Indigenous Warning on Amazon Now Has Science to Back It Up

There's an idea that Indigenous people have lived by for thousands of years: Every time humans cut into the Amazon rainforest or burn or destroy parts of it, they're making people sick. Now, a new study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment adds to the scientific evidence supporting that concept, by finding that instances of several diseases were lowered in areas where forest was set aside for Indigenous peoples who maintained it well, per the AP. To arrive at their findings, researchers compiled and analyzed data on forest quality, legal recognition of Indigenous territory, and disease incidence in the countries that border and include the Amazon.

"The 'forest man' or 'man forest,' according to the Indigenous perspective, has always been linked to the reciprocity between human health and the natural environment where one lives," said Francisco Hernandez Cayetano, president of the Federation of Ticuna and Yagua Communities of the Lower Amazon in the Peruvian Amazon. He added: "If each state does not guarantee the rights and territories of Indigenous peoples, we would inevitably be harming their health, their lives, and the ecosystem itself."

That harm can look like respiratory diseases such as asthma, caused by toxic air pollution after fires, or illnesses that spread from animals to humans such as malaria, according to study author Paula Prist, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There's a strong body of evidence showing that Indigenous land tenure helps maintain intact forests, but the paper shows it's important to maintain forest outside of Indigenous-stewarded areas as well, said James MacCarthy of the World Resources Institute, who wasn't involved with the study.

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Prist said the goal of the research was to understand how landscapes can be healthy for people, but that it would be naive to suggest that all forest landscapes stay exactly as they are, especially with the land needs of farming and livestock production. The world needs landscapes that provide economic services, but also services that protect people's health, she said. For Julia Barreto, an ecologist and data scientist who worked on the study, it stood out to be part of a team of scientists from different nations working to make information publicly accessible and to bring attention to the Amazon. "It is not only one country, and the whole world is depending on it somehow," she said. More here.