Biodiversity, a guarantee of health?

A natural or nearly natural environment has a positive effect on human health in many ways. This means that a natural environment can also help meet public health challenges. These include obesity, certain chronic, infectious and non-communicable diseases, depression and anxiety, and also child development and cognitive aging. In order to give everyone contact with and access to high-quality nature, it is advisable to strengthen the development and conservation of green spaces and natural landscapes with rich biological diversity. This requires close cooperation at local and national level between public health, urban development, spatial planning and nature conservation. At the same time, inter- and transdisciplinary research is needed to increase knowledge about the links between health and biodiversity.