Nature is where we all live. We create dwellings and communities, infrastructure and cities, but we are still embedded in and dependent on the biosphere—the living landscapes where life is able to thrive on our unique life-sustaining planet.

May 22 is the International Day for Biological Diversity—a shared opportunity to recognize that we are not separate from Nature. 

We are Nature.

How does that translate into local, everyday experience? If you are part of a conversation that is asking that question, you are further along than many people, communities, and institutions. 

Too often, institutions demand we adopt the view that everyday life and the natural world are separate and distinct realities and that caring for Nature is a luxury, not an essential responsibility of all people and jurisdictions. Governments even incentivize business and finance to operate according to this skewed vision of our relationship to living systems. 

So, how does being integral to Nature translate into local, everyday experience? 

1. The air we breathe and the water we drink are not only highly sensitive to pollutants; they deliver that pollution into our bodies, ensuring pollution becomes an immediate, persistent, and urgent human health issue, wherever it occurs. 
2. Agricultural landscapes depend on stable climate patterns, robust and reliable snowpack, glacial melt, rainfall, and watersheds, as well as the ecosystems that sustain (and are sustained by) pollinators. 
3. Biodiverse, healthy rainforests and marine ecosystems, from oxygen-creating microbes and kelp to bioluminescent jellyfish and blue whales, anchor the global carbon cycle, stabilizing climate patterns, as well as climatic and ecological anchors, like glaciers, snowpack, and land-based watersheds.
4. Built infrastructure is highly sensitive to shock events generated by disrupted climate patterns and other natural systems. 
5. Failure on any of these fronts—and we are failing on all of them at the same time—imposes real and pervasive costs to human beings; those costs come in the form of ill health, lost opportunity, and higher prices for everyday goods. 
6. Beyond this: The very stability of nation states rests on the question of whether we can avoid shock price increases, destabilizing mass migration events, and the loss of national wealth and opportunity to nonstop disaster response.

Biodiversity is a signal of ecological health and resilience. Over billions of years, the Earth’s living ecosystems have evolved to afford optimal conditions for competitive, cooperative thriving. Nature’s ability to cope with and diffuse the effects of industrial activity are weakened when biodiversity and ecological resilience are weakened. Your health depends on the health of Nature.

As we consider ways to support biodiversity and ecological health and resilience, it makes sense to treat biodiversity as a measure of human health and security—both in our personal understanding and as a matter of public policy. It is also useful to leverage the protection of biodiversity to support an integrated approach to planetary health and sustainable development.

Richer soils more effectively filter water, protecting watersheds, clean water, and the health of people and of ecosystems. They also more effectively sink carbon and so provide better climate-stabilization services, which have measurable benefits across the economy and for human health and security. 

Intact ecosystems that have a sufficient buffer against human intrusion are also far less likely to result in zoonotic disease transfer from wildlife to humans. This means the risk of pandemic-related shocks and their ripple effects is reduced. As Nature is cut back and ecosystems are depleted, zoonotic spillovers are more likely and pandemics and related catastrophic impacts are also more likely.

In our contribution to the historic High-Level Meeting on Harmony with Nature and Living Well at United Nations Headquarters in New York, on April 22, 2025, we called for food systems that utilize “deep regenerative practices—supporting the preservation of biodiverse ecosystems and watersheds, without turning Nature into a commodity.” 

Today, we reiterate the call for nations to recognize and uphold the Rights of Nature, in order to “fully and consistently defend the rights of all human beings and establish conditions for a fair, equitable, and peaceful world.”

Earlier this week, two significant milestones were achieved in the effort to establish legal protections for the Rights of Nature.

• The European Commission recognized and registered a European Citizens’ Initiative seeking “to recognise Rights of Nature in European law via a legal act such as a directive or a regulation to strengthen the protection of ecosystems.”
• A private members’ bill was introduced in the UK House of Lords, “to recognise Nature as a legal subject; establish and protect the rights of Nature; establish a legal duty of care for public bodies, businesses, and individuals; provide procedural rights for the protection of Nature; establish an Integrated Rights Framework; establish mechanisms for dispute resolution and legal enforcement; establish a Nature Guardianship Council and Bioregional Councils; establish a Nature’s Rights Tribunal; create a governance structure for implementation and integration; provide for phased implementation and periodic review; ensure compliance with international environmental obligations; promote public awareness and education; and for connected purposes.“

As local communities and nations move to recognize that Nature needs legal protections, both for its own future health and integrity and for the benefits to human health and wellbeing, we will offer communities access to organizing and informational tools, to support stakeholder engagement and policy development, to align incentives, policies, and investments with human and planetary health.