Healthy Planet, Healthy People Guide - Convention on Biological ...

Biophysical
structure or
process
(E.g. woodland
habitat or net
primary
productivity )
Limit
pressures via
policy action?
Σ
Pressures
Human intervention can cause drivers of change to change the mix of services
available (or even to lose them altogether) through feedback processes, captured in
Figure 1. Human activity can also directly affect the health of the biosphere.
Function
(E.g. slow
passage of
water, or
biomass)
Service
(E.g. flood
protection or
harvestable
products)
Benefit
(E.g.
contribution to
aspects of wellbeing
such as
health and
safety)
Figure 2. The relationship between biodiversity, ecosystem function and human
well-being: links and feedbacks between biodiversity at ecosystem level, ecosystem
functions, services and benefits.
(Reproduced with permission from Potschin and Haines-Young, 2011)
Policy development in human and ecosystem health needs thus to focus on
managing the impact of the pressures, or drivers, of change, and shown in Figure 2,
and explored in depth in the MA Synthesis on Health and Biodiversity( MA, 2005).
Those ecosystem services and the goods they produce have considerable impact on
human health in a positive way. If they are absent there are negative impacts on
people’s health, and such negative impacts should be limited by appropriate policy.
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Value
(E.g. willingness
to pay for
woodland
protection or for
more woodland,
or harvestable
products)