EVERY time humans cut into the Amazon rainforest or burn or destroy parts of it, they’re making people sick.
It’s an idea Indigenous people have lived by for thousands of years.
Now a new study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment adds to the scientific evidence supporting it, by finding that instances of several diseases were lowered in areas where forest was set aside for Indigenous peoples who maintained it well.
With the United Nations climate summit set for Brazil in November, the study authors and outside experts said the work highlights the stakes for people around the world as negotiators try to address climate change.
Belem, the city hosting the conference, is known as the gateway to the Amazon, and many who will be attending, from activists to delegates, think the role of Indigenous communities in climate action and conservation will be highlighted in a distinct way.
“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, or Fecotyba, in the Peruvian Amazon.
“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.”
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