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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Logging
May Help Spread Disease
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest
Conservation Archives & Portal
09/23/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
Given
obvious and significant changes in ecosystem, community and
species
composition and dynamics; it should come as no surprise that
commercial
logging also causes major negative perturbations at the
microscopic
scale of viruses and bacteria. A new
study by the highly
reputable
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health indicates that "the
Ebola
virus, monkeypox and possibly even HIV, which causes AIDS, are
among
the tropical diseases aided by the growing logging industry."
Forest
hunting and current tropical logging practices appear to play
a
central role in the emergence of new and devastating diseases. Add
increased
risk of global plagues to the industrial logging industry's
hall of
shame roster that includes global ecosystem decline, mass
extinction,
climate change and local cultural devastation.
These and
multitudes
of other reasons lead us--all fair and ecologically minded
World
citizens--to demand that the global community halt predatory
logging
practices in the World's remaining ancient forests. Our
survival
definitively depends upon it. It is the
responsibility of
governments
and all Earth citizens to end the scourge of industrial
clearing
of habitats.
g.b.
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ITEM #1
Title: Logging Companies Play Major Role in the
Emergence and Spread
of New Diseases
Source: U.S. Newswire
Date: September 20, 2000
Contact:
Kathy Moore or Ming Tai, 410-955-6878 of Johns Hopkins
School
of Public Health, Email: paffairs@jhsph.edu
BALTIMORE,
Sept. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A recent study by researchers
at the
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health that examined the
factors
causing humans to become infected by novel pathogens, has
found
that the intersection of forest hunting and current tropical
logging
practices may play a central role in the emergence of new
diseases.
The study appears in the inaugural issue of Global Change
and
Human Health.
"Diseases
have always passed from wild animals to human hunters, but
dramatic
increases in tropical logging, complete with new trucks and
access
roads, have allowed local disease outbreaks to have
potentially
global consequences," said Nathan Wolfe, ScD, Cameroon
Country
Director, Program in Ecology and Health, Johns Hopkins School
of
Public Health.
An
international team of scientists led by Dr. Wolfe found that the
hunting
and butchering of wild animals, particularly monkeys and
apes,
provides an important mechanism for the cross-species
transmission
of novel diseases such as Ebola, monkeypox, and possibly
HIV.
When combined with the transportation infrastructure provided by
logging
companies operating in tropical ecosystems, isolated
outbreaks
resulting from the hunting and butchering of wild animals
have a
new potential for global spread. Other activities discussed by
the
authors, such as ecotourism, veterinary research, and exotic pet
ownership
may also play a role.
"Modern
industrialized societies are characterized by high population
density,
substantial geographic mobility, and close contact with
large
numbers of other humans," said Donald S. Burke, MD, Director,
Center
for Immunization Research, Johns Hopkins School of Public
Health,
the corresponding author of the article. "The connection of
these
societies to traditionally isolated rural hunting cultures,
which
have been greatly facilitated by modern logging, provide an
ideal
recipe for microbial emergence." The study is the first to
examine
the connection between modern logging, hunting practices, and
the
emergence of infectious diseases. Ultimately, the researchers
hope
that continued work in this field will lead to the ability to
predict
and control the emergence of diseases and to prevent new
pathogens
from making their way into the human population.
This
study was supported in part by the National Institutes of
Health's
Fogarty International Center and the Henry M. Jackson
Foundation.
ITEM #2
Title: Logging May Help Spread Disease
Source: HealthSCOUT
Date: September 22, 2000
By: Adam Marcus, HealthSCOUT Reporter
FRIDAY,
Sept. 22 (HealthSCOUT) -- Covet that coffee table made of the
finest
African hardwood? Would you still want it if you knew that
logging
may fuel the spread of emerging diseases?
Logging
routes that penetrate deep into previously uncharted forests
offer
new viruses and bacteria an open channel to vulnerable hosts --
from
nearby town and city dwellers to, with the aid of air travel,
distant
nations, claims a new study by Maryland researchers.
The
Ebola virus, monkeypox and possibly even HIV, which causes AIDS,
are
among the tropical diseases aided by the growing logging
industry,
the study says.
Hunting
of non-human primates, like monkeys and apes, plays the
biggest
role in helping these infections skip from the jungle to
people,
the researchers say, but they argue that logging has become
an
important factor. Results of the study appear in the first issue
of
Global Change & Human Health.
Nathan
Wolfe, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of
Public
Health and lead author of the report, says people always have
hunted
and butchered wild game, contracting diseases in the process.
But in
the past, Wolfe says, these infections tended to die out in
the
isolated villages where they appeared
Now,
however, modern logging practices connect the hinterlands with
cities,
giving rural hunters a broader market for their meat and
shuttling
it in bulk to these new customers.
"It's
giving an incentive for hunters to hunt more than they did in
the
past, and allowing the diseases to spread to places, with the
potential
to spread" even farther, Wolfe says.
Countries
in Central Africa are particularly well suited for emerging
infections,
says Wolfe, who specializes in Cameroon and spends about
10
months a year there. That country has a wide variety of primate
species
closely related to humans, a roster of potentially harmful
microbes
that is extremely diverse and plenty of opportunities exist
there
for contact between wild animals and people -- whether hunters,
tourists
or even veterinarians, he says.
Faith
Campbell, who studies invasive species at the American Lands
Alliance,
an ecology group based in Washington, D.C., says the theory
makes
sense. Logging roads "open the way to everything," says
Campbell,
who specializes in tropical forests in South America.
"There
have certainly been cases in South America when it was pretty
clear
that gold miners carried disease into native populations" with
devastating
effects, she says. "This is the reverse of that."
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