Human health and the health of the living world around us are so intertwined that you can’t talk about one without the other. As species disappear and ecosystems unravel, the risks to our food, mental health and even the air we breathe rise. Yet everyday choices can be good for our health and part of the solution for the planet.
A sixth mass extinction
The evidence suggests that species are disappearing at tens to hundreds of times the natural rate, leading many to describe a ‘sixth mass extinction’. Unlike past extinction events driven by volcanoes or meteor strikes, this one is largely caused by people: land clearing, intensive agriculture, pollution, climate change and invasive species.
For the Northern Rivers, this is not an abstract global problem. We see it in damaged forests, stressed wildlife, more intense bushfires and floods, and declining marine life.
The science is clear: there is no viable future for human health on a biologically impoverished planet. This ecological crisis is also a health crisis: our wellbeing depends on healthy, diverse ecosystems in more ways than we may realise.
Nature: our life-support system
Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, is our life-support system. Ecosystems provide food and clean water, pollinate crops, regulate climate, offer sources of natural medicines and provide the mental-health benefits of green spaces and blue spaces such as rivers, lakes and oceans.
When ecosystems are simplified and species are lost, these services begin to fail. Pollinators, bees, butterflies and birds, help produce many of the fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds that protect us from heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. Pollinator decline is already reducing access to these protective foods and contributing to poorer health outcomes.
From pandemics to paddocks
Biodiversity loss can also increase the risk of infectious diseases, especially those that pass from animals to people, like the bird flu virus currently making the headlines. In many ecosystems, a rich mix of species can help limit disease transmission. When forests are cleared and habitats fragmented, low-risk species often disappear first, while fast-breeding animals such as some rodents and birds may thrive. These can be particularly effective hosts for disease-causing organisms.
As wildlife, livestock and people are brought into closer contact at forest edges, farms and roads, the risk of disease spillover increases. Industrial animal agriculture, crowded livestock conditions and heavy antibiotic use are also important contributors to antimicrobial resistance, infections that are increasingly difficult to treat.
Microbiomes and mental health
Biodiversity matters all the way down to the microbes in our soil, gut and on our skin. Children with regular contact with diverse natural environments tend to develop more robust microbiomes and better regulated immune systems, with lower rates of allergies and inflammatory conditions.
Nature also supports mental health. Environmental damage can contribute to anxiety, depression, ecological grief and solastalgia, the distress of seeing a loved place changed or degraded. In contrast, access to biodiverse parks, bushland and waterways is associated with lower stress, improved mood and better sleep.
Good for you, good for Country
Lifestyle medicine uses evidence-based changes in diet, physical activity, sleep, stress management, substance use and social connection to prevent and treat chronic disease. These same six pillars can help protect biodiversity and climate: what is good for us can also be good for the planet.
• Food: A predominantly whole-food, plant-rich diet can reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. It can also lower greenhouse emissions and reduce pressure on land, forests and waterways. Even modest reductions in red-meat consumption can make a difference.
• Movement: Walking, cycling and public transport improve fitness and mental health while reducing pollution, traffic injuries and emissions. Green, walkable neighbourhoods with trees, shade and wildlife corridors support people and nature alike.
• Stress and sleep: Bushwalking, gardening and volunteering in conservation projects can reduce stress, support sleep and reconnect us with the living world. Protecting green space is therefore a public-health measure as well as an environmental one.
• Social connection: Strong communities are more resilient during floods, fires and other climate-related disasters. Social prescriptions that include engaging community gardens, group walks and other nature-based activities can reduce loneliness while building care for local ecosystems.
From consultation to community
Lifestyle medicine is a mainstream medical specialty and began as a movement among health practitioners in the Northern Rivers more than 20 years ago. It now has organisations in more than 50 countries. Practitioners consider the six lifestyle pillars in your clinical care, but can also help address the wider systems that shape health: food environments, transport, urban design and health care’s own waste and environmental footprint.
The growing fields of lifestyle medicine and planetary health share a simple conclusion: human, animal and ecosystem health are inseparable. Protecting biodiversity is not a luxury. It is preventive medicine on a planetary scale, and Northern Rivers communities and health professionals have an important role to play.
Next time you meet your health care professional ask them if they are a lifestyle medicine practitioner out of interest for your own wellbeing as well as the health of the planet.
♦ Associate Professor John Stevens is co-founder and director of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine at Southern Cross University. He has had an academic paper ‘Species Extinction, Biodiversity, Human Health, and Inevitable Role of Lifestyle Medicine’ published by the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine on which this article is based.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
