About PHABC's 2022 Conference
Public Health Association of BC (PHABC) is pleased to share this year’s conference topic: “Our Health, Our Planet: Creating Well-Being Societies and Making Peace with Nature.” The conference topic was inspired by recent WHO and UN initiatives, as well as the importance of recognizing the role Indigenous knowledge has in creating a healthy relationship between humans and the Earth.
There is local and globral urgency to focus on making peace with nature. According to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, “Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal” (December 2020). The UN 2021 report Making Peace with Nature further identified climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution as a “triple crisis” that threatens our well-being.
Creating well-being societies is dependant on making peace with nature and focusing on ecojustice and applying an eco-social approach to everything we do. The public health community has an opportunity to weave eco-social approaches into their work to address both ecological and social injustices.
Creating a truly healthy public will only be possible if we work together to create healthy, sustainable and equitable communities.