Indigenous lands protected in the Amazon prevent millions of disease cases

A new study, conducted with ten years of data in the Brazilian Amazon, found that forests managed by indigenous communities between 2010 and 2019. about 1.7 tons of particulate matter (PM 2.5) per year.

Capturing these pollutants from wildfires has prevented “more than 15 million respiratory and cardiovascular cases” annually, according to the researchers. suppression of these diseases every year. savings of US$2 billion or R$10 billion in healthcare costs for public coffers.

Published in the journal in early April Nature Communication Earth and EnvironmentThe article states that the protection afforded by densely forested indigenous lands is not only limited to location, but also “Urban and rural populations, often on the other side of the Amazon, ‘deforestation is on the air'”namely the southeast region of the rainforest.

Protecting indigenous peoples is a public health issue

Although it is well known that forests absorb pollutants from fires through pores on the surface of leaves, according to Paula Prist, lead author of the study and senior researcher at the EcoHealth Alliance Institute. this is the first estimate made in a tropical forest.

To test their hypotheses, the researchers relied on decades of reports of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in the Amazon and combined that data with information on pollutants and forest cover. The results showed that indigenous management forests can absorb 27% of 26,000 tonnes of particles It is protected throughout the Amazon rainforest.

Prist warns that this is not simply a matter of recognizing and fulfilling the land rights of Amazonian communities to prevent deforestation and infections. “Our results show that action is needed now – before fire season – to protect indigenous peoples and their forests. as a public health problem” he concludes.