OneNature was founded on the principle that individual and societal well-being are tied to the health and well-being of animals and the environment. Last week the United Nations released a new report, Making Peace with Nature, which highlights that principle. This report, based on evidence from global environmental assessments, starkly outlines our current planetary emergency, how human well-being is dependent on earth’s natural systems, and how current economic and financial systems fail to include our interdependence with nature.
In order to create a sustainable future, our global society must transform our relationship with nature. The report states that “transformation towards sustainability involves significant and mutually reinforcing changes in behaviour, culture, material flows and systems of management and knowledge transmission.” Additionally the interconnected nature of climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, and air and water pollution require that these problems be addressed together. The report calls for a OneHealth approach that integrates action across sectors and disciplines to protect the health of people, animals and the environment.
OneNature fully agrees that societal and individual well-being depends on a thriving planet with flourishing wildlife. The report makes significant strides in establishing the steps all sectors of society must take to combat climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. As society begins to understand and value well-being as a goal of policy rather than singularly focusing on increasing GDP at all costs, we must move away from the idea that nature and wildlife must economically “pay for themselves” as the means of valuation. Nature and wildlife are at the center of many people’s most important values: physical and mental health, educational success, culture, clean air, potable water, and climate resilience. At OneNature, we recognize that the existing research around the value of nature is still incomplete. OneNature fills a vital gap by researching the intrinsic value of wildlife, linking wildlife to human well-being, and ensuring that we don’t leave other species — species facing an extinction crisis — out of the well-being movement.