Page - 452 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

452 recommendations to address the urgent health and sustainability challenges in sci- ence, policy and practice. Keywords Synthesis · Biodiversity · Climate change adaptation · Non- communicable disease · Policy recommendations · Science-policy interface Highlights • Contributions in this volume present growing evidence of the linkages between biodiversity and physical, mental and spiritual aspects of health and  well-being. • Evidence seems to suggest strong links between biodiversity and physical health and well-being, which points to important avenues for health treatments and natural resource management. • Currently disjointed policy sectors of biodiversity conservation and manage- ment, public health and climate change need to work together to foster the foun- dation of our society  – considering the ecosystem and human health in a One Health agenda. • Arguing for health as a central benefit to society that results from nature conser- vation and good biodiversity management should improve the public and politi- cal interest in the subject. • Evidence is sufficient to implement ‘no regret’ actions now that are mainly based on nature-based solutions. • Key steps to integrate considerations of biodiversity, public health and climate change into research, policy and management agendas are provided. 20.1 Introduction The rise in non-communicable diseases (World Health Organization [WHO] 2017a, b) combined with biodiversity loss and climate change (Bellard et  al. 2012; Steffen et  al. 2015) are among the greatest global challenges society is facing today. While biodiversity provides the foundation for human well-being, human societies also provide the greatest drivers for biodiversity loss and climate change. Central to addressing these critical challenges are the questions ‘How does biodiversity matter for human health and well-being?’ and ‘What implications does this have for efforts to address our current predicament?’ (WHO and CBD 2015). Increasingly, science is starting to unravel relationships of how biodiversity impacts human health and well-being, and we are at the beginning of an exponential rise in research activity, as shown by the contents of this book. The chapters critically review the growing body of literature that examines biodiversity’s contribution to physical health as well as mental and spiritual well-being in the face of climate change. In their total- ity, these chapters encompass the mounting evidence of positive effects on physical health and well-being (see Lindley et  al. Chap. 2, Dadvand et  al. Chap. 6, Cook et  al. Chap. 11, Hunter et  al. Chap. 17, this volume). Some effects on physical health M. R. Marselle et al.