Epidemiology, Biodiversity, and Technological Trajectories in the Brazilian Amazon: From Malaria to COVID-19

Abstract

The Amazon biome is under severe threat due to increasing deforestation rates and loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services while sustaining a high burden of neglected tropical diseases. Approximately two thirds of this biome are located within Brazilian territory. There, socio-economic and environmental landscape transformations are linked to the regional agrarian economy dynamics, which has developed into six techno-productive trajectories (TTs). These TTs are the product of the historical interaction between Peasant and Farmer and Rancher practices, technologies and rationalities. This article investigates the distribution of the dominant Brazilian Amazon TTs and their association with environmental degradation and vulnerability to neglected tropical diseases. The goal is to provide a framework for the joint debate of the local economic, environmental and health dimensions. We calculated the dominant TT for each municipality in 2017. Peasant trajectories (TT1, TT2, and TT3) are dominant in ca. fifty percent of the Amazon territory, mostly concentrated in areas covered by continuous forest where malaria is an important morbidity and mortality cause. Cattle raising trajectories are associated with higher deforestation rates. Meanwhile, Farmer and Rancher economies are becoming dominant trajectories, comprising large scale cattle and grain production. These trajectories are associated with rapid biodiversity loss and a high prevalence of neglected tropical diseases, such as leishmaniasis, Aedes-borne diseases and Chagas disease. Overall, these results defy simplistic views that the dominant development trajectory for the Amazon will optimize economic, health and environmental indicators. This approach lays the groundwork for a more integrated narrative consistent with the economic history of the Brazilian Amazon.

Linking land-use and land-cover transitions to their ecological impact in the Amazon

“…Transitions from primary and secondary forests to mechanized agriculture had the most impact but occurred less frequently. However, mechanized agriculture is only prevalent in some specific regions of the Amazon, where productive systems established for grain production and exportation dominate ( 33 ). Although primary forest degradation can be as widespread as deforestation ( 29 , 34 ), the transitions from undisturbed to logged or logged-and-burned primary forests had a much lower impact, highlighting the importance of protecting disturbed forests from further clearance (e.g., ref.…”

“…Second, by linking the prevalence and the impact of LULCTs, our analysis helps to define local and regional immediate and long-term actions, highlighting the transitions that should be prioritized. For instance, limiting the transitions we identified as high-impact, high-rate requires the most immediate efforts at the biome scale, but curbing high-impact, low-rate transitions can also be prioritized at local scales ( 33 ). Third, our findings demonstrate that improving ecological condition also requires measures that go beyond simply tracking and mitigating deforestation, as transitions involving secondary regeneration and primary forest degradation influenced a range of biodiversity, carbon, and soil metrics.…”

Ecological behaviour in the AI economy and its impact on biodiversity: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and a post-COVID perspective

“…The problem of biodiversity conservation is formulated by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 14 (conservation of marine ecosystems) and SDG 15 (conservation of terrestrial ecosystems) (Mehmood et al, 2022;Sobieraj et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2022). The relevance of this problem is particularly high at present against the background of the global increase in the number of zoonotic diseases, as well as against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, according to many scientists (Khetan, 2020;Codeço et al, 2021;Fernández et al, 2021;Lawler et al, 2021;Morand and Lajaunie, 2021;Tsantopoulos et al, 2021), is a new zoonotic disease directly or indirectly caused by the destruction of the natural habitat of animals and the unsafe neighbourhood of people with them.…”

Heading back into the perfect storm: increasing risks for disease emergence in Brazil?

“…In addition to increasing the risks of new spillover of zoonotic diseases 8 , ongoing deforestation leaves a trail of re-emergent NTDs. Since 2017, economic activities related to deforestation in the Amazon have increased the incidence of 11 NTDs and diseases directly related to environmental degradation, such as water-borne diseases, reverting a trend, and preventing the eradication of these diseases, all related to poverty 11 . Eventually, this throwback in health and environmental protection warns us of a worsening scenario (Figure 1).…”

“…Particularly for the Amazon, the present detachment between science and policymakers has driven re-emergent diseases and opened up a large road for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to reach indigenous communities 11 . The vulnerability of Manaus International Airport and the risk of the city becoming a powerful spreader of the disease were predicted before the full dissemination of COVID-19 in the country 12 .…”