Centring Biodiversity in Nursing for Decolonial Planetary Health.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Nursing
• Decolonial Studies

Background:

• Global biodiversity loss is accelerating, driven by colonial-capitalist economic models that exploit natural resources.
• These systems create significant risks to planetary health by promoting separation and valuing some lives over others.
• Nursing, with its focus on relational caring and decolonizing perspectives, is uniquely positioned to address these issues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To synthesize decolonial and ecological scholarship with nursing praxis.
• To explore how nursing can resist colonial-capitalist logics and promote biodiversity.
• To reorient nursing's ethical commitments toward multispecies care and justice.

Main Methods:

• Synthesizing decolonial and ecological scholarship with nursing praxis.
• Engaging with five key movements: Indigenous Consensus, Natural Law, Rights of Nature, Kincentric Ecology, and Queer Ecology.
• Analyzing the implications for nursing research, education, advocacy, policy, and practice.

Main Results:

• Centering biodiversity offers a pathway to decolonial planetary health, crucial in the current biodiversity crisis.
• The integration of decolonial ethics and biodiversity care is a novel approach within nursing.
• Five movements provide an ethical framework for kinship and resistance against colonial-capitalist exploitation.

Conclusions:

• Nursing has a vital role in advocating for biodiversity and decolonial planetary health.
• Reorienting nursing ethics towards multispecies care and justice is essential.
• This work establishes the first nursing-centered synthesis of biodiversity care and decolonial ethics.