Ecosystem Health: Coming of Age in Professional Curriculum

The evolution of a new paradigm, ecosystem health, began with the coining of the term “ecosystem medicine” in the late 1970 s. From its humble roots, it has matured into a dynamic area of study with concepts relevant to every facet of life. Increasingly, ecosystem health principles are flourishing in professional curricula while its tenets transcend disciplinary boundaries. This article is part of the ongoing process, one in which shared experiences highlight new challenges and opportunities.     

Ecosystem Health in Professional Curriculum: Experience to Date

In order to present a holistic view of defining problems and exploring long-term solutions for health-related issues, several colleges and universities are adopting an ecosystem health approach. While these curricular offerings are varied in nature, a number of common themes appear to be emerging. The case study is the preferred method for introducing the subject matter as this provides immediate relevance to the student studying within a specific discipline but, when carefully designed, promotes systems thinking and allows exploration of a number of features common to all complex systems. These include: interdependence of system components, complexity, uncertainty, and the need for transdisciplinary thinking when analyzing the issues. The articles appearing in this supplement are examples of how this approach has been introduced into a variety of curricula pertaining to human health, animal health, and other related fields.     

Challenges Facing the Adoption of Ecosystem Health as a Core Component in Professional Curricula

While there has been considerable success in introducing ecosystem health into professional curricula at a number of universities, there have been significant challenges to its introduction. There are difficulties relating to pervading attitudes within universities. Ecosystem health deals with uncertainty whereas most other disciplines cherish certainty. Ecosystem health is often considered a “soft science” lacking in specifics. The enormity and complexity of ecosystem health problems are often perceived as discouraging and impossible to solve. The university structure can present challenges in that transdisciplinary problem solving requires the participation of many different departments, with several levels of approval required. There are also challenges in the teaching of ecosystem health given its extremely broad focus, limited experience in ecosystem health curricula, and almost no experience in effective evaluation of a field that emphasizes attitudes as much as it does information. This article describes each of these challenges, draws on the experience of the conference, and provides potential solutions to overcoming these challenges.     

Linking Human and Ecosystem Health: The Benefits of Community Involvement in Conservation Groups

This study explored the health, well-being, and social capital benefits gained by community members who are involved in the management of land for conservation in six rural communities across Victoria. A total of 102 people participated in the study (64 males; 38 females) comprising 51 members of a community-based land management group and 51 controls matched by age and gender. Mixed methods were employed, including the use of an adapted version of Buckner’s (1988) Community Cohesion Scale. The results indicate that involvement in the management of land for conservation may contribute to both the health and well-being of members, and to the social capital of the local community. The members of the land management groups rated their general health higher, reported visiting the doctor less often, felt safer in the local community, and utilized the skills that they have acquired in their lifetime more frequently than the control participants. Male members reported the highest level of general health, and the greatest satisfaction with daily activities. Members also reported a greater sense of belonging to the local community and a greater willingness to work toward improving their community than their control counterparts. Of equal importance is evidence that involvement in voluntary conservation work constitutes a means of building social capital in rural communities which may help reduce some of the negative aspects of rural life.     

Optimal Investment in Multi-species Protection: Interacting Species and Ecosystem Health

This article uses an ecological-economic approach to study optimal investment in multi-species protection when species interact in an ecosystem. The analysis is based on a model of stochastic species extinction in which survival probabilities are interdependent. Individual species protection plans can increase a species survival probability within certain limits and contingent upon the existence or absence of other species. Protection plans are costly and the conservation budget is fixed. It is assumed that human well-being depends solely on the services provided by one particular species, but other species contribute to overall ecosystem functioning and thus influence the first species survival probability. One result is that it may be optimal to invest in the protection of those species that do not directly contribute to human well-being, even if biological conservation decisions are exclusively derived from such a utilitarian framework. Another result is that the rank ordering of spending priorities among different species protection plans, as obtained under the assumption of independent species, may be completely reversed by taking species interaction into account. The conclusion is that effective species protection should go beyond targeting individual species, and consider species relations within whole ecosystems as well as overall ecosystem functioning. Ecosystem health is identified as a necessary prerequisite for successful species protection in situ.     

Ecosystem Approach to Community Health Planning in Ghana

An ecosystem approach to community health seeks to investigate human health concerns from an ecological perspective. The goal is to improve the health of community members by instituting sustainable ecosystem management strategies that will preserve the health of both the ecosystem and its inhabitants. This article reports on a study in a rural community in Ghana that employed an ecosystem approach to community health planning. Adopting a participatory action research approach, a research team comprised of representatives from various local government departments collaborated with local residents to identify major community health problems, their underlying causes, and possible intervention strategies. The findings illustrate the usefulness of the ecosystem approach to mobilizing community-based interventions to addressing environmental determinants of human health.     

Toward a Deuterium Feather Isoscape for Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress,Challenges and the Path Ahead

A key challenge to the application of continent-wide feather isoscapes for geographic assignment of migrant birds is the lack of ground-truthed samples. This is especially true for long-distance Palearctic-Afrotropical migrants. We used spatially-explicit information on the δ²H composition of archived feathers from Green-backed/Grey-backed Camaroptera, to create a feather δ²H isoscape for sub-Saharan Africa. We sampled from 34 out of 41 sub-Saharan countries, totaling 205 sampling localities. Feather samples were obtained from museum collections (n = 224, from 1950 to 2014) for δ²H assay. Region, altitude, annual rainfall and seasonal patterns in precipitation were revealed as relevant explanatory variables for spatial patterns in feather δ²H. Predicted feather δ²H values ranged from -4.0 ‰ to -63.3 ‰, with higher values observed in the Great Rift Valley and South Africa, and lower values in central Africa. Our feather isoscape differed from that modelled previously using a precipitation δ²H isoscape and an assumed feather-to-precipitation calibration, but the relatively low model goodness fit (F_10,213 = 5.98, p<0.001, R² = 0.18) suggests that other, non-controlled variables might be driving observed geographic patterns in feather δ²H values. Additional ground-truthing studies are therefore recommended to improve the accuracy of the African feather δ²H isoscape.     

Dryland Salinity and Ecosystem Distress Syndrome: Human Health Implications

Clearing of native vegetation for agriculture has left 1.047 million hectares of southwest Western Australia affected by dryland salinity, and this area may expand up to a further 1.7–3.4 million hectares if trends continue. Ecosystems in saline-affected regions display many of the classic characteristics of Ecosystem Distress Syndrome, one outcome of which has not yet been investigated in relation to dryland salinity: adverse human health implications. This article seeks to review existing information and identify potential adverse human health effects. Three key potential impacts on human health resulting from dryland salinity are identified: wind-borne dust and respiratory health; altered ecology of the mosquito-borne disease Ross River virus; and mental health consequences of salinity-induced environmental degradation. Given the predicted increase in extent and severity of dryland salinity over coming decades, adverse outcomes of salinity are likely to be further exacerbated, including those related to human health. There is a clear need to investigate the issues discussed in this review and also to identify other potential adverse health effects of dryland salinity. Investigations must be multidisciplinary to sufficiently examine the broad scope of these issues. The relationship between human health and salinity may also be relevant beyond Australia in other countries where secondary soil salinization is occurring.