SDG 15: Health and terrestrial ecosystems

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) all interconnect. SDG 15 is ambitious: it involves protecting, restoring and promoting all land-based ecosystems, and biodiversity. Sustainable ecosystems are essential for human health, whether through safe water supplies, sustainable food systems, crops, pollinators, soil and medicines, or climate change mitigation. SDG 3 is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, but it can only be achieved if SDG15 is achieved too.

• Biodiversity, ecosystems and the services that they deliver are essential for all life on the planet. One of the key barriers to effectively protecting natural assets is ignorance about the services they deliver.
• Healthy ecosystems produce multiple benefits for all communities, such as clean air and water, nutritious food, raw materials and medicines. Overall, poor people, women, children and indigenous groups are particularly dependent on ecosystem services or harmed by their degradation.
• Biodiversity continues to be lost at an accelerating rate, largely through human activities. “This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world”
• The challenges faced by the WHO European Region are increasingly systemic, complex, interdependent and uncertain. They require innovative and pioneering transformative change, involving system solutions and coalitions between government institutions, businesses and civil society so that economic performance, environmental quality and human well-being are enhanced through reduced use of natural resources.