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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Wildlife Trust Announces Publication of "Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice" Seminal Text of New Field |
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PALISADES, NEW YORK, Oct. 1 -/E-Wire/-- Wildlife Trust today announced the publication of "Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice," the seminal text of an emerging, transdisciplinary scientific field focusing on links between animal, human, and ecosystem health, such as in AIDS, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease.
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The field of Conservation Medicine has been pioneered by Wildlife Trust, a conservation science organization that partners with local conservation leaders around the world to save endangered species and their habitats (www.wildlifetrust.org).
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The publication of "Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice" is a landmark step in defining the parameters of this new field. It examines ecological health issues from various standpoints, including the emergence and resurgence of infectious diseases; the increasing biological effects of toxic chemicals; and the health implications of ecological alterations, such as habitat fragmentation, loss of biodiversity, and global climate and atmospheric changes.
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"Health connects all species on the planet," explains Dr. Alonso Aguirre, Wildlife Trust's Director for Conservation Medicine and principal editor of the book. "With an ever-increasing human population driving environmental degradation, the ecology of the earth is experiencing dramatic changes, manifested by novel and potentially catastrophic health consequences."
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For example, in late 1999, hundreds of people were suddenly struck by Nipah virus, a newly-identified disease that emerged from the Malaysian rain forest. Forty percent died. Researchers determined that the disease was spread to humans from pigs, who in turn had acquired it from fruit bats. One hypothesis originates with the slash-and-burn clearing of the Indonesian rain forest. After an unusually dry rainy season attributed to an El Niño weather pattern, forest fires raged out of control, producing a heavy smoke haze over the region. This dropped the fruit production of forest trees, which then caused hungry fruit bats to migrate elsewhere in search of food. Many were attracted to pig farms, which often include stands of fruit-bearing trees.
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"The environmental causes of health problems are complex, global and poorly understood," says Dr. Mary Pearl, Wildlife Trust's Executive Director and an editor of the book. "Traditional approaches to the development of ecological health strategies offer simplistic and incomplete solutions to increasingly complex challenges. Wildlife scientists have ignored the role of diseases that impact and move among populations of people and other animals," she said. The field of Conservation Medicine is solution-oriented—it offers a new "toolbox" to understand the underlying causes driving these problems. What's new is the integrative approach that includes microbiologists, pathologists, doctors, public health professionals, veterinarians, landscape analysts, wildlife and marine biologists, toxicologists, and epidemiologists, among others.
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In 1997, Wildlife Trust Executive Director Dr. Mary Pearl co-founded the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, a unique collaborative effort that now includes Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, and Wildlife Trust (www.conservationmedicine.org.) An international conference at the White Oak Plantation in Florida in 1999 brought together a broad spectrum of scientists and practitioners in the health and environmental fields. The meeting forged links between scientific communities that focus on climate change, pollution, emerging infectious diseases, conservation biology, and ecosystem health and provided the intellectual framework to establish this new discipline. Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice is an outcome of this seminal conference.
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"Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice" not only examines the problems, but describes potential solutions as well. It is intended to be the standard reference for physicians, veterinarians, public health officials, scientists, and students of conservation biology and ecology who are interested in the field of Conservation Medicine.
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"CONSERVATION MEDICINE: Ecological Health in Practice" Edited by A. Alonso Aguirre, Wildlife Trust, Richard S. Ostfeld, Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Gary M. Tabor, Wilburforce Foundation, Carol House, USDA Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab, and Mary C. Pearl, Wildlife Trust. Oxford University Press. (http://www.oup-usa.org/isbn/0195150937.html)
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/SOURCE:
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Wildlife Trust |
-0-
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10-01-2002 |
/CONTACT:
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Florence Swanstrom,
Communications Officer,
Wildlife Trust,
845 365-8455,
Swanstrom@wildlifetrust.org, |
| /WEB SITE: |
http://http://www.wildlifetrust.org
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