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[marilyn.monroe]

THERE’S a term biologists and economists use these days — ecosystem services — which refers to the many ways nature supports the human endeavor. Forests filter the water we drink, for example, and birds and bees pollinate crops, both of which have substantial economic as well as biological value.

If we fail to understand and take care of the natural world, it can cause a breakdown of these systems and come back to haunt us in ways we know little about. A critical example is a developing model of infectious disease that shows that most epidemics — AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS, Lyme disease and hundreds more that have occurred over the last several decades — don’t just happen. They are a result of things people do to nature.

“It’s not about keeping pristine forest pristine and free of people,” says Simon Anthony, a molecular virologist at EcoHealth. “It’s learning how to do things sustainably. If you can get a handle on what it is that drives the emergence of a disease, then you can learn to modify environments sustainably.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/the-ecology-of-disease.html?pagewanted=all

[marilyn.monroe]

• Emerging Infectious Diseases
This Web site is primarily devoted to recent and emerging Zoonotic diseases, that is diseases that may be transmitted between animals and humans. According to the Executive Director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, there are approximately 1,400 known microbes that cause illness in humans, and 61 percent can be linked to animals.
 
 
http://www.michigan.gov/emergingdiseases/0,4579,7-186-26346---,00.html