An old article, but good explainer of the links between disease & how we treat nature. Understanding #ecosystemservices can help us understand how to take better care of nature & reduce risks #onehealth nytimes.com/2012/07/15/sun…
Here's some science behind this idea. ‘Disservices’ describes negative ways that nature affects us, eg disease. Term is meant to be opposite of #ecosystemservices, but it’s not a dichotomy (lots of issues with the term & how it’s used, paper forthcoming) conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
We need to address damages from nature, but we can’t do so effectively without sound evidence on the balance of costs and benefits in the relevant system. This is especially important with pathogen spread onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
Same applies in agricultural systems. There is no simple ‘bad’ or ‘good’ when we talk about #ecosystemservices & disservices. One species can have both effects, depending on the time and space context. Even bees can be pests sometimes! link.springer.com/article/10.100…
We know that how we manage & disturb biodiversity and ecosystems affects the risks and rates of pathogen spread, but there is still much more we need to understand about how these effects vary in space and time onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
For example, this study highlights how sustaining larger, more intact forest patches can 'dilute' the effect of ticks that spread disease to livestock & humans bmcecol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…
It's easy to believe that living close to nature = more exposed to dangerous things. This is why we remove biodiversity from our homes & farms. But most evidence shows that high biodiversity can be more effective at protecting humans from diseases esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
This is how #ecosystemservices approaches can help. It helps us approach environmental problems by enhancing the benefits nature provides, rather than trying to eliminate the ‘bad’. This approach can be more effective at delivering win-win solutions esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.18…
