Metrics for biodiversity and health policy integration.

Despite over a decade of progressive commitments from parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), integrated biodiversity and health indicators and monitoring mechanisms remain limited, hampering achievement of the sustainable development goals and improvements in health and well-being. Adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) and the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health (2024) provide a renewed entry point to shape the way governments approach health and wellbeing and address the environmental burden of disease. This is a critical opportunity that scholars at the health-environment nexus should not miss.

Biodiversity, health science, and the human right to a healthy environment.

Planetary health agendas need a strong human rights focus. Both public health and the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment depend on biodiversity, ecosystems, and a healthy biosphere. Targeted transdisciplinary health research, action, and communication on biodiversity-health linkages can clarify and reinforce the human rights obligations of public authorities whose decisions might negatively affect the environment.

Carbon markets: a new form of colonialism for Indigenous Peoples?

The interconnected and compounding climate change and biodiversity crises have led to increased urgency in moving towards transformational change within how national and international sustainability efforts are viewed and operationalised. Despite the known benefit of carbon markets as part of these sustainability efforts, there has been increasing scrutiny of carbon market mechanisms, with warranted distrust present at the community level. Indigenous Peoples are key stewards of biodiverse landscapes, yet their exclusion within carbon market decision making is ongoing.