Spending time outdoors is long understood to offer mental health perks, including reduced stress, improved sleep and enhanced cognition.
But these public spaces might also benefit the global economy, new research suggests.
Visits to national parks around the world may result in improved mental health valued at about $US6 trillion (5.4 trillion euros), according to a team of ecologists, psychologists and economists from Griffith University in Australia.
"People already visit parks to recover from stress," said lead author Ralf Buckley in a press release. "In healthcare terms, it's patient-funded therapy."
But the value of such preventative therapy had never been quantified on a global scale, he noted.
Through three pilot studies involving almost 20,000 people — based on a representative sample of the Australians and interviews at Lamington and Springbrook national parks — the researchers measured the impact of park visits on quality of life.
Using well established economic models, they estimated how those benefits would translate into healthcare savings in Australia, and then globally.
They determined that without outdoor parks, the costs of poor mental health could cost Australia alone an additional $145 billion annually.
The research was published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
– Health benefits –
The savings include not only the cost of mental health treatments and caretakers but also collateral expenses due to absenteeism or poor productivity and antisocial behaviour, such as vandalism and domestic abuse.
Putting a dollar amount on the health effects helps to make an argument for physicians to prescribe outdoor activities for mental health, Buckley explains.
"While our parks provide many health benefits from 'everyday' use, they are increasingly becoming recognised as beneficial settings for nature-based health interventions for people with specific health conditions," Shauna Jones, of Parks Victoria, told AFP.
The findings could also be used as an argument to invest more in parks, the authors suggest.
"Protected areas are there for conservation, which gives us a liveable planet and underpins our entire economy, but conservation is not very powerful politically," said Buckley.
"People and politicians pay more attention to health, because it affects them personally."
Parks Victoria, a government agency that runs a "Healthy Parks Healthy People" initiative, co-funded the study, along with Griffith University and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.
Deer-like species found in Vietnam after 30-year absence
Washington (UPI) Nov 12, 2019 –
With the help of camera traps, researchers have rediscovered a deer-like species called the silver-backed chevrotain in Vietnam. The species, Tragulus versicolor, sometimes called the Vietnamese mouse-deer, hadn't been seen since the 1990s.
Scientists with Global Wildlife Conservation, the Southern Institute of Ecology and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research announced the species' rediscovery this week in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
"For so long this species has seemingly only existed as part of our imagination," An Nguyen, associate conservation scientist for GWC, said in a news release. "Discovering that it is, indeed, still out there, is the first step in ensuring we don't lose it again, and we're moving quickly now to figure out how best to protect it."
The rabbit-sized ungulate species was first described in 1910 after four specimens were collected from southern Vietnam. Another specimen was found in 1990.
After forest rangers and local villagers reported seeing a gray chevrotain — distinct from the brown-colored lesser mouse-deer, or kanchil — a team of researchers led by Nguyen set up a series of camera traps in southern Vietnam.
Their cameras captured 275 photos of the species over five months. When researchers expanded the constellation of cameras, they captured another 1,881 photographs of the silver-backed chevrotain over five months.
"The rediscovery of the silver-backed chevrotain provides big hope for the conservation of biodiversity, especially threatened species, in Vietnam," said Hoang Minh Duc, head of the Southern Institute of Ecology's Department of Zoology. "This also encourages us, together with relevant and international partners, to devote time and effort to further investigation and conservation of Vietnam's biodiversity heritage."
Chevrotains are the planet's smallest hoofed animals, or ungulates. While most of the 10 known species of chevrotain cross international borders, mostly in Asia, the silver-backed chevrotain has only been observed in Vietnam.
Chevrotains are one of several groups of animals threatened by deforestation and illegal hunting. In the Annamese Mountains, a small range that stretches across Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, an indiscriminate hunting technique using homemade wire snares has led to what's called "empty forest syndrome."
Scientists hope the rediscovery of the silver-backed chevrotain will inspire renewed conservation efforts in the region. Researchers are currently conducting a survey of the Annamite Range to determine the size and scope of the silver-backed chevrotain population.
"It is an amazing feat to go from complete lack of knowledge of the wildlife of the Greater Annamites 25 years ago, to now having this question mark of the silver-backed chevrotain resolved," said Barney Long, GWC senior director of species conservation. "But the work is only beginning with the rediscovery and initial protection measures that have been put in place — now we need to identify not just a few individuals on camera trap, but one or two sites with sizable populations so that we can actually protect and restore the species."
