Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jacob Islary*
Abstract: Human beings depend on the forest ecosystem besides other needs for health care and wellbeing. However the
structural changes that have taken place in the past centuries especially in the forest ecosystem due to human interventions guided
by capitalistic and anthropocentric approach to development have negatively affected quality of life - including health; not only
by depletion and loss of medicinal plants and organism but also loss of diet and nutrition from the ecosystem, loss of indigenous
health knowledge and overall ecological imbalance which is posing great risk to safety and security of human. The study attempts
to analyse the effects of forest ecosystem degradation on human health from literature in the areas of environmental health,
ecology and environment study. The study though articulates the relationship between forest ecosystem degradation and negative
health effects, however has not been able to statistically establish this relationship as there are gaps within the existing literature
and methodology and suggests for a development and application of a methodology of study to capture and fill this gap and
contribute towards formulation and planning of policies and programmes that address this concern of relationship between forest
ecosystem degradation and human health.
Key Terms: health, forest structural changes, medicinal plants, indigenous health knowledge.
*Jacob Islary is an Assistant Professor of Social Work, Assam Don Bosco University, Guwahati and can be contacted
at jislary@gmail.com
Introduction
Hippocrates around 400 BCE wrote about the natural
environment as being an important determinant of
human health in his work titled On Airs, Waters and
Places, a view if not denied acknowledged only till
recently. The study of environmental health in the past
century has been focusing on the aspect of quantitative
exposure to toxins influenced largely by the risk of
toxification of the natural environment caused by
industrialization accompanied by disasters, accidents,
spills and leakages in various industries including
transportation; while the structural changes of the
natural
environment
caused by unscrupulous
exploitation of the environment often led by capitalistic
and anthropocentric approach to development has
been neglected and if not considered to be of little
interest. The exploitation of the natural environment is
expected to increase with the ever increasing global
population which has crossed record high of 7 billion
people.
Human beings though nomadic by origin with passage of
time began to adopt sedimentary life style. And though
evidence show that the cradle of ancient human
civilizations was not a primeval forests as there were
not taken place). From the maps it can be seen that there
is a drastic difference in the area of forest coverage left
on the earth from what it was at the beginning of human
intervention till now (ibid: 13). Of the worlds total area
of 3454 million hectares of forest area which equals to
2.
3.
4.
Percentage [in
health care]
18.9
20
4.4
7.7
10
6.1
9.5
16.6
15.5
11.8
17.1
12.5
Philippines
8931
850
Sri Lanka
3314
550
Thailand
11625
1800
USA
21641
2564
Viet Nam
10500
1800
Average
13366
1700
World*
422000
52885
Number of Plant Species used as Medicines. Source: FAO, (no date of
publication) as adapted from Duke and Ayensu (1985); Govaerts (2001);
Groombridge and Jenkins (1994, 2002); Jain and DeFillipps (1991); Moerman
(1996); Padua et al. (1999)
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4586e/y4586e08.htm#TopOfPage.
* Shows the plant species at the global level and not total of the countries above.
Indians of Northwest
Amazonia use over 1,300 plant
species as medicines.
Worldwide over 3,000 different
species are used by indigenous
peoples to control fertility.
120 pure chemical substances used
in medicine are derived from less
than 90 higher plant species. Less than 1% of 250,000
Economic:
Technological:
Cultural:
Forest Ecosystem
Forest ecosystem carries along with it the elements of
forest covers, and forests resources along with all other
organisms that depend on it and contribute towards its
sustenance. The state of harmonious relationship and
dynamic equilibrium between different components
(biotic and abiotic) in the environment is known as
ecological balance. The structural change in the forest
ecosystem caused by deforestation and forest
degradation brings about
Health Outcomes
Forest Ecosystem
Safety Nets
Social
Health
Political
Outcomes
Economic
Technological
Cultural
Forest cover
Forest resources
Ecological
balance
Climate control
Indigenous
knowledge
Safety nets
Safety nets are those services or insulating layers that
safeguard an individual or the population against adverse
effects of unforeseen circumstances. With regard to
health outcomes safety nets could be broadly categorised
into social, political, economic, technological and
cultural.
Social:
Political:
Concluding remarks
There is an undeniable relationship between forest
ecosystem and human health as forest ecosystem
degeneration has not caused only loss of wild life but
also medicinal plants, food and nutrition from the
ecosystem and loss of indigenous health knowledge. To
reduce and resolve this concern human need to change
the capitalistic and anthropocentric approach to
development. While there is no denial on the
relationship between degradation of forest ecosystem
and health effects it is to some extend difficult to
establish a clear statistical relationship between the two.
There is a need therefore of a development and
application of a methodology which will be able to
capture this relationship.
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