiversity. The Ecosystem Approach or One Health perspectives present a framework for understanding these linkages to support both public health and sustainability use of biodiversity, including species conservation, social sustainability, and provision of other ecosystem services. The side event will provide the scientific knowledge bases of health and biodiversity linkages, and policy considerations for biodiversity and co-benefits for biodiversity conservation and the provision of other ecosystem services (e.g. food and water security). This side event will also highlight opportunities to promote achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, especially Targets 2, 4, 10, 17 and 19, around public awareness of the importance of biodiversity, engagement of governments, and effective science-policy interactions. Speakers will include scientific experts from DIVERSITAS, EcoHealth Alliance, and the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Wildlife Health Specialist Group.