‘We argue that … one simply cannot claim to be a “health” care professional without advocating forcefully for the planet’: Planetary health needs to be included in health professions’ education

Human activities such as deforestation, extensive use of agricultural fertilisers, and the burning of fossil fuels, threaten all of Earth’s inhabitants. Our health and well-being are dependent on the health of the planet’s ecosystems, but between 1970 and 2018, global wildlife populations fell by 69 per cent. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted our broken relationship with nature, leading to, for example, the United Nations Environment Programme declaring 2021-2030 the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. This chapter argues that educating current and future health professionals needs to include more than climate change or sustainable healthcare. It requires a planetary health approach, preferably with an Indigenous lens, to develop the skills and the capacity to apply systems thinking to interdisciplinary practice and to value all of Earth’s inhabitants. As trusted individuals in respected professions, health professionals are ideally positioned to mitigate further environmental damage and urgently lead its restoration, addressing historic and ongoing wealth and carbon inequities. Eco-ethical healthcare leaders and planetary citizens are needed to ensure a just and sustainable future. Such leaders already exist, e.g., students who advocated for (and acted on) the inclusion of planetary health in their curricula, and health professionals who have lobbied governments to divest from fossil fuels.