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This is the seventh volume in a WWF series of reports developed as part of the Arguments for Protection project, which aims to identify and where possible quantify the range of benefits derived from protected areas, increase support for protection, develop new interdisciplinary partnerships, identify innovative financing mechanisms and broaden and strengthen protected area management strategies. In this case we focus on the positive benefits that can be provided by protected areas for human health. Our understanding of the term ‘human health’ in this context is based on the definition of the World Health Organization (WHO): “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

The earth is currently facing the real possibility of permanently losing a vast number of wild plant and animal species in an "extinction crisis" that is unparalleled in history for its speed and severity. The CBD estimates extinction rate as 100-200 times higher than the historical natural level, with the greatest losses on islands and in freshwaters1, while the United Nations Environment Programme also identifies forest species as being particularly at risk2. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is more pessimistic and believes that extinction rate may be up to a thousand times above historical levels. Drawing on IUCN Red Data List material3, it estimates that for instance 12 per cent of bird species and 23 per cent of mammals are threatened with extinction. Just as significant, studies suggest that almost all species are currently declining in either range and/or population size and all ecosystems are declining4.

Well managed natural forests almost always provide higher quality water, with less sediment and fewer pollutants, than water from other catchments Some natural forests (particularly tropical montane cloud forests and some older forests) also increase total water flow, although in other cases this is not true and under young forests and some exotic plantations net water flow can decrease Impacts of forests on security of supply or mitigating flooding are less certain although forests can reduce floods at a local headwater scale As a result of these various benefits, natural forests are being protected to maintain high quality water supplies to cities Protection within watersheds also provides benefits in terms of biodiversity conservation, recreational, social and economic values However, care is needed to ensure that the rural populations living in watersheds are not disadvantaged in the process of protection or management for water quality