Conservation Medicine

[eve]

EarthTalk was asked the meaning of the term “conservation medicine”, and replied as follows:

Conservation medicine (sometimes called “conservation health”) is a relatively new field of research that studies the links between human health, animals’ health and the environment. One of its major fields of study is the emergence in recent decades of deadly diseases that have crossed over from animals to humans, including Mad Cow, AIDS, Lyme disease, SARS, avian flu and West Nile virus. Many of these plagues arose out of some form of human/animal contact in compromised ecosystems.

In 1998, for example, a previously unknown virus spread among some farm families in Malaysia, eventually killing more than 100 people. The outbreak was traced back to a pig farm where horses, cats, dogs and goats were also infected. The virus, named “Nipah” for one of its first human victims, eventually spread to Singapore, where nine slaughterhouse workers became ill after processing Malaysian pig meat.

Scientists deduced that the virus came from fruit bats that descended on Malaysia after their native habitat, forests in nearby Borneo and Sumatra, had been clearcut. The bats sought refuge in the fruit trees hanging over the animal pens at the pig farm, and then passed the virus to the pigs by dropping infected fruit into the pens, where the pigs eagerly ate it. How the virus jumped to humans is still a mystery, but scientists are quite sure that the clearing of forests in Borneo and Sumatra indirectly led to more than 100 human deaths.

“Diseases are moving from animals to humans and from one animal species to another at an alarming rate,” says Lee Cera, a veterinarian at Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine. “When I went to school we were told, ‘This disease won’t go from a dog to a cat.’ Then all of a sudden a dog virus wiped out the lions of the Serengeti. How did it happen? When did it happen?” Conservation medicine is an attempt to answer these questions by bringing together professional fields that had previously worked in isolation: human medicine, veterinary medicine, infectious disease research, public health and environmental science.

Many factors are already understood. Increased human forays into wilderness areas (often spurred by population growth) have set up new points of human/animal contact. The international trade in exotic species also breaks down previously existing barriers. Climate change causes species to migrate to new areas, bringing with them new germs. Global travel plays a role: In 1950, three million people flew on commercial jets; in 1990, 300 million did. Two million people cross international borders daily, carrying with them huge amounts of agricultural products, live animals, soil- and disease-causing microbes.

The Wildlife Trust and the Consortium for Conservation Medicine are two organizations, both based in New York, at the forefront of this new field: “Conservation medicine demonstrates how healthy ecosystems are the basis for human well-being,” says Mary Pearl, Wildlife Trust’s president, “and it can really engage people who didn't see the relevance before.”

CONTACTS: Wildlife Trust, www.wildlifetrust.org; Consortium for Conservation Medicine, www.conservationmedicine.org; Environmental Health Perspectives, ehp.niehs.nih.gov.

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[kokopelli]

Very interesting, Eve, thank you for this information.

This is a current issue in the UK because dead primates and other 'bush meat' are being smuggled uncontrollably into the Britain to feed a growing demand amongst immigrants from Africa, where bushmeat is apparently considered by some people to be a healthy food. Although there are also many Africans who oppose the practice and are campaigning to bring an end to it in their own countries.

The felling of native forest, and tracks made by lumbermen, increase access to previously wild areas, and make it easier for the hunters.

And mining for coltan, a mineral found in Africa, which is apparently essential for mobile phone manufacture (I'm not sure whether it's also in other electronic equipment, such as computers etc), is creating workers' settlements in pristine forest, and a demand for bushmeat. I saw a horrible picture in a newspaper once, of dead gorillas, killed for meat for coltan miners.

Obviously, these conditions are creating possibilities for transference of disease, and I've read that the AIDS epidemic could have started through humans eating primates infected with simian AIDS.

Apart from the impact of increased air travel on global warming, the threat of the uncontrollable spread of disease worldwide is another reason why I believe responsible governments should be seeking to curtail air travel, not continuously expand it by providing subsidies and allowing tax advantages to the airlines.

[eve]

Yes, it can be difficult where 'traditional lifestyle' is used as a reason for eating wildlife. Sometimes I feel that it's all too difficult.

[kokopelli]

I know what you mean. It often feels like things have gone too far to ever get better again. But at least now people are recognising the interconnectedness of natural systems, and the way environmental damage can have unexpected results.

I feel like, it's one thing for people who live self-sufficient lives in the forest to eat the wildlife, they're practically like part of the ecosystem themselves. The danger comes when a 'natural resource' begins to be exploited for profit and exported all over the world.