"Why is it that a child's death amounts to a tragedy,
but the death of millions is merely a statistic?"
Patrick McDonald
Human beings depend heavily on ecosystem services for
their survival and well-being. Basic needs like drinking
water, fresh air, food and construction materials are to
a large extent provided to us by nature, as are more
luxury services like spectacular views for expensive
homes and eco-tourism activities.
However, many of the problems that ail humanity also
come from nature and might be thought of as ecosystem
disservices: Approximately 2 billion people are infected
with the hepatitis B virus, making it the most common
infectious disease in the world today. Close to a
billion persons are infected with tuberculosis, which
causes nearly 2 million deaths every year. Several
hundred million people suffer from malaria and almost a
million children die from it every year. About 50
million cases of dengue fever appear each year, and
countless millions suffer horribly from other infectious
and parasitic diseases, such as African trypanosomiasis
(“sleeping sickness”), cryptosporidiosis, leishmaniasis,
onchocerciasis (“river blindness”) and schistosomiasis.
In addition, the crops and livestock on which we depend
for food are frequently assaulted by insects, fungi,
viruses, weeds, bacteria and predators. Rainfall, which
is great in the right amounts at the right time, can
also cause huge disasters, if it arrives in the wrong
amounts or at the wrong time.
Africa is the continent that suffers most from ecosystem
disservices. More than 80% of all cases of malaria and
AIDS occur in Africa, although the African population
only constitutes about 15% of the World population. In
the African region, 46% of all deaths are children aged
under 15 years, whereas in the high-income countries,
only 1% of deaths are children (1). The majority of
child deaths can be attributed to ecosystem disservices,
as they are caused principally by infectious and
parasitic diseases, such as pneumonia, diarrhea,
malaria, AIDS and measles.
Table 1: Burden of ecosystem disservices on children (aged
0-15), by country income group
|
|
High income countries
|
Middle income countries
|
Low income countries
|
|
Number of child deaths due to infectious and
parasitic diseases
(per million children)
|
35
|
679
|
4536
|
Source: (1).
Table 1 shows a very strong relation between ecosystem
disservices and poverty. In high income countries only
35 children out of every million die of infectious and
parasitic diseases every year. For middle income
countries this is 20 times more frequent, and for low
income countries these heartbreaking tragedies are 130
times more frequent.
If you want to alleviate poverty through ecosystem
services, you might want to take into account the
disservices too.
