Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

98 man can and does select the variations given to him by nature and accumulate them in any desired manner.” (Darwin, 2010, p. 626). With that said, the biodiversity of the planet has been dominated by humans, utilized and exploited to the limit, with nothing to stop us. Humans have demonstrated the ability to dominate other species and intervene in what is useful to us. However, at the same time, we have established a material relationship with nature that directly affects us, expressed through a global climate crisis. Socially, it leads to increasing socio-environmental conflicts, and economically, it exacerbates inequalities that have deepened through the systematic exploitation of biodiversity. These problems are particularly acute in Latin America (Gligo et al., 2020). Biodiversity and its contributions As mentioned, biodiversity encompasses the diversity of all organisms, including plants, animals and microorganisms, as well as the diversity within a species, between species and among different populations, and even the diversity of ecosystems and landscapes (MA, 2003). In 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed upon the following definition of biodiversity: “It is the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems” (CBD 1992). Each of these levels (ecosystems, species and genes) is characterized by composition and function. For example, in ecosystem diversity, composition refers to habitats and one of the functions is nitrogen fixation. Among the contributions provided by biodiversity, defined by literature as ecosystem services, the following are recognized: carbon capture and storage, food generation, purification of pollutants, availability of oxygen and participation in biogeochemical processes. At the ecosystem level, these attributes range from reducing flood impacts in river basins to infiltrating water into aquifers and releasing it during droughts, as well as contributing to the control of the water cycle and other gases. All these processes are carried out in an organized manner by soil, water and air microorganisms, animal and plant species, as well as fungi and bacteria that inhabit all environmental matrices, including soil, water (marine and continental) and air. In turn, the ocean contributes to planetary regulation by providing 50% of the available oxygen (Paulmier, 2017) through the capture and sequestration of atmospheric CO 2 , and the redistribution of heat on the planet (IPCC, 2019). In marine ecosystems, photosynthetic and metabolic processes take place, which are crucial for the availability of carbon and oxygen for the planet.