Well-preserved Amazon rainforest on Indigenous lands can protect people from diseases, study finds
Whenever humans were in the Amazon forest or burn or destroy parts, they make people sick.
It is an idea that indigenous peoples have lived for thousands of years. Now a new study in the journal Communications Earth & The environment adds to the scientific evidence that supports it, noting that the cases of several diseases have been lowered in the areas where the forest has been reserved for the indigenous peoples which maintained it.
With the United Nations Climate for Brazil in November, study authors and external experts said that work highlights the challenges of people around the world while negotiators are trying to treat climate change. Belem, the city organizing the conference, is known as the Amazon gateway, and many of those who participate, from activists to delegates, think that the role of indigenous communities in climate action and conservation will be highlighted in a distinct way.
“The ‘Forest Man’ or ‘Man Forest’, according to the native perspective, has always been linked to reciprocity between human health and the natural environment in which we live,” said Francisco Hernández Cayetano, president of the Ticuna Federation and the Yagua communities of the lower Amazon, or Fecotyba, in the Peruvian Amazon. “If each state does not guarantee the rights and territories of indigenous peoples, we will inevitably harm their health, their life and the ecosystem itself.”
This prejudice may resemble respiratory diseases such as asthma caused by toxic air pollution after fires, or diseases that propagate animals to humans such as malaria, said that Paula Prist, senior program coordinator for the unity of forests and grasspots at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and one of the authors of the study.
The researchers have compiled and analyzed data on the quality of forests, legal recognition of indigenous territory and the incidence of diseases in countries that frow and include Amazon.
The work was “impressive” for the health of the University of Washington and the climate, Kristie Ebi. She said it highlighted the complexity of the factors that affect human health and the importance of understanding the role that indigenous communities play in shaping. “Using these methods, others could study other parts of the world,” she said.
Researchers have found creative means of taking into account other variables that can affect the spread of diseases, such as access to health care in a given area, said Magdalena Hurtado, health professor in anthropology and global health at Arizona State University and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences which was not involved in the study. But it expressed its concern that the results were presented with precision which cannot be justified, since they were based on correlation and to use data on observations which can be difficult to measure.
“They claim that the indigenous territories only protect health when the forest cover is more than 40%. And to make it like 40%? Why not 35? Or why not a range? ” She asked. “This does not mean that the study is wrong, but it means that we must be cautious because the models could change if different and more precise methods were used.”
However, she thinks that it is a starting point that could open the door to future research. “They actually do something very beautiful,” the legal recognition of indigenous lands on human health, “she said.
Hernández, from Fecotyba, said that it was important for world decision -makers who come to Brazil.
“From my native point of view, I think that this type of study would make our ancestral knowledge more visible and precise,” he said.
There is a strong evidence showing that the indigenous land mandate helps maintain intact forests, but the document shows that it is important to maintain forests outside the native zones, said James MacCarthy, a Forest Fire Research Manager with the Watch of Watch of Forest of the World Institute of Resources which has worked on a new report on extreme fires and the role of native communities approach, and which were not involved for the study.
Pist said that the objective of the study was to understand how the landscapes can be healthy for people, but that it would be naive to suggest that all forest landscapes remain exactly as they are, in particular with the land needs of agriculture and farming production.
The world needs landscapes that provide economic services, but also services that protect people’s health, she said.
For Julia Barreto, an environmentalist and scientist of the data that also worked on the study, she stood out to be part of a team of scientists from different nations working to make information accessible publicly and draw attention to the Amazon.
“It is not only a country, and the whole world depends on it in one way or another,” she said.
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The writer of Associated Press, Steven Grattan, contributed to this report from Bogota, Colombia.
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Follow Melina Walling on X @Melinawalling and Bluesky @ melinawalling.bsky.social.
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