A GDP for nature: How measuring the health of the natural world might prevent the next pandemic By Laura H. Kahn, Feb 25, 2021, the Bulletin
During the late 90s, the deadly Nipah virus emerged after millions of hectares of tropical forest in Malaysia were destroyed to clear land for pig farms. Displaced fruit bats sought nourishment in orchards near the pig farms, contaminating fruit with their urine and saliva. The pigs ate the fruit, developed severe respiratory illnesses and neurological abnormalities, & subsequently spread the virus to farm workers. The outbreak devastated the Malaysian pig-farming industry, required the culling of over a million pigs, & cost the farmers & govt 100s of millions of dollars. In the end, the virus sickened 265 people & killed 105. Other South & SE Asian, countries, in particular Bangladesh, have since reported Nipah virus cases & the WHO estimates the case fatality rate of the virus to be between 40-75%.
Many Nipah virus survivors suffered chronic neurological symptoms. The outbreak illustrates that allowing biodiverse ecosystems to be destroyed promotes disease emergence with potentially disastrous consequences. And of course, it?s not just food production in Malaysia that creates health and environmental risks.
Intensive animal agriculture production in the US, using facilities called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), poses tremendous threats to human, animal, environ- mental, and ecosystem health. Raising thousands or tens of thousands of animals together produces massive quantities of manure containing hundreds of pathogens, including Salmonella & E.coli, that can cause foodborne and waterborne illnesses.
Manure is commonly spread on agro fields as fertilizer, but it also contaminates the soils with antibiotic resistant bacteria & leaches into waterways, causing algae overgrowth of lakes & streams leading to dead fish. Worsening climate change & severe storms flood manure lagoons risking widespread contamination of surrounding environments. Not only does manure contaminate soil & water, it also contaminates the atmosphere. Microbes in manure release methane & nitrous oxide which are
23 & 300 times more potent in trapping heat than carbon dioxide & contribute over 7% of US greenhouse gas emissions.We need to reassess what we value. The natural world is essential for our health and well-being, but we don?t value it properly. Instead, we exploit it until it bites us back. We must change our values if we want to prevent the next pandemic.
The most common metric for measuring national wealth is the gross domestic product, or GDP. GDP measures a nation?s economic prosperity, its total value of services & goods produced in one year. But this metric provides a narrow picture of national wealth and ignores the destructive costs that we impose upon our natural world.
One option might be to use something like a One Health calculus as an addition to the GDP. One Health is a term used to describe the inextricable linkages between human, animal, plant, environmental, and ecosystem health. A One Health calculus might measure the status of a nation?s natural resources, the purity of its environments, the biodiversity of its ecosystems, the sustainability of its agriculture, the health of its flora & fauna, the resiliency of its food security, & the life expectancies of its peoples.