Seite - 239 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

239 mediators or outcomes (see also commentary in Sect. 10.4.1). Given the complexity of both nature and health, illuminating research will necessitate interdisciplinary teams comfortably working across epistemologies (Diaz et  al. 2018) and able to work with community groups and policy-makers to gather relevant data (CBD 2017c). 10.5 Implications and  Conclusions There is increasing international recognition of the role of biodiversity in human health and the relevance of considering the spiritual domain. Using a broad set of search terms, we identified an extensive body of scholarship that could provide important insights into the complexity of the relationship between biodiversity and spiritual well-being. We have identified and explained four themes from this litera- ture: (i) influence of spiritual traditions on biodiversity; (ii) sacred places as reposi- tories of biodiversity; (iii) the spiritual domain of ecosystems services; and (iv) effects of biodiversity on spiritual well-being. We have brought these strands together into a conceptual model and discussion of measurement issues that can inform future research. Research into spiritual well-being benefits from the natural environment needs to incorporate more detailed assessments of the environment, such as measures of biodiversity. The identified sacred places literature primarily focuses on measuring biodiversity; adding culturally-appropriate measures of spiri- tual well-being into these studies would address calls for interdisciplinary work and would  help fill the gap of evidence on biodiversity and spiritual well-being. Within the ecosystem services rhetoric, the spiritual domain seems to be largely associated with indigenous peoples who hold monistic worldviews. Yet there are important emerging spiritualities as well as existing world religions that also have sacred beliefs about the importance of the natural environment. We need to embrace these as well. Additionally, given the availability of spiritual well-being scales that con- sider the relationship with the environment, these could be incorporated into research. Lastly, we come to the question of ‘so what’? The non-communicable diseases that the world currently faces  – obesity, heart disease, depression  – would suggest a need to focus on physical and mental well-being, thus raising the question of what an understanding of biodiversity and spiritual well-being would bring to such dis- cussions. Yet the literature identified through our review, in particular the qualitative studies, illustrates an important additional dimension that can answer the question posed by E.O.  Wilson in 1993 of “what service [do species bring] to the human spirit?” (p.  37). Given the role of biodiversity in health and the numerous ways in which biodiversity is related to spiritual well-being, the spiritual domain is clearly an important aspect of how nature influences us. Perhaps it is time to embrace this ethereal, enigmatic aspect of human culture and bring it into the mutually beneficial service of biodiversity conservation. 10 Biodiversity and  Spiritual Well-being