health and biodiversity
TRANSCRIPT
CRICOS #00212K1Dian Fossey (1932-1985) and young mountain gorilla
Prof Colin D Butler
Health and biodiversity
ASEAN Conference on Biodiversity for Sustainable Development 2016
February 15, 2016 Bangkok Thailand
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Biodiversity:
good for health
(intuitive if you are
biophilic?)
but .. complex
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Key message 1http://www.wilderdom.com/evolution/BiophiliaHypothesis.html
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Biodiversity“variability among living organisms .. including ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.”
Handbook of the Convention on Biological Diversity Including its Cartagana Protocol on Biosafety. 3rd ed
The software of living systems?
redundancy (overlap)dynamic evolutionary capacity (self-healing)
but .. not infinite3
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1. Charismatic and keystone (elephant)
2. Keystone and less charismatic (bees, seastar)
3. Underpinning (supporting) (soil bacteria, earthworms, gut bacteria, microbiome)
Redundancy at each level but probably greatest at the third
All three plausibly subject to threshold events
Charismatic & keystone ecosystems
Rainforest / corals / mangroves4
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Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment
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individual species, and ecosystems they make up, help provide:
food, fuel, unique medicinal compounds
air, water and soil purification services
natural regulation of infectious disease
to name a few (services), (biodiversity) is critical to our health and survival.
“biodiversity matters profoundly to human health in almost every conceivable way”
- sometimes
http://www.chgeharvard.org/category/biodiversity-and-human-health 6
Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment
- BUT
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- BUTWhy?
Because .. biodiversity declining .. human population numbers, and average life expectancy increasing
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(biodiversity) is critical to our health and survival
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http://tiki.oneworld.org/sustain/home.html8
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World Population: 0-2011
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http://tiki.oneworld.org/sustain/home.html
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“The advancement of mammoth hunting probably allowed people to survive and spread widely across northernmost Arctic Siberia”
The advancement of mammoth hunting probably allowed people to survive and spread widely across northernmost Arctic Siberia. Pitulko et al. 2016. Science, 351, 260-3.
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Aristotle (died 322 BCE): “lions more numerous in Libya, and in that district of Europe that lies between the Achelous and the Nessus; the leopard is more abundant in Asia Minor, and is not found in Europe at all.”
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Lion of Al-Lat (1900 years old) Palmyra (Syria)destroyed 2015 by ISIS
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http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/05/09/genocide-other-means-us-army-slaughtered-buffalo-plains-indian-wars-30798
Crow Chief Plenty Coups (1848-1932): “[When] the buffalo went away, the hearts of my people fell to the ground.…There
was little singing anywhere.”
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http://all-that-is-interesting.com/american-bison-extinction-1800s
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Long term human health outcome:
Mourning, grief, starvation, forced displacement (for some)
Prosperity, satisfaction, triumph and (probably) gloating (for some)
Remorse, sorrow, regret (for a few) .. Including President Theodore Roosevelt who helps save the bison
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Similarly for the mammoth and European lion
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Old magazine illustration of hunters shooting Passenger Pigeons. Note the density of the flight. (From copy in Schorger, 1955.)
https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Passenger_Pigeon.html21
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“Men still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons; trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a few decades hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.”—Aldo Leopold, “On a Monument to the Pigeon,” 1947
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Long term human health outcome by changing the forest “milieu” with more Lyme disease?
Protein source (eg via pigs) – less competition eg for cherrys
Blockstein (1998): less pigeons, more acorns, more deer, mice & ticks)
LoGiudice et al (2003): dilution hypothesis
“eco-reprogramming”?
human behaviour: “tree-changers” – seeking more contact with nature
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Claude Bernard (1813-1878) milieu and microbe
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Low pathogenicity avian influenza
Highly pathogenic avian influenza
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Forest milieu: bats, pigs, people, viruses
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Pteropus, Tioman Islands, Malaysia
Nipah outbreak Malaysia, Singapore (1999) and its putative
link to the 1997-98 El Niño
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/bodyhorrors/2013/04/30/climatic-ori-nipah-virus/#.Vr7ewubGC9g 27
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http://greenglobaltravel.com/2015/11/08/fires-in-indonesia-palm-oil-killing-orangutans/
Did smoke haze and habitat loss in SE Asia not only dislocate bats but add to Nipah viral “spillover” (in 1998)?
Smoke and smog, 1997Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping
Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite
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NiV
intensive pig farming
human, not via pigsbat (human) survey
EbrV
Flying fox associated viruses, sometimes with pigs and humans in South East and South Asia
Sources: Sendow et al, Breed et al, Drexler et al
human mortality
NiV
TiV
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EBOLA “recipe” (milieu) West Africa – 3 stages
Social, economic, demographic as well as ecological factors for all three stages
1: increased viral load in the reservoir?
2: increased human – virus contact
3. viral “takeoff” in human population
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EbV
EbV
TiV
NiV
TiV
NiV
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Rousettusaegyptiacus:distribution in Africa
Marburg outbreaks
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Hansen et al, 2013
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Eric Gweah, 25, grieves as he watches a Red Cross burial team remove the body of his father, Ofori Gweah, 62, a suspected
Ebola victim (photograph Daniel Berehulak) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141005-ebola-quammen-west-africa-dallas-gates-foundation/ 34
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Palm oil plantations in South America: good habitat for kissing bugs (vector for Chagas Disease)
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What’s wrong with this picture?
New York, December, 201536
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Key message 3
There are thresholds of biodiversity loss – as part a wider syndrome of natural capital loss – which humanity should not risk
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solutions
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Some ivory stockpiles have been destroyed in an attempt to halt the trade 41
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Traditional medicine from rhinos: not only cruel – is there any evidence?
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Strengthen coalitions43
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Global Biodiversity Outlook 3 (2010)
“Other global issues intersect with global sustainable development agenda .. include .. human rights, population and development, women, and social development. Programmes of action and commitments emerging from these highly relevant for sustainable development, & objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity p 246
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Planetary BoundariesA safe operating space
for humanity
Steffen et al, 2015
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CRICOS #00212KNature, 2003
Health in