From drug discovery to coronaviruses: why restoring natural habitats is good for human health.

Peninah Murage and colleagues argue that biodiversity is the cornerstone of healthy natural habitats. Its preservation is vital to human health and should therefore be embedded into medical and healthcare studies. This article looks at the restoration and protection of green spaces in order to enhance biological diversity. These two concepts (natural habitats and biodiversity) are interdependent because of complex relationship that are the foundation of thriving natural habitats.

This article argues that human survival depends on exploiting natural resources. When land is converted for food production and housing, for example, or for the extraction of energy, raw materials, and water. It highlights that the unsustainable use of natural resources has led to short term improvements in human health characterised by increases in life expectancy and a global decline in poverty. But these are matched by an unprecedented alteration of the natural world characterised by loss of primary forests, species extinction, concentration of greenhouse gases, and ocean acidification, among others. It explores the perilous consequences to the planet and to human health in the long term.