It warns that the climate crisis, urbanization and the loss of biodiversity “endanger the important role that forests and trees play” for food security and the livelihoods of vulnerable populations.
Researchers from IUFRO’s Global Forestry Expert Group Program (GFEP) conclude that “urgent action” is needed, especially to prevent damage, such as forest fires, caused by human activities.
Green spaces generate multiple benefits
After evaluating the “scientific evidence” of the benefits of green spacesurge policy makers to consider green spaces as “essential components of health policy and programs, as well as urban planning”.
These benefits range “from physical and mental well-being to the reduction of general mortality.”
Forests function “as a heat shield in times of climate change, as an air filter or as a source of medicinal plants, active substances and food,” the study underlines.
Specifically, the scientists responsible for the investigation affirm that green spaces have positive effects on child development, diabetes, cancer, depression, stress-related disorders, cognitive aging or longevity.
In addition to healthy environments, they provide “numerous goods and services, such as medicines, nutritious food, and other non-timber forest products that contribute to health,” they stress.
They state in this context that “medicinal plants, which are especially important to indigenous peoples and local communities, provide basic health care to 70% of the world’s population.”
Change of land use causes diseases
Scientists attribute an increase in diseases such as Ebola or bird flu to environmental and climatic changes, calculating that “change in land use has caused the appearance of more than 30% of new diseases since 1960.”
According to the report, the 24% of global deaths (and 28% of deaths in children under the age of five) are due to factors such as air pollution and extreme weather eventspremature deaths that could be prevented with healthier environments.