Page - 469 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

469 20.6.3.1 Design and  Planning recommendations to  Enhance Contact with  and Experience of  Nature and  Biodiversity 23. Designing in biodiversity: Landscape architects should be encouraged to ‘design in biodiversity’ by fostering native plants and wildlife in public parks or conservation areas as well as in the urban matrix. This increases the opportunities for people to interact with biodiversity and obtain its health ben- efits, whilst enhancing biodiversity conservation and also contributing to cli- mate change adaptation. 24. Creating a mixture of ‘everyday’ green spaces: It is important for people to have contact with natural environments in their daily life (e.g. on their way to school or work, around the home). Various urban green spaces (ranging from street trees, ‘pocket parks’ and green school yards to larger urban parks) should be created to increase the opportunities for people to be exposed to biodiversity for their own health and well-being. To use green spaces for health promotion, city planners should create publicly accessible green spaces that are evenly distrib- uted across the spatial extent of towns and cities; this may be mandated in urban planning guidelines. In addition, urban green spaces can contribute signifi- cantly to adaptation to climate change. 25. Creating ‘green’ corridor connections: Cities should be planned to include ‘green corridors’ through which citizens can travel from smaller  urban green spaces to larger green spaces or protected areas. These ‘green corridors’ create additional opportunities for recreation and restoration, which have health, well- being and social benefits. Further, ‘green corridors’ can contribute to bio- diversity conservation by increasing the amount of green space and providing links between different habitats for migration and sustaining metapopulations of species. In addition, green corridors can serve as important avenues for fresh air. 26. Promoting and managing protected areas as ‘health hubs’: Protected areas pro- vide opportunities for nature conservation as well as human health benefits. Thus, protected areas have the potential to be ‘health hubs’ for both nature and people. To encourage use, social interventions, such as guided health walks, can be used to highlight the value that a protected area delivers for human health and well-being. Such positive nature experiences can deepen people’s commit- ment to conserve natural spaces and support protected areas. Dedicated man- agement is needed in order to offer natural health services to humans in protected areas whilst protecting biodiversity. 27. Co-designing with stakeholders: The needs of the local community and other stakeholders must be taken into consideration in order to build ownership, cooperation and collaboration on biodiversity, health and climate change issues. A co-designed framework plan for biodiversity, health and climate change strategies and management is likely to be the most successful. 20 Biodiversity and  Health in  the  Face of  Climate Change: Perspectives for  Science…