Call for ‘ecohealth’ approach to tackling climate change

Marco Boscolo in SciDev.net: If researchers are to effectively address the profound challenges that climate change will have on human health, they will have to work across disciplines and with local communities, says a declaration from the 5th Biennial Conference of the International Association For Ecology & Health held last week (11-15 August).

The declaration “is an endorsement and a call to action on climate change”, said Maya Gislason, a member of the conference’s international advisory committee from the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada.

“Ecohealth is a field of research, education and practice that integrates scientific evidence, professional expertise and community experience with a view to improving the health of humans, animals and ecosystems,” the declaration says. “A focus on health — across humans, animals and other species — offers new opportunities to harness synergies across disparate efforts to address climate change.”

It is not the first time a call has been made to break boundaries between disciplines but previously there has been little follow-up action, Jean Lebel, the president of the International Development Research Centre, a Canadian public corporation that supports research in developing nations and which co-organised the conference, told SciDev.Net.

...The declaration says it is intended to push more researchers to address climate change issues through concrete actions such as working directly with communities most affected by climate change, for example, those on small island states....

The alleged location of the Garden of Eden, at the mouth of the Tigris River, from Underwood's "Sacred Books and Literature of the East"