How can a healthy ocean improve human health and enhance well being on a rapidly changing planet?
Prior Ocean Panel Blue Papers have explored topics such as environmental threats to the ocean, ocean-based advances in renewable energy, coastal restoration, sustainable practices within fisheries and marine transportation. This Blue Paper examines the links between the ocean and human health. Its purpose is to provide heads of government and global leaders with robust evidence on the connections between ocean health, human health, societal wellbeing, and the global economy as these leaders look to chart the next urgent actions to attain all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and realize the least funded of them, SDG 14, on ‘life below water’ (WEF 2022). This Blue Paper identifies opportunities for sustaining and protecting the ocean in ways that improve human health and support just, equitable economic development.
The specific goals of this Blue Paper are twofold. First, it seeks to systematically catalogue ocean-based opportunities for enhancing human health and wellbeing. Second, it endeavors to present regional, national, and international policymakers with an evidence-based menu of achievable actions for improving human health and wellbeing by equitably realizing the ocean’s great benefits, while effectively conserving and managing its beauty and bounty for future generations (Figure ES-1, Table ES-1).
Throughout this Blue Paper, we emphasize the importance of cross-sectoral, cross-national partnerships and of a global structure of laws, treaties, guidelines, and organizational entities that harness our collective creativity and intelligence, curb humanity’s appetite for short-term gain, move the world towards greater sustainability, and create a sustainable, more equitable economy that prioritizes human health and wellbeing (Pope Francis 2015; Abbasi et al. 2023; Fleming et al. 2023). We argue that preservation of ocean and human health will require metrics and governance structures that look beyond measures of short-term productivity such as gross domestic product (GDP) and explicitly value human and natural capital; address the underlying political, economic, and ethical causes of the current planetary crisis; and center justice and equity, particularly with respect to previously marginalized communities such as Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
A recent article published in over 200 health journals simultaneously underscores the current urgency for action on ocean and human health now: Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency. (Abbasi et al. 2023).
Critically, because healthcare professionals are tasked with maintaining and restoring health, are expert communicators, and are trusted members of societies in their role as advocates for their patients, the health sector is uniquely well positioned to lead in safeguarding human health by protecting the health of the ocean (Depledge et al. 2019; Romanello et al. 2023). Yet at present they are not sufficiently educated about the need for this work or engaged in it. Involving health professionals and the health sector in protecting ocean health will require innovative efforts across multiple areas, including reducing the health sector’s carbon footprint, reducing medical waste and pollution, supporting greater ocean literacy to promote science-based advocacy on behalf of patients, and emphasizing population health and prevention. These efforts will extend into many areas, including energy, transport, supply chains, food, and education. The entire health sector must be involved, including hospitals, healthcare systems, public health, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, social care, and Indigenous health.
This Blue Paper actively presents a series of actions and opportunities that can and must begin immediately to sustain, protect, and expand both ocean and human health (Figure ES-1; Table ES-1).
Source:
https://oceanpanel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Ocean_Human_Health-OP-Report.pdf
