Well-managed protected areas support healthy ecosystems that in turn support healthy people. When ecosystem health declines, one consequence is increased disease risk for vulnerable people. There are many links between human and wildlife health and ecosystem health. Forest clearings create “edges,” where the interactions among pathogens, vectors and hosts are increased. They also concentrate wildlife populations into smaller patches of habitat, and increase the odds that these animals get in contact with humans and domestic animals. This in turn increases the number of pathogens and parasites jumping from wildlife to people (or their livestock), and/or vice versa. There is now evidence that forest clearing has increased the spread of diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis, avian flu, Ebola and SARS.

Facts:

The 32,000 ha Ruteng Park on the island of Flores in Indonesia protects a critical watershed in the region, for its towns and farms. The park provides timber, fuel wood, clean water and a variety of forest products of regional value. Researchers working with Conservation International’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science found that in communities living near the protected area, there were fewer illnesses from malaria and dysentery, children missed less school because of improved health, and less hunger was associated with crop failure than in communities without intact forests nearby. Villages within the vicinity of intact forest cover also had improved water quality. These benefits of healthy forests within protected areas are not widely known.

Researchers created an economic model of the Amazonian Brazilian economy to examine how investments in conservation such as protected areas would provide quantifiable economic benefits in the form of improved human health. Findings show that the expected costs of new Amazonian protected areas, measured in reduced forestry and agricultural production, are offset by expected benefits in reduced disease incidence. This demonstrates how large-scale investments in conservation also support economic growth by improving human health.

Medicinal plants continue to be an important therapeutic aid for alleviating ailments of humankind. Protected areas are important repositories for medicinal plants, traditional medicines and traditional knowledge, and offer prospects of discovering new drugs.

Local people in the Dolpa district of Nepal depend on over 400 plant species collected from the Shey Phoksundo National Park for traditional health care.

Local communities in Cameroon set up a “Prunus Harvesters Union” to collect bark of the Prunus africana (used in drugs for the treatment of prostate cancer) on the slopes of Mount Cameroon National Park, and tripled their profits in the first year.