The Natural Environment and Health in Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Hassell ◽  
Salome A. Bukachi ◽  
Dishon M. Muloi ◽  
Emi Takahashi ◽  
Lydia Franklinos
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Emerging Diseases ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Environmental Pressures ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Environment And Health

Much of recent human development has come at the expense of Nature - undermining ecosystems, fragmenting habitats, reducing biodiversity, and increasing our exposure and vulnerability to emerging diseases. For example, as we push deeper into tropical forests, and convert more land to agriculture and human settlements, the rate at which people encounter new pathogens that may trigger the next public health, social and economic crisis, is likely to increase. Expanding and strengthening our understanding of the links between nature and human health is especially important in Africa, where nature brings economic prosperity and wellbeing to more than a billion people. Pandemics such as COVID are just one of a growing number of health challenges that humanity is facing as a result of our one-sided and frequently destructive relationship with nature. This report aims to inform professionals and decision-makers on how health outcomes emerge from human interactions with the natural world and identify how efforts to preserve the natural environment and sustainably manage natural resources could have an impact on human and animal health. While the report focuses on the African continent, it will also be of relevance to other areas of the world facing similar environmental pressures.

scholarly journals Medical Geology and Health: An Approach to Address Diseases Related to Natural Environment-Reviewing the Ghanaian Situation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel ARHIN ◽  
Raymond Kazapoe ◽  
Abu Mahamuda
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Emerging Diseases ◽  
Medical Geology ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Geological Process ◽  
Sulphide Minerals ◽  
Potentially Harmful Elements ◽  
Geological Processes ◽  
Developed Nations

Inadequate data linking geology and health in Developing Countries contributes immensely to the challenges to identify sources and causes of many of the emerging diseases. Deficiencies and toxicities of trace elements generally impact human and animal health. The review of the geology of Ghana suggests the presence of oxides and sulphide minerals that are released into the natural environment during the geological process of weathering which introduce both essential and, potentially harmful elements. Of great concern is the fact that majority of the Ghanaian population eat locally cultivated food and expect to be nourished from the diet. Furthermore, archived reports on Ghana rural drinking water indicates most of the aquifers are enriched in As and F while deficient in Mg. Medical geology, the emerging discipline that attempts to address the environmental health issues emanating from geological processes is known in developed nations but not much of its activities are recognized in Ghana. This review has identified the concentrations of a number of elements in different geological settings and have linked these concentrations with health issues. There is therefore a need for medical geologists to work together with other disciplines to devise preventive as well as mitigative techniques in addressing many geology related health issues in Ghana.

scholarly journals Environmental Ethics

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-55
Author(s):  
Mfonobong David Udoudom ◽  
Okpe Okpe ◽  
Timothy Adie ◽  
Samuel Akpan Bassey
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Practical Ethics ◽  
Ethical Norms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

Environmental ethics is an area that investigates the question of which ethical norms are appropriate for governing human interactions with the natural environment. Considered a branch of applied or practical ethics, environmental ethics has only existed as a subject since the late 1970s. However, concern about environmental problems is growing, and many philosophers claimed that the mainstream of ethics' only focus on humans' relationships with other humans leaving behind clear theoretical framework for ethically evaluating the relationship among humans and the nonhuman natural world. In response to this position, they recommended that a new field of inquiry was needed to investigate this matter directly. This paper looks into the thrust of environmental ethics. 

scholarly journals Institutional Reforms and Their Impact on Economic Growth and Investment in Developing Countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4941
Author(s):  
Jin Zhao ◽  
Ghulam Rasool Madni ◽  
Muhammad Awais Anwar ◽  
Syeda Masooma Zahra
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Political Reforms ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Treatment Analysis ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

It is widely accepted that the economic and social system may be more efficient by reforming institutions. Institutional reforms are attempts to change the rules affecting human interactions and these reforms are fundamental for development and economic prosperity. The reforms can be divided into two categories; political and economic institutional reforms. It is need of the hour to determine the category of reform that is more suitable for developing countries. Moreover, a vast literature describes the impact of institutional reforms but little focused on exploring their impacts on macroeconomic activities. So, this study is an effort to determine the impact of institutional reforms on macroeconomic variables by considering the panel data of 122 developing countries covering the time span from 1996 to 2019. The study applied treatment analysis using the difference-in-differences technique to gauge the effects of reforms. Besides, it will be interesting to know the causes triggering the institutional reforms in developing countries. The findings of the study reveal that economic reforms are more important as compared with political reforms to grow the economies. The countries focusing on political reforms are not able to overcome the economic crisis. Moreover, both types of reforms do not cause each other in these countries.

scholarly journals Southern Green Cultural Criminology and Environmental Crime Prevention: Representations of Nature Within Four Colombian Indigenous Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rodríguez Goyes ◽  
Mireya Astroina Abaibira ◽  
Pablo Baicué ◽  
Angie Cuchimba ◽  
Deisy Tatiana Ramos Ñeñetofe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crime Prevention ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Cultural Criminology ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Representations Of Nature ◽  
Peer Researchers

AbstractThis exploratory study develops a “southern green cultural criminology” approach to the prevention of environmental harms and crimes. The main aim is to understand differing cultural representations of nature, including wildlife, present within four Colombian Indigenous communities to evaluate whether they encourage environmentally friendly human interactions with the natural world, and if so, how. The study draws on primary data gathered by the Indigenous authors (peer researchers) of this article via a set of interviews with representatives of these four communities. We argue that the cosmologies that these communities live by signal practical ways of achieving ecological justice and challenging anthropocentrism.

scholarly journals Climate Change and Zoonoses: A Review of Concepts, Definitions, and Bibliometrics

2022 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 893
Author(s):  
Walter Leal Filho ◽  
Linda Ternova ◽  
Sanika Arun Parasnis ◽  
Marina Kovaleva ◽  
Gustavo J. Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Disease Ecology ◽  
One Health ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Emerging Diseases ◽  
Zoonotic Diseases ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Author Keywords ◽  
The Uk

Climate change can have a complex impact that also influences human and animal health. For example, climate change alters the conditions for pathogens and vectors of zoonotic diseases. Signs of this are the increasing spread of the West Nile and Usutu viruses and the establishment of new vector species, such as specific mosquito and tick species, in Europe and other parts of the world. With these changes come new challenges for maintaining human and animal health. This paper reports on an analysis of the literature focused on a bibliometric analysis of the Scopus database and VOSviewer software for creating visualization maps which identifies the zoonotic health risks for humans and animals caused by climate change. The sources retained for the analysis totaled 428 and different thresholds (N) were established for each item varying from N 5 to 10. The main findings are as follows: First, published documents increased in 2009–2015 peaking in 2020. Second, the primary sources have changed since 2018, partly attributable to the increase in human health concerns due to human-to-human transmission. Third, the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, and Germany perform most zoonosis research. For instance, sixty documents and only 17 countries analyzed for co-authorship analysis met the threshold led by the USA; the top four author keywords were “climate change”, “zoonosis”, “epidemiology”, and “one health;” the USA, the UK, Germany, and Spain led the link strength (inter-collaboration); the author keywords showed that 37 out of the 1023 keywords met the threshold, and the authors’ keyword’s largest node of the bibliometric map contains the following: infectious diseases, emerging diseases, disease ecology, one health, surveillance, transmission, and wildlife. Finally, zoonotic diseases, which were documented in the literature in the past, have evolved, especially during the years 2010–2015, as evidenced by the sharp augmentation of publications addressing ad-hoc events and peaking in 2020 with the COVID-19 outbreak.

scholarly journals An analysis of compensation collected for the depletion of Angola’s oil resources

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Pieter Van der Zwan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
National Development ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Production Sharing ◽  
Compensation Systems ◽  
The People ◽  
Oil Resources ◽  
Rich Countries

The African continent contributes approximately 12% of the world’s oil production. Despite this wealth, many citizens of oil-rich African countries live in poverty, often because their governments do not collect sufficient compensation for the depletion of oil resources to fund national development or do not utilise compensation collected for the benefit of the people. In this article the extraction tax regime to collect compensation on Angola’s oil resources is compared to the regimes in other oil-rich countries to identify aspects from which Angola can learn with regard to the compensation systems of those countries. It is concluded that Angola may be able to improve its extraction tax regime by learning from governance measures over natural resource funds in Norway and Canada, by implementing measures to increase its oil royalty income in times of economic prosperity and by defining deductible costs more specifically in its production-sharing agreements.

Technology and the Theory of Apocalypse

2021 ◽  
pp. 1638-1647
Author(s):  
Maximiliano Emanuel Korstanje
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Interesting Discussion

This chapter ignites an interesting discussion around the idea of apocalypse or at the best to the role of technology by slicing humanity from nature. In terms of the British anthropologist Tim Ingold, one of the conceptual limitations of “dwelling perspective” as a project is the clear-cut division of humans from the natural environment. Unlike hunters and gatherers who have developed “relational” ties with the sensual world, we are educated to imagine ourselves as administrators of natural world. In view of this, the eco-friendly projects (as conservation parks) often exclude the presence of humans. The employment of technology denotes certain rationality which while sorting the environment according to our needs it creates a sentiment of culprit, which is expressed in the bottom-days´ narratives. Mankind, as outstanding specie, is the only one gifted by Gods to administer nature, but failed. Moved by greed and speculations, men governed with energy in backs to God and for that, they should be heavily punished.

Nature and Geography

2016 ◽  
pp. 47-64
Author(s):  
Brent Smith
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Marketing Mix ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Business Decision ◽  
Business News ◽  
Marketing Activities ◽  
News Industry

This chapter considers the appropriateness and importance of including the natural environment (i.e., nature and geography) as part of the external business environment featured in marketing textbooks. Based on myriad examples from industry, the natural environment is regarded as an uncontrollable force that constantly affects decisions about markets and marketing activities. Thus, it deserves some (greater) mention next to economic, competitive, regulatory, and other variables typically featured in most marketing textbooks. Based on a review of business news, industry concerns, and marketing textbooks, this chapter considers the current listing of uncontrollable environment forces typically discussed within twenty-five popular marketing textbooks. It is observed that nature and geography, common priorities for business decision makers, are conspicuously absent from mention within most of these textbooks. This chapter shows that the natural environment is mentioned in only five of twenty-five marketing textbooks: two introductory marketing; one marketing management; and two international marketing. Based on scholarly definitions and industry examples, nature and geography are, in fact, uncontrollable influential forces that affect markets and marketing activities. Consequently, there is reasonable cause for including them in more marketing textbooks. Textbook authors and instructors can provide students a more complete picture of how domestic and international markets and marketing activities are affected by the natural environment. In practice, business people acknowledge that the natural environment affects and is affected by markets and marketing activities in virtually all industries. Alas, marketing textbooks seldom little, if ever, acknowledge that nature and geography (e.g., topography, climate, weather, solar flares, natural disasters) affect how companies think about their markets and marketing mix. This chapter offers simple, actionable steps for discussing the natural environment in marketing textbooks and courses.

Advances in Microbiome Research for Animal Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel S. Peixoto ◽  
Derek M. Harkins ◽  
Karen E. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Emerging Diseases ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Toxic Compounds ◽  
Symbiotic Interactions ◽  
Microbiome Research ◽  
And Behavior

Host-associated microbiomes contribute in many ways to the homeostasis of the metaorganism. The microbiome's contributions range from helping to provide nutrition and aiding growth, development, and behavior to protecting against pathogens and toxic compounds. Here we summarize the current knowledge of the diversity and importance of the microbiome to animals, using representative examples of wild and domesticated species. We demonstrate how the beneficial ecological roles of animal-associated microbiomes can be generally grouped into well-defined main categories and how microbe-based alternative treatments can be applied to mitigate problems for both economic and conservation purposes and to provide crucial knowledge about host–microbiota symbiotic interactions. We suggest a Customized Combination of Microbial-Based Therapies to promote animal health and contribute to the practice of sustainable husbandry. We also discuss the ecological connections and threats associated with animal biodiversity loss, microorganism extinction, and emerging diseases, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, Volume 9 is February 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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