The new sentinels of sustainability: Exploring the mutually reinforcing relationships between ecosystem health and human well-being

It seems self-evident that healthy ecosystems are essential to people’s well-being, but the relationship is not always so straightforward.

Many contemporary ecological problems are the result of activities that benefit people in multiple ways.

Listen to Sentinels of Sustainability:

As such, when people think about how to be more sustainable, they often assume that some trade-off is necessary from their current way of life.

However, in many small-scale, natural resource dependent communities, including many Indigenous communities, people’s health and well-being are intimately connected to their local environments.

Scenarios tend to be either win-win, where both people and ecosystems thrive together, or lose-lose, where human and ecosystem health spiral downward together.

In these cases, changes in people’s well-being may signal changes in ecosystem heath and vice versa, and may forewarn of circumstances where unsustainable practices might emerge.

There is admittedly still much to know about the complex relationships among ecosystem health and human well-being, and sustainability, and what circumstances make win-win outcomes possible, but there are emerging theories in such areas of science as political ecology and public health that offer some insights.

This is an important area for sustainability research, especially given the emerging emphasis on incorporating ethics and justice alongside ecological concerns.

Read the full paper — Can people be sentinels of sustainability? Identifying the linkages among ecosystem health and human well-being by Philip A. Loring, Megan S. Hinzman and Hanna Neufeld.