We are just beginning to appreciate the breadth of human health
benefits of experiencing nature and biodiversity, and more research
examining these linkages is absolutely critical. Nevertheless, based
on the limited evidence available to date, science and policy efforts
focused on understanding nature-biodiversity-ecosystem servicehealth
linkages and incorporating more natural areas and biodiversity
in the design and protection of our cities and coastal communities
are likely to enhance ecosystem, community, and human
resilience. To achieve this goal we need (1) a much more in-depth
research focus on potential health effects of experiencing nature
and biodiversity, including coastal and marine biodiversity, with
emphases on quantification of health outcomes and mechanisms of
causation of observed effects; (2) a re-envisioning of urban, landuse,
and marine spatial planning that places human health and
well-being at the center, facilitates human interaction with nature
(e.g., green space) to the fullest extent possible, and ensures people
are surrounded by and have access to biologically diverse natural
habitats; (3) a new coalition of ecologists, biomedical and public
health scientists and practitioners, land-use/urban planners, and
social scientists to focus on development and implementation of
policies that promote human interaction with biodiverse environments
and strongly support conservation and restoration of biodiversity;
and (4) broad-scale studies to more fully investigate the
potential roles that environmental microbial biodiversity may play
in many different health contexts. We are at a key juncture in
human history where biodiversity loss is occurring daily and
accelerating in the face of a burgeoning and increasingly affluent