"Sustaining Life" is a new book from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, in cooperation with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It presents to a general audience a comprehensive and sobering view of how human medicines, biomedical research, the emergence and spread of infectious diseases, and the production of food, both on land and in our oceans, depend on biodiversity.

©UNEP Photo Gabor Szilagyi Opening Remarks Asha-Rose Migiro, UN Deputy Secretary-General	©UNEP Photo Gabor Szilagyi Keynote Speaker Jeffrey Sachs Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University
©UNEP Photo Gabor Szilagyi Book Overview Eric Chivian, Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School	©UNEP Photo Gabor Szilagyi Final Remarks Ahmed Djoghlaf Executive Secretary, UN Convention on Biological Diversity

Related Links:

• Biodiversity Loss - It Will Make You Sick UNEP-UNDP-CBD-IUCN Joint Press Release 24 April 2008
• Center for Health and the Global Environment - Harvard Medical School - Sustaining Life web-page
• UNEP-WCMC interview on SKY News on the importance of biodiversity to human health and well-being
• Oxford University Press: order the book
• Statement by the Executive Secretary, Ahmed Djoghlaf, on the Occasion of the United Nations Book Launch, New York, 23 April 2008