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Will Biodiversity Actions Yield Healthy Places? A Systematic Review of Human Health Outcomes Associated With Biodiversity-Focused Urban Greening
Figure 1. Seven biodiversity-supporting elements in urban landscapes and definitions for each. Biodiversity-supporting elements are adapted from Spotswood et al. (2019). There is growing interest in using urban greening projects to support biodiversity. While there are many potential co-benefits, the health outcomes resulting from biodiversity-supporting activities have yet to be synthesized. We conducted a systematic review of health outcomes associated with seven biodiversity-supporting elements, including patch size, connections, matrix quality, habitat diversity, native plants, special resources and vegetation management. We identified 1550 studies linking elements with human health. Results show that many types of biodiversity-supporting elements are associated with a wide range of positive health outcomes. These outcomes included improved physical and mental health, increased physical activity, improved childhood development, social outcomes, and reduced exposure to harms such as sun, heat, and pollution (including light, air and noise). Other biodiversity-supporting elements such as reducing pesticide use, native plants, and habitat diversity were associated with a smaller and more specific range of health outcomes. While most findings showed positive associations between biodiversity-supporting elements and health, many also yielded mixed, neutral, or negative findings. Further, most identified study designs were observational, limiting our ability to uncover causality. We found that studies using a natural experimental design yielded a greater fraction of mixed, neutral, and negative findings compared to observational designs (the majority of studies) and experimental studies (largely short term in nature). These results confirm concerns about the strength of research findings built largely on correlational research designs. We also identify areas of trade-off between biodiversity-supporting elements and human health. These include actions that positively affect health yet negatively impact biodiversity, such as the maintenance of sports fields and trails in parks that can negatively impact habitat and disrupt wildlife behaviour. Biodiversity-supporting elements can also negatively impact some dimensions of human health, including by increasing human–wildlife conflict, disease vectors, allergenic pollen, biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), through and green gentrification. Our review reveals a large potential for co-benefits for human health to come from biodiversity-focused actions in cities. Careful attention to minimizing tensions and trade-offs could help to reduce the potential for conflict between biodiversity and human health objectives.
Read moreBiodiversity and Infrastructure Interact to Drive Tourism to and Within Costa Rica
Costa Rica. Credit: Domenico Convertini, flickr Nature-based tourism has potential to sustain biodiversity and economic development, yet the degree to which biodiversity drives tourism patterns, especially relative to infrastructure, is poorly understood. Here, we examine relationships between different types of biodiversity and different types of tourism in Costa Rica to address three questions. First, what is the contribution of species richness in explaining patterns of tourism in protected areas and country-wide in Costa Rica? Second, how similar are the patterns for birdwatching tourism compared to those of overall tourism? Third, where in the country is biodiversity contributing more than other factors to birdwatching tourism and to overall tourism? We integrated environmental data and species occurrence records to build species distribution models for 66 species of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, and for 699 bird species. We used built infrastructure variables (hotel density and distance to roads), protected area size, distance to protected areas, and distance to water as covariates to evaluate the relative importance of biodiversity in predicting birdwatching tourism (via eBird checklists) and overall tourism (via Flickr photographs) within Costa Rica. We found that while the role of infrastructure is larger than any other variable, it alone is not sufficient to explain birdwatching and tourism patterns. Including biodiversity adds predictive power and alters spatial patterns of predicted tourism. Our results suggest that investments in infrastructure must be paired with successful biodiversity conservation for tourism to generate the economic revenue that countries like Costa Rica derive from it, now and into the future.
Read moreAffective Reactions to Losses and Gains in Biodiversity: Testing a Prospect Theory Approach
Figure 1. Prospect theory predictions applied to reports of biodiversity change in the current studies. Recent reports have presented evidence of dramatic biodiversity declines. Despite the threat posed by such losses we know little about people’s reactions to such information, or rarer ‘bright spot’ stories of localised recovery. We explored these issues through the lens of prospect theory, testing three aspects: a) reference dependence, b) loss aversion, and c) diminishing sensitivity. Study 1 (n = 393) presented US participants with a hypothetical ecological survey reporting changes in bird species at a key site between 1996 and 2016 using a 2 (Baseline species richness: Low/high) x 2 (Change direction: Loss/gain) x 4 (Change magnitude: 5/10/15/20 species) between-participants design. Study 2 (n = 570) used the same design but focused on marine species richness among a UK sample. Responses were measured using a version of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience. Both studies found evidence of reference dependence, but not loss aversion. In fact both studies found that reactions to biodiversity gains were stronger than equivalent losses; gains ‘loomed larger’ than losses. There was little evidence of diminishing sensitivity; scope insensitivity was the predominant pattern for losses and gains across both studies. Although those high in nature relatedness reacted more strongly to losses and gains, relatedness did not moderate any effects. Results suggest that communicators should not be surprised if reports of biodiversity declines do not have the impact they hoped, and that weaving in ‘bright spot’ stories may help people engage with the broader issues.
Read moreInequality in Access to Cultural Ecosystem Services From Protected Areas in the Chilean Biodiversity Hotspot
Figure 1. Conceptual framework linking ecosystems as service providing areas, cultural ecosystem services and human benefits as supply and demand sides in human–environmental systems (adapted from (Burkhard et al., 2012; Cord et al., 2017). The green and red arrows represent the potential forms of access of the population in the region to the protected areas that we predict will vary according to their socioeconomic characteristics (the thick of the arrow represent population size and the length of the arrow represent the distance travelled along the road network). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) Experiences with nature through visits to protected areas provide important cultural ecosystem services that have the potential to strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Understanding accessibility to protected areas and likely preferences for enjoying the benefits of nature visits are key factors in identifying ways to reduce inequality in access and inform the planning and management for future protected areas. We develop, at a regional scale, a novel social media database of visits to public protected areas in part of the Chilean biodiversity hotspot using geotagged photographs and assess the inequality of access using the home locations of the visitors and socio-economic data. We find that 20% of the population of the region make 87% of the visits to protected areas. The larger, more biodiverse protected areas were the most visited and provided most cultural ecosystem services. Wealthier people tend to travel further to visit protected areas while people with lower incomes tend to visit protected areas that are closer to home. By providing information on the current spatial flows of people to protected areas, we demonstrate the need to expand the protected area network, especially in lower income areas, to reduce inequality in access to the benefits from cultural ecosystem services provided by nature to people.
Read moreClimate Change: Anticipating and Adapting to the Impacts on Terrestrial Species
Table 1. Example approaches for anticipating and adapting to climate impacts on terrestrial species. Addressing the impacts of climate change on terrestrial species requires knowledge of how climates will change, how species will respond, and what is the scope of actions that can be taken to help species and systems adapt. There is a rapidly growing understanding of how species will respond to projected climatic changes with changes in their phenologies, distributions, population dynamics, interspecific interactions, and disease dynamics. Many management strategies have been proposed for addressing these changes, including general principles such as fostering resilience, practicing adaptive management, and expanding the scale of management as well as more specific recommendations such as increasing landscape connectivity and increasing the extent of reserve networks.
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