Ecosystem services for human health in Oceania

The state of ecosystems and the health and well-being of people that depend on them are fundamentally linked. However, these links are often obscured – geographically, as globalised trade separates production of goods and ecosystem services from consumers; across time, as physical and mental impacts accumulate across lifespans; and through the complexity of competing socio-economic and cultural influences. Pervasive societal dualisms like nature-culture, and even social-ecological, fragment thinking and decision-making. Definitions differ across sectors. Health encapsulates well-being in the World Health Organization’s holistic, landmark 1948 definition of health. A broader, health-inclusive well-being is articulated as the output of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), and its ecosystem service framework (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).