Indigenous territories protect human health, study finds

Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have researchers begun to fill in this knowledge gap and investigate how the protection of these areas can provide health benefits as well as ecosystem services. Now, a new paper analyzing the relationship between Indigenous territories and the occurrence of 21 diseases in the Amazon biome over 20 years, published in Nature Portfolio's Communications Earth & Environment, suggests that healthy forests on protected Indigenous territories can help reduce disease incidence and risks to human health. Study lead author Júlia Rodrigues Barreto, a postdoctoral researcher at USP - Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil, and her colleagues looked at how Indigenous territories, depending on their legal status and landscape characteristics, could influence the incidence of fire-related illnesses, as well as vector-borne and zoonotic diseases — those transmitted by insect bites or passed on from animals. While the findings are complex, they show that municipalities that host legally protected Indigenous lands could have a lower risk of illness. The extent of forest cover plays a key part in this. Researchers found that to effectively reduce the risk of vector-borne or zoonotic diseases, Indigenous territories need to be located in a municipality with at least 40% forest cover. For fire-related diseases, Indigenous territories can help mitigate the impacts of fine particulate matter in municipalities where the forest cover is higher, more than 45%. The quality of the forest is important, Barreto said, with a fragmented forest being less effective at shielding the human population from health risks. Deforestation fragments forests into smaller patches and expands forest edges, transition areas between forested and nonforested ecosystems; these can bring people into closer contact with wildlife, increasing the risk of diseases spreading. “When we deforest too much or fragment areas of native vegetation outside of these territories, this leads to an increase in illnesses,” said study co-author Paula Prist, senior program coordinator for forests and grasslands at the IUCN. https://lnkd.in/e7yfx8Cv

Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have researchers begun to fill in this knowledge gap and investigate how the protection of these areas can provide health benefits as well as ecosystem services. Now, a new paper analyzing the relationship between Indigenous territories and the occurrence of 21 diseases in the Amazon biome over 20 years, published in Nature Portfolio's Communications Earth & Environment, suggests that healthy forests on protected Indigenous territories can help reduce disease incidence and risks to human health. Study lead author Júlia Rodrigues Barreto, a postdoctoral researcher at USP - Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil, and her colleagues looked at how Indigenous territories, depending on their legal status and landscape characteristics, could influence the incidence of fire-related illnesses, as well as vector-borne and zoonotic diseases — those transmitted by insect bites or passed on from animals. While the findings are complex, they show that municipalities that host legally protected Indigenous lands could have a lower risk of illness. The quality of the forest is important, Barreto said, with a fragmented forest being less effective at shielding the human population from health risks. Deforestation fragments forests into smaller patches and expands forest edges, transition areas between forested and nonforested ecosystems; these can bring people into closer contact with wildlife, increasing the risk of diseases spreading. “When we deforest too much or fragment areas of native vegetation outside of these territories, this leads to an increase in illnesses,” said study co-author Paula Prist, senior program coordinator for forests and grasslands at the IUCN. Between 1985 and 2020, 74.6 million hectares (184 million acres) of native vegetation were cleared across the Amazon, equivalent to 9.6% of the rainforest’s total area, according to MapBiomas, a multidisciplinary mapping initiative. But most deforestation takes place outside of Indigenous lands. Over the same period, Indigenous territories in the Amazon lost 2.9 million hectares (7.2 million acres) of native vegetation, or 1.2% of their total area. https://lnkd.in/e7yfx8Cv

Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have researchers begun to fill in this knowledge gap and investigate how the protection of these areas can provide health benefits as well as ecosystem services. Now, a new paper analyzing the relationship between Indigenous territories and the occurrence of 21 diseases in the Amazon biome over 20 years, published in Nature Portfolio's Communications Earth & Environment, suggests that healthy forests on protected Indigenous territories can help reduce disease incidence and risks to human health. Study lead author Júlia Rodrigues Barreto, a postdoctoral researcher at USP - Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil, and her colleagues looked at how Indigenous territories, depending on their legal status and landscape characteristics, could influence the incidence of fire-related illnesses, as well as vector-borne and zoonotic diseases — those transmitted by insect bites or passed on from animals. While the findings are complex, they show that municipalities that host legally protected Indigenous lands could have a lower risk of illness. The study’s data set doesn’t allow for comprehensive analysis of the overall evolution of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, said study co-author Paula Prist, senior program coordinator for forests and grasslands at the IUCN, the global nature conservation authority. But broadly, these illnesses have increased since monitoring began, and deforestation has played a big role in their rise. Clearing trees alters local biodiversity to the benefit of stronger species that can transmit pathogens that are harmful to humans. Deforested areas are also more likely to have a greater human presence, leading to a higher outbreak risk. Most deforestation takes place outside of Indigenous lands. Between 1985 and 2020, Indigenous territories in the Amazon lost 2.9 million hectares (7.2 million acres) of native vegetation, or 1.2% of their total area, according to MapBiomas. The situation is similar with forest fires. More than 50 million hectares (124 million acres) of the Amazon Rainforest burned between 2001 and 2019, according to data used by the study. Nearly 90% of the fires occurred outside of Indigenous territories. “When we start to understand that Indigenous territories have better conservation results than normal protected areas, then we start to create the hypothesis that they can also be very good to maintain or restore these [ecosystem] services for human health,” Prist told Mongabay. https://lnkd.in/e7yfx8Cv

Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have researchers begun to fill in this knowledge gap and investigate how the protection of these areas can provide health benefits as well as ecosystem services. Now, a new paper analyzing the relationship between Indigenous territories and the occurrence of 21 diseases in the Amazon biome over 20 years, published in Nature Portfolio's Communications Earth & Environment, suggests that healthy forests on protected Indigenous territories can help reduce disease incidence and risks to human health. “Indigenous forests act as a sort of shield for health,” said study lead author Júlia Rodrigues Barreto, a postdoctoral researcher at USP - Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil. The study is the first of its kind to look at all nine Amazonian countries. Its main contribution, according to Barreto, is to convey the importance of guaranteeing land rights for Indigenous peoples across the Amazon. Barreto and her colleagues looked at how Indigenous territories, depending on their legal status and landscape characteristics, could influence the incidence of fire-related illnesses, as well as vector-borne and zoonotic diseases — those transmitted by insect bites or passed on from animals. Previous research has found that protecting Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon could help avoid 15 million cases of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases every year, saving around $2 billion in health costs. Researchers analyzed the data against records of fires and smoke pollution; forest cover and fragmentation between 2001 and 2019; and boundaries of Indigenous territories, both legally protected and unrecognized as of 2023. While the findings are complex, they show that municipalities that host legally protected Indigenous lands could have a lower risk of illness. https://lnkd.in/e7yfx8Cv

We are thrilled to share that Motion 075 — Urgent scaling up of investment in amphibian conservation to prevent further extinctions — was recently approved through the online voting process of the IUCN World Conservation Congress. This milestone reflects years of collaborative work by the amphibian conservation community, and ASA is proud to have actively contributed to its development and advocacy. The Motion recognizes the urgency of the amphibian crisis (with 41% of species threatened) and calls for governments, donors, and the scientific community to: ✅ Scale up long-term country-level investment in the assess-plan-act framework. ✅ Prioritize protection of amphibian Key Biodiversity Areas and Threatened Amphibian Landscapes. ✅ Strengthen biosecure captive breeding, biobanking, and head-starting programs. ✅ Tackle disease, climate change, invasive species, and unsustainable trade through coordinated global action. ✅ Secure sustainable funding to implement the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan and complete the third Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA3) by 2028. This approval is a turning point. It elevates amphibians to the global biodiversity agenda and provides a clear mandate for governments, NGOs, and donors to work together to halt extinctions. ASA will continue to lead and coordinate efforts with our partners to ensure the commitments of this Motion are translated into tangible outcomes for amphibians worldwide. #WCC2025 #IUCNAbuDhabi #Amphibians #ExtinctionPrevention #GlobalBiodiversityFramework #ConservationImpact #Partnerships

What if your company could turn biodiversity ambition into measurable contribution and risk management - starting today? For companies working globally and/or in sites of global biodiversity value. This is the IUCN RHINO approach, freshly published! Not 🦏 but Rapid High-Integrity Nature positive Outcomes 😅. At this stage, relating to the STARt metric, which captures the extinction risk faced by endangered species. From my perspective, the pros: - Based on ground-truthed data, e.g. on field surveys undertaken to monitor species. - Focusing on threats faced by species, which unlocks co-benefits with other companies’ policies. - Requiring multi-Stakeholder engagement: share resources and enhance credibility. - Scalable, can be applied at any spatial scale, as long as the area is of international value. - Aligned with the TNFD LEAP approach, which is now the voluntary standard for assessing the nature-related risks and opportunities. - Quantitative targets, comparable at the global scale as soon as you use the same Red List. See below an elevator pitch for convincing your head of 💴💵💶💷 The points to develop further: - Low frequency of update of the IUCN Red List. Anyway, it takes at least two years for species to adapt their population. - Several steps. Ok, more complex to manage but also more secure about the integrity of the outcomes. - Not on all taxa, currently limited to birds, mammals, amphibians. Doesn’t matter so much because it covers already most continental ecosystem types, except for part of the freshwater ones.   Website with all the documentation: https://lnkd.in/e4dzm72c 👏🏼 to all the IUCN and IUCN Business and Nature staff (esp. all people working with Florence Curet Martin Sneary Nicholas Macfarlane and Frank Hawkins). More info about the people to award: https://lnkd.in/erf52vbP With 💡 and 💚 from BioPerf.biz #IUCNRedList #NaturePositive #Biodiversity #Sustainability

It’s been very encouraging to see the health sector making ever-stronger connections to climate change, which includes recognizing the health impacts of heat, air pollution, and extreme weather. This piece, co-authored by my WCS colleague Christian Walzer, makes the equally important case that biodiversity loss can have profound impacts on human health, and calls for treating biodiversity loss and climate change as a single, indivisible global health emergency. “For health professionals, this means that safeguarding biodiversity is not simply an environmental concern but a foundational element of preventive and clinical care.” Wildlife Conservation Society Canada | Wildlife Conservation Society | Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE)

“The biodiversity crisis is so traumatic that we do need new tools.” In a new article for Nature, Mariana Lenharo speaks with Dr Piero Genovesi, ISPRA, and Dr Dickson Lwetoijera, Ifakara Health Institute, and explores the implications of a potential IUCN moratorium on #synthetic biology and what this would mean for #conservation and #health. Read more ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ex2A4Bbj #IUCNCongress

Without forward-looking models, biodiversity policy risks missing the road to recovery. Our new PNAS article calls for predictive tools and a World Biodiversity Research Programme to guide global action. 👉 https://lnkd.in/erdwvs5m #Biodiversity #Conservation #PredictiveModels #PNAS https://lnkd.in/eEJrpZNp