Conservation medicine: combining the best of all worlds - Focus

Environmental Health Perspectives, August, 2003 by Bob Weinhold

People outside the traditional educational channels are also being exposed to the idea of conservation medicine. Chivian's team at Harvard annually holds symposia for U.S. congressional staff from across the political spectrum on various conservation medicine issues, reaching about 120-140 people over the past five years.

The Next Wave

Despite the tentative nature of the field, many related efforts are under way. Public health networks are slowly beginning to rebuild following the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001. Improvements in those networks--enhanced communication, better recognition of the need for interdisciplinary work, and increased willingness to share data--were instrumental in the rapid identification of the coronavirus responsible for SARS. U.S. agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the USGS continue to expand their disease and pollution monitoring programs, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is using its satellite equipment to greatly expand knowledge of worldwide pollution circulation patterns [see "MODIS Operandi for Mapping Haze," EHP 111:A458 (2003)].

The United Nations, the World Bank, the World Resources Institute, and other organizations anticipate that their study, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, should add much more knowledge to the field. This study is being conducted by more than 500 natural and social scientists from 70 countries, with results scheduled to be released over two years beginning in September 2003. The assessment will provide what the World Resources Institute called in a 5 June 2003 press release "the most extensive study ever of the linkages between the world's ecosystems and human well-being."

A predecessor to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment known as the Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems was completed in late 2000. But it received little attention, in part because the pilot analysis was developed by a relatively narrow range of participants and did not have wide recognition in the scientific community [see "Where Do We Stand? Global Ecosystem Assessments Ask the Big Question," EHP 109:A588-A592 (2001)]. Organizers of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment have tried to eliminate this problem by involving hundreds of scientists, though there is still a risk that the final reports will gather dust on shelves, especially if the problems appear overwhelming, costs and benefits are unclear or perceived as inaccurately assessed, or remedies require extensive social changes.

Small studies whose researchers may not put themselves under the conservation medicine umbrella are also developing applicable findings. In a study of Israel's heavily polluted Kishon River, researchers reported in the April 2003 issue of EHP that wildlife declines that began in the 1950s, following development of many nearby industries, were a key predictor of subsequent high cancer rates in naval divers who used the waterway extensively in ensuing decades.

As interest in wildlife monitoring grows, new noninvasive techniques are under development to make the job easier and more accurate. In the case of gorillas, Michele Goldsmith, an assistant professor with the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine who has been studying mountain gorillas in Uganda for several years, says such techniques can include fecal analysis to evaluate both diet- and stress-related hormones. Other effective strategies include hair analysis and hiring locals to discreetly track the animals, she says.