Building Bridges: Connecting the Health and Conservation Professions

ECOSYSTEMS escalate daily with each tree felled, road built deeper into the forest, and additional human to feed, shelter and clothe, with ever dwindling natural resources. Biologists working in the field of tropical conservation are familiar with the increasingly complex and pervasive anthropogenic changes, negatively impacting the world, and challenging conservation efforts. These human-induced changes may be categorized as: (1) environmental and ecological; (2) shifts in human demography; (3) increased global travel and trade; and (4) technological and agricultural practices; and each can limit or even nullify biodiversity conservation efforts due to their direct and indirect impacts on the health of animals, humans, and ecosystems (Daszak et al. 2000, Deem et al. 2001, 2008, Jones et al. 2008, Lafferty 2008). In this commentary, we present a historical view of disease within tropical conservation efforts, current impacts of diseases on conservation initiatives, and, using our partnership as an example, provide a solid agenda for building bridges between the health and conservation professions so that we can more effectively perform tropical conservation. It is useful to first define ‘health’ and ‘disease’ in the context of our commentary since these are broad terms that often mean very different things depending on one’s discipline and world view. The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (Last 1983). While this state can serve as a laudable goal, it does not provide us with objective criteria for determining the health of wildlife or ecosystems. In wildlife, disease can be defined as any compromised (unhealthy) state in which an individual is unable to perform its ecological roles in an ecosystem, due to either an infectious (e.g., viral, bacterial, fungal, parasitic) or noninfectious (e.g., toxins, trauma) etiology. Much as it is easier to define disease, as opposed to health, in wildlife it remains difficult to define a healthy ecosystem. However, assessing the health of an ecosystem can be approached by one of three methods: (1) ecosystem distress syndrome; (2) counteractive capacity; and (3) risk analysis (Rapport 1995). With each of these methods, various in-