CIFOR researchers have for a long time suspected that strong links exist between human health and forests. Only in the past few years have we been able to address the issue directly.

CIFOR scientist, Carol Colfer

CIFOR’s interest in forests and health dates back to the 1990s when ten interdisciplinary teams began working on the criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management. Part of this work included looking at human well being. According to CIFOR scientist, Carol Colfer, “All the teams noted that the health conditions of local populations were rated as important in their criteria and indicators.”

Wind the clock forward to late 2006 and Colfer and two CIFOR colleagues, Doug Sheil and Misa Kishi, publish Forests and human health: Assessing the evidence, a review of the literature related to human health and forests.*

In the less than 12 months since, the paper has generated extensive interest. According to Colfer, the interest “was particularly in response to its explicit linking of health issues to forests and suggesting that together they form a discreet, unique and important area of research.”

Built on a survey of around 650 documents, the study addresses four key elements in the forest and health relationship: forests as sources of food, health problems in forests, forest medicines and medical systems, and the role of culture in linking health and forests.

The authors brought different areas of expertise to the research project. Colfer was the anthropologist, Sheil the ecologist, and Kishi the public health specialist and physician. Together they examined both the health of people in and around forests and the causal links between the two.

One significant conclusion from their joint research was the realization that pertinent literature could be found in a surprisingly large and richly diverse range of fields. Another was the variety of relationships, both positive and negative, between people and forests.

Forests are critical sources of food and medicines in many areas, and they provide environmental services that contribute to good health. But they also harbour viruses, microbes, vectors, and hosts that can be dangerous to people; and the wealth forests represent can create other hazards to human health. Violent conflicts are common in rich forests, while interactions with powerful outsiders can spell disaster for local cultural systems.

In response to another finding - the lack of interaction among the diverse range of scientists and practitioners - CIFOR obtained funds from SwedBio to hold a series of workshops in Brazil, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Indonesia in 2007. The workshops allow people working in health and environmental issues to exchange ideas. A series of international seminars for policy makers is scheduled for 2008.

The book includes a series of synthetic analyses that address the role of medicinal plants, the nutritional role of forest foods, the dangers of wood smoke, population, gender and disease, the role of bats as hosts for several diseases, and deforestation and malaria.

It also covers regional themes such as HIV/AIDS in southern Africa and the health impacts of land use change in Amazonia. The book closes by examining forests and health care delivery issues, such as integrating traditional medicine into public health systems.

Says Colfer, “CIFOR's foray into human health and forests has whet our appetites. It is not just the important forest-related health problems that interest us, as important as they are. We're also keen to encourage more research into the health benefits and potential cures forests hold. This really is a rich field of inquiry and one that in time may have a major impact on human welfare around the globe.” CJPC, GC