The RCPsych Article of the Month for August is ‘The need for biodiversity champions in psychiatry: the entwined crises of climate change and ecological collapse‘ and the blog is written by author Dr Jacob Krzanowski published in BJPsych Bulletin

Scientists have shown that through the cumulative effects of habitat loss, climate change, and pollution, life on Earth is crossing into the sixth mass extinction event. Individual species of plants and animals are disappearing at a rate not seen since an asteroid hit the planet 65 million years ago. This should be warning enough that humanity’s health is in grave danger. The concept of ‘ecosystem services’ articulates our dependence on nature, outlining how the total collection of species in the web of life is essential to maintaining food supplies, materials used in manufacturing and building, clean water and air, stable microclimates, cultural practices, and all sorts of other resources that underpin human survival.  

The disappearance of species is borne out of a planet that is becoming hotter, dirtier and sicker. Unregulated and profit-driven extraction, consumption and disposal of the earth’s resources are driving these changes. Without proper stewardship the earth will become an increasingly threatening and disorientating place. Health-care professionals are coming together to declare these circumstances a public health emergency.

Within such advocacy, ecological collapse, in addition to climate change, is a threat to our survival that requires distinct but mutually reinforcing solutions. On the 5^th of May 2021 the Royal College of Psychiatry publicly declared a climate and ecological emergency. Climate change and the destruction of ecosystems are parallel yet entwined processes creating an unprecedented threat to nature itself. At the heart of the College’s declaration is recognition that good mental health is not possible without a healthy environment. We must protect nature to protect ourselves.

Our entanglement with the natural environment is a sobering reminder of how health is often created in and by relationships. The roadmap that emerges from taking seriously our dependence on nature is still being made, but the first steps are exciting. Increasing recognition of nature’s importance to mental health helps psychiatrists to promote movements such as a Natural Health Service, the Wild Network and green prescribing. Meanwhile mental health trusts have the possibility to fulfill their role as anchor institutions and promote environmental sustainability and biodiversity in their local community through ambitious, creative green plans. Looking forward, mental health services should increasingly consider the ecological foot prints of their facilities and clinical services, and not only the comparatively narrow measure of carbon foot prints.   Adoption of these and other changes into mental health services promotes nature’s importance for human health to our colleagues, the wider public and most importantly the governments which ultimately hold our fate in their hands. For the moment they represent humble but important shifts in care and advocacy. However, they also uphold the beginnings of a vision for mental health services which is in balance with the rest of the living world.

The BJPsych Bulletin’s article of the month for this special edition on mental health and the climate crisis is Jacob Krzanowski’s paper “The Need for Biodiversity Champions in Psychiatry: The Entwined Crises of Climate Change and Ecological Collapse.” But be warned, it is not a comfortable read. Dr. Krzanowski argues that ecoanxiety about climate change – which can spur either action or denial – may also distract from the other environmental emergency, the degradation of habitats and biodiversity. The temptations of denial and apocalyptic thinking are strong.

However, Dr. Krzanowski balances his warnings with suggestions for small local actions. Alone they are inadequate but they may foster the sense of community tackling these crises requires and help improve our mental wellbeing. As he writes, ‘We are nature. What we do to nature, we do to ourselves.’

Norman Poole, 

BJPsych Bulletin Editor in Chief