Proceedings of the European conference “Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change – Challenges, Opportunities and Evidence Gaps”, Bonn, Germany, 27 - 29 June 2017

The joint BfN/ENCA European Conference on “Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change” was held in Bonn, Germany on 27-29 June 2017 to highlight the important contribu-tion of green spaces and biodiversity to human health in a changing climate. It was the fourth event in a series of biannual “European Conferences on Biodiversity and Climate Change” (ECBCC), which started in 20111. The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) organized the conference in co-operation with the Interest group on Climate Change of the Network of Heads of European Nature Conservation Agencies (ENCA), the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversi-ty Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig. The 2017 conference was co-sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Europe.A wide range of European experts from science, policy and practice convened to discuss the importance of biodiversity’s contribution to human health in the face of climate change. Fur-ther emphasis was placed on the potential of nature-based solutions to meet the challenges and create multiple benefits in relation to climate change, human health and nature conser-vation. Some of the latest scientific findings on impacts of climate change on European bio-diversity and human health were presented in the plenum sessions. This was followed by interactive sessions focusing on eight specific themes ranging from the “Psychological ef-fects of nature and biodiversity on human health and well-being”, “The benefits of green space for enhancing human health – Lessons learned from urban interventions” and “Health and protected areas in a changing climate”. More specific discussions were held on “Biodi-versity or Green Space?” and “Allergenic plants and vector borne disease – Relevance to human health in a changing climate”. In addition, policy and practice orientated themes were addressed such as “Linking Initiatives in biodiversity, health