Thinking over epidemics and environment

This article, written by Dr. Akhila S. Nair, Asst. Professor, Ambo University, was published by The Ethiopian Herald. To read it on the newspaper's site, Click Here

An awareness campaign against Ebola in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, September 25, 2014.
Obtained from: http://links.org.au/node/4167

Each day unravels before me many reasons why environmental science continues to be interdisciplinary. The branch of science has got strong linkages not only with the natural science, but also with humanities and social sciences. Globalism, eco-writing, environmental laws… there is a long list of instances when there occurs a marriage between environmental science and other schools of knowledge. On the other hand, laws of the land, culture, customs, mindset of the people, new inventions, historic discoveries and technological revolutions – all continue to have due impact on our environment. 

I was just thinking of these in the wake of the current surge of epidemics. Morbidity of living organisms, in short, leads to the morbidity of the environment, too. Epidemics thwart our green dreams. Virtuous life is fostered only when members of a society is healthy and happy. Preaching about environment to a perished society won’t earn desirable results. 

With Ebola outbreak, epidemic has become a hotly debated subject world over. Epidemic means the spread of infectious disease to a large number of people or other livings within short period of time. A disease is called an epidemic if the affected population crosses the expected number of infected people in a particular area.  Ebola, HIV/AIDS, Avian bird flu, Malaria, Cholera, Plague, Meningitis etc are some of the examples. 

Ebola info-graphic obtained from: http://flashpointsurvival.com. 

Connection between epidemic and environment is intertwined. For example, according to World Health Organization, a number of manmade and natural environmental factors including water supply, sanitation facilities, food and climate change influence the chances and spreading of epidemics. In case of diarrheal outbreaks most of the time, improper environmental hygiene is the main curse.  In case of many of such epidemics like Malaria or Ebola, natural hosts or vectors play a major role in their spreading.  Climate change can either favour or suppress the spread of vectors. 

It is a well known truth that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. But isn’t it also a truth that when climate change, fertilizer prize and dire lack of irrigation together take a villains’ role, poor people cannot find any better food than bush meat? Any epidemic outbreak weakens the physical and mental strength of the workforce. When there is no healthy agricultural workforce, there would be a concomitant crop loss and income loss. Consequently, there will be poverty, famine and diseases. 

Epidemics of livestock and poultry have also proved decisive.  November 2014 avian influenza virus attack on ducks in my homeland, Kerala in India, was reported to have brought a loss of over Rs.125 million to farmers. Though the disease outbreak could be successfully controlled due to timely intervention of the authorities, the money lost is lost; the peace of mind gone is gone. Definitely, such times of havoc drain away one’s eco-friendly enthusiasm. The reason should not be different for some countries having high prevalence of HIV/AIDS to lag behind socioeconomic developments. 

For such epidemics like HIV/AIDS, usually the victims come under the young age groups, who constitute not only the main workforce but also the major actors for positive social change, environmental wisdom and so on. When young adults face such catastrophe, there would be consequent turmoil in economy, farming, land use and natural resource management. When life itself is eroding, who would care about soil erosion!  

At the lash of an epidemic, people are thrown to stiff poverty. Naturally, for their minimal sustenance, they start seeking some shortcuts to make money. Thus becoming rampant would be sale and consumption of charcoal, timber, fuel wood and wild fruits duly exploiting their proximate natural resources. 

When society’s establishments fail to provide timely attention, epidemic victims resort to traditional healers, who would tax indigenous plant species in the localities for medicine and income. As the exploitation crosses limits, such plants fall under threatened category. Some studies have even pointed to the increased use of timber for making coffins in most affected localities. Not only that, fake traditional healers could prove detrimental, too. 

Tips to know between flu and Ebola. Obtained from: http://flashpointsurvival.com 

There were certain findings that HIV/AIDS patients think that their lifespan is shorter and hence there is no need for any commitment to the slogan, sustainable development. This underlines the need for social counseling for enhancing optimism among epidemic victims. Another finding is that premature deaths due to epidemics have stopped transfer of certain traditional knowledge about sustainable management of natural resources. 

Thus the issue is complex. When epidemics further mar the lives of the poor, how could they be eco-prudent? One thing is clear: wide gap exists in unraveling the intricate connections between epidemics, natural environment and its resources. But let’s not step an inch back in our struggle for the wellbeing of the environment to assure the wellbeing of its members; and vice versa. 

- Dr. Akhila S. Nair

When environment becomes literally sacred

This article, written by Dr. Akhila S. Nair was published in The Ethiopian Herald of 11th January. To read it there, Click Here.

Being an environmentalist, I was always attracted by one of the social theories about origin of religions – the one which proclaims that religions originated along with the origin of ‘totems’ among aborigines. Early men revered plants, animals and natural elements as their group’s strength and protector. This led to their groping according to the plant, animal or the natural element that they worshiped. Such groups are called ‘totemic groups’ and the plant, animal or natural element is called ‘totem’. 

Social scientists have noted that the cardinal characteristic of religions is that they divide everything into sacred and profane. Sacred belonged to the divine and the profane, for our mundane life. Consequently everything that belonged to the sacred category was segregated from the profane. Thus evolved were sacred animals, sacred mountains and sacred plants. Such symbols are aplenty among religions. Hinduism, for example, has got many such symbols in its belief system. Christianity and Islam are not different. 

An impressive consequence of such sacred-profane divide was the evolution of sacred groves. Sacred groves are holy sites with rich biodiversity and traditional beliefs. Since sacred and holy, such green consortiums remain protected and preserved without anyone instructing anyone to do so. That means conservation of sacred groves easily becomes the community’s need than any environmentalist’s cry. 

Sacred groves can be part of a worship place or divine monument. They symbolize man’s gratitude to the Mother Earth for the opulent resources she has provided. They serve to be undisturbed asylums for many unknown plant and animal species. Sacred groves are rich with diverse medicinal plants, indigenous flora and fauna. Religions impose social taboos which become socially imposed restrictions. Hence the protection of sacred groves becomes the natural obligation of concerned religion’s members. Different religions along India, Japan, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Ethiopia and Kenya have this culture of nurturing sacred groves. 

In Ethiopia

Sacred groves get their Ethiopian manifestation majorly in the form of church forests. Church forests in Ethiopia are usually small land areas considered as saintly by the local population with a church at the centre. They are endowed with diverse types of indigenous plants, animals, birds and microorganisms.  Hills along northern, southern and central Ethiopia are usually spotted with a monastery or church having in its surroundings, remnants of thick forests of the past.  Studies have identified more than 35000 church forests in the country, with their sizes ranging from 1 acre to 300 hectares. 

Photos above show the sacred forest treasure of island monasteries at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The lake has more than 20 islands housing monasteries. Each monastery is surrounded by thick vegetation which usually people keep away from considering their sacred value. Photo: SIVAKUMAR K.P.

Some of these forests date back even up to fourth century and remain to be glaring relics of the age-old Afromotane forests.   Local people try to protect them because of religious and cultural beliefs. For example, one of the beliefs is that the church forests of Ethiopia are representations of the Garden of Eden demanding our love and care.  Ultimately, due to such faiths, chances of exploitation become minimized. 

If you search for the first indigenous initiative in Ethiopia to safeguard biodiversity, your query would end at the country’s church forests. Ethiopian sacred landscapes include mountains, water bodies and graveyards which are abode for various species of plants ranging from herbs to shrubs and trees. Such localities are also gene pools of diverse, rare indigenous species. Native sacred forests are also sources of germplasm. They remain to be efficient indicator sites of the original ecological landscape, providing excellent gateway to the study and practice of in situ forest conservation and ecological restoration. 

This author could go through a worthy case study of 2009 from Southwestern Ethiopia about the biocultural diversity of sacred sites. It shows that the biodiversity contained in small sacred forest patches of Gamo highlands could successfully withstand a prolific agricultural encroachment and illegal logging, only because it was ‘sacred’.  

Challenges

As the country is surging fast through development in diverse arenas, the pressure on the sacred groves are also furthering. Researchers have reported that because of the population growth, urbanization, insufficient implementation of land use policies, social inequality and poor monitoring of post development activities, there has been an enhancement in the exploitation of sacred sites of the country. 

Many salient features including the medicinal plant diversity of native sacred forests are yet to be studied. In Ethiopia, people depend on many indigenous medicinal plants for human health care and for veterinary purpose. Still, cultivation of medicinal plants is not yet popular. Instead, practitioners and their patients usually resort to many wild varieties of medicinal plants both in natural and sacred forests of their proximity.  

In their 2013 study, Catherine and co-researchers reported that in northern part of Ethiopia, the sacred groves were surrounded by deforested, agricultural and grazing lands.  Most of the groves had no clear fencing. Worshipers, disciples, church leaders, and grazing animals enter and leave the forests throughout the day. Many church forests were cleared and converted to coffee plantations. 

Sacred forests of Ethiopia constitute a strong link between the faith and the conservation practices. Saving sacred forests means saving precious repositories of rare, indigenous biodiversity. Since religion as a social reality could set right norms, the process of conservation becomes automatically community initiatives. Since most of the country’s population is strictly religious, church forests can easily well ingrain the ideal of environmental conservation among the worshipers. Let’s be more proactive towards our church forests and other sacred natural assets.  

- Dr. Akhila S. Nair, Asst. Professor in Environmental Science Programme, Ambo University.