Page - 283 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

283© The Author(s) 2019 M. R. Marselle et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02318-8_12 Chapter 12 Biodiversity and  Health: Implications for  Conservation Zoe  G.  Davies, Martin  Dallimer, Jessica  C.  Fisher, and  Richard  A.  Fuller Abstract The human health and well-being benefits of contact with nature are becoming increasingly recognised and well understood, yet the implications of nature experiences for biodiversity conservation are far less clear. Theoretically, there are two plausible pathways that could lead to positive conservation outcomes. The first is a direct win-win scenario where biodiverse areas of high conservation value are also disproportionately beneficial to human health and well-being, mean- ing that the two sets of objectives can be simultaneously and directly achieved, as long as such green spaces are safeguarded appropriately. The second is that experi- encing nature can stimulate people’s interest in biodiversity, concern for its fate, and willingness to take action to protect it, therefore generating conservation gains indi- rectly. To date, the two pathways have rarely been distinguished and scarcely stud- ied. Here we consider how they may potentially operate in practice, while acknowledging that the mechanisms by which biodiversity might underpin human health and well-being benefits are still being determined. Keywords Extinction of experience · Green space · Human-wildlife interaction · Nature connectedness · Protected areas · Well-being Z. G. Davies (*) · J. C. Fisher Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK e-mail: z.g.davies@kent.ac.uk; jcf22@kent.ac.uk M. Dallimer Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK e-mail: m.dallimer@leeds.ac.uk R. A. Fuller School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia e-mail: r.fuller@uq.edu.au