By: Ciro Salazar Valdivia Law, Environment and Natural Resources
In the Amazon, the expansion of road infrastructure is one of the main factors that favor deforestation and change in land use (CUS), which occur when expanding the agricultural frontier or carrying out extractive activities. The evidence on this relationship is abundant, for example, the IDB recognizes that in the Amazon, deforestation associated with roads occurs up to 50 km away from the roads (IDB, 2016).
In addition to this impact, scientific research shows that deforestation and land use change (CUS) are the main factors that influence the emergence of zoonoses such as rabies (Johnson et al., 2015), as well as constituting a important factor in the case of metaxenic diseases such as malaria (Baeza, 2017). The alteration of ecosystems puts the human being in direct contact with species that carry pathogens but, in addition, generates physical and temperature changes that favor the prevalence of vectors. Despite this, the CUS is not addressed by MINSA.
The alteration of ecosystems puts the human being in direct contact with species that carry pathogens but, in addition, generates physical and temperature changes that favor the prevalence of vectors. Despite this, the CUS is not addressed by MINSA.
According to this institution, the country faces the existence of “cyclical outbreaks of greater frequency and geographic extension, with high morbidity, lethality and mortality” in metaxenic diseases and zoonoses, for which it has a budgetary program (MINSA, 2021). Likewise, it considers among its social determinants conditions associated with poverty, but also climate change, as well as various factors that hinder its attention.
Perhaps the specific evidence on the relationship between roads – CUS – zoonosis / metaxenic diseases is not as abundant, but it does exist. In Peru, the cases of the Iquitos – Nauta and Interoceánica Sur highway have been studied in this regard; the first, due to the increase in malaria cases in its area of influence (Gilman et al., 2006); and the second for cases of diseases such as rabies (Salmon-Mulanovich et al., 2016), malaria (Vinetz et al., 2017) and leishmaniasis (Stapleton et al., 2021).
It is the responsibility of the authorities of the Health, Environment and Transport sectors to coordinate a strategy to address this problem. Road planning must incorporate public health criteria, as well as a preventive approach for their treatment, for this there are already inputs such as maps of deforestation risk and types of forest cover, perhaps there is a lack of information on the density of reservoirs and types of vectors. The articulation with the academy is also key in the design of this strategy.
If all the projected road initiatives in the Amazon are carried out, this region would quintuple its stock of roads in the present decade; therefore, the time to act is now.
To continue the conversation on issues related to road planning in the Amazon, we will be presenting the results of a study on the needs and capacities of native communities in relation to infrastructure in the Amazon, the result of work carried out with the indigenous organizations ORPIO and CORPI-SL in the area of influence of the Iquitos – Saramiriza highway project, in Loreto, today Wednesday, November 24, at 5 pm in a virtual seminar organized with INTE-PUCP, to which they are invited and can follow through our networks.
[Publirreportaje]
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