Friday, July 10, 2026

2:30 PM - 4:00 PM

Room BM.1.33

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Details

Human quality of life depends on well-functioning ecosystems and the goods and services they provide. This interdependence illustrates how ecosystem degradation, caused by climate change, overexploitation, and habitat fragmentation, has potentially deleterious consequences for human health and wellbeing. In recognition of these threats, governments worldwide have committed to conserve, restore, and enhance ecosystems through the United Nations Decade on Restoration, spurring a proliferation of initiatives like tree planting, (re)wilding, and behaviour-change campaigns. In turn, we expect this degradation and enhancement of Earth’s ecosystems to impact human quality of life. Yet there remains a paucity of evidence documenting such impacts. This is surprising, given our rich understanding of the diverse ways in which biodiversity influences our physical, psychological, and social wellbeing, but highlights what is at stake if we fail to join up this knowledge. Tree-planting, for instance, can worsen air quality through pollen accumulation, enhancing asthma-related hospitalisations. Emotional experiences of ecological degradation can shift the baseline of what is perceived to be ‘normal’, eroding our motivation to care for and invest in nature recovery. In this session, we bring together researchers working to understand diverse ways in which biodiversity, conservation and environmental change impact human quality of life. Together, we aim to elicit conversation on how best to unpack and capture the complex components of these systems, and the wider implications of global environmental change.

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Speakers and Presentation Titles

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Organiser