Nature is fundamental to health. There is growing scientific evidence, adding to millennia of traditional knowledge, highlighting that nature provides essential material, psychological, and regulating contributions to health. The loss and degradation of nature and the services it provides impose, among many challenges, significant impacts on health at both local and global scales. Moreover, the health implications of nature loss and degradation are not equally distributed and are often more pronounced for vulnerable groups, particularly Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP and LCs).

Understanding the importance of the links between thriving nature to thriving health is not as widely considered as it should be in structuring the rationale and the actions for protecting, restoring, and regenerating biodiversity and the services that nature provides. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) present powerful opportunities to tackle the challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change alongside creating resilient livelihoods and enhanced health for IP and LCs. NbS projects can be key to enhancing health, and therefore there is an imperative to integrate health considerations into NbS project design and implementation.

This toolkit, developed by Pollination and GSK, was created to: catalyse awareness of the critical links between health and nature; to provide science-based and evidence-based guidance on project design and implementation for enhanced health benefits; and to mobilise a group of leaders that can drive support of best-in class NbS projects that incorporate health considerations. It is composed of three core sections:

1. An overview of the links between nature and health
2. Project developers’ resources and tools
3. Investors’ and buyers’ resources and tools

The ambition is that over the coming year, the toolkit will be defined through field-based testing, ongoing expert input and with a particular emphasis on the perspectives of IP and LCs. In this way the toolkit will become increasingly pragmatic, robust, and relevant for those interested in supporting the restoration, regeneration, and protection of nature hand in hand with tangible benefits for livelihoods and health of IP and LCs.

If you have any feedback on the toolkit, we welcome you to share it here. For more information please contact us.

DOWNLOAD REPORT