Planetary Health in the Bolivian Amazon

In the last twenty years, Bolivia has lost 12% of the forest cover that existed at the turn of the century. However, the human and environmental impacts of this change have not been widely studied.

[From January to June of 2024, Shannon O’Brien (at that time a research technician with ISGlobal) traveled to Riberalta, Bolivia to investigate deforestation’s impact on human health and to implement a course in Planetary Health alongside local partners, at the Autonomous University of El Beni - José Ballivián (UAB-JB).]

With nothing but a loop cut from what appeared to be a market bag around his feet for assistance, I watched in awe as one of our hosts shimmied his way more than 20 meters up an ever-slimmer trunk, almost disappearing into the canopy above. Within minutes he had reached the top, where he clung to the tree with one arm and deftly cut away two bulging branches of acai with the other. Conquest in hand, he slid back down to the ground in a matter of seconds, his feet landing lightly on the leaf-carpeted earth.

It was June of 2024 and I was in the Bolivian Amazon, conducting a project jointly coordinated by ISGlobal and Medicus Mundi Mediterranean (MMMed). Alongside local partners, I was helping to implement a course in Planetary Health at the UAB-JB in addition to investigating the impact deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon (which covers around half of the surface area of the country) had on the health of the population.

From left to right and top to bottom: 1. An early morning at Lago Tumichucua. 2. Harvesting acai. 3. Freddy Beyuma Piluy and Edward Flores Villanueva explaining various properties of Amazonian plants. 4. The “brazil” nut. 5. Jaime Antonio Cortez Vallejo during the Santa María Community visit, with Jimena Isabel Clavijo Velarde and Alcira Justiniano Dorado (engineer with iiFA) in the background. Photos: Shannon O'Brien.

But what is Planetary Health, and why is it important?

To answer this question, let’s reflect on how human development has evolved over the last century. As a whole (though millions of people still live in extreme poverty), human development has drastically improved: more people are literate, life expectancy has increased, the rate of infant mortality has decreased, etc.

But now let’s think about the state of our world during this same amount of time. Unlike indicators of human development and health, if we think of our planet as a patient, and the issues it faces as indicators of disease, we can see that our home over the last century has become increasingly ill: exponential amounts of marine life are removed from the sea, coral bleachings occur with growing frequency, wildlife populations have fallen by 70% in 50 years, glaciers are melting, rivers are drying up… the list goes on and on.

How is it that we are becoming healthier while our planet is becoming sicker?

So how is it that we are becoming healthier while our planet is becoming sicker? The Planetary Health framework emerges from this paradox, declaring that we have improved human development at the COST of the environment, and that we are arriving at a point of no return in terms of environmental degradation where our planet will no longer be able to support such growth. In other words, we are leveraging the health of future generations in order to achieve advancements in the present.

We were there to learn

It was in the name of Planetary Health that I found myself thus visiting the community of Santa María outside of Riberalta, Bolivia on a hot, humid June day. As converting forest to pasture land for cattle rearing drives 60% of deforestation in the country (with agriculture accounting for another 30%), we were there to learn about how the community managed their forest sustainably and achieved economic gain without burning it down. One such way was through harvesting and processing tropical fruits like acai, in addition to other superfoods such as the “Brazil” nut (called almendra or castaña locally), which are harvests that require intact, healthy forests in order to survive.

Converting forest to pasture land for cattle rearing drives 60% of deforestation in the country

This is no small order, as Bolivia leads global brazil nut exports surpassing Brazil (the nut’s namesake) by more than double its quantity in kilograms. The community of Santa Maria realizes this, one of its leaders (and our guide) Freddy Beyuma Piluy stating, “What we must do is protect our parcels, not damage the part where we have the [Brazil] nut because it’s what we live off of, it is our treasure. In cutting one down we are saying we don’t love this plant. We actually should be planting, reforesting. In this way we benefit from nature.”

From left to right and top to bottom: 1. Course participants during the field day visiting the Santa María Community. 2. Jimena Isabel Clavijo Velarde interviewing Freddy Beyuma Piluy about sustainable forest management. 3. Hosting the first session on Planetary Health at the UAB-JB. 4. Dr. Carlos Arturo Mariscal of the UAB-JB imparting a course on Investigative Methodology. Photos: Shannon O'Brien.

Living in solidarity with the planet

The community visit was the culmination of three months of theoretical, classroom-based sessions that myself and my primary in-country partner (and researcher on the Bolivian Amazon), Vincent Vos, had led in order to train university professors and local professionals in subjects related to Planetary Health. By bringing program coordinators, health workers, and experts in forest management together, the course served as a platform to share and build upon the knowledge and experiences participants already possessed and to expand competencies under the intersectional framework of Planetary Health.

One participant, Jaime Antonio Cortez Vallejo (an industrial engineer and investigator with the Amazon Forest Research Institute, or iiFA), highlights the importance of the course, saying, “It’s clear we need to work in alignment with what are called Planetary Boundaries. We shouldn’t pass these limits because in doing so we are entering into an irreversible world - one that we are already experiencing.”

As animal consumption increases…

Another participant, Jimena Isabel Clavijo Velarde (a nutrition technician with Medicus Mundi Riberalta), says, “For me the course was, and is, very important… Humans must take care of the planet because it is all that we have. Thus, one must learn to live in solidarity with it to have a more diversified diet, to stop consuming as much animal products because as animal consumption increases, so does forest clearing, agricultural frontiers expand and in this way we are contributing to deforestation."

In 2024 Bolivia experienced its most devastating extent of forest fires in recorded history, with sources estimating up to 40% of the country’s forests had burned by October. Almost all were caused by human activities to clear land for cattle and agriculture.

For these reasons, MMMed and ISGlobal viewed it as imperative to strengthen capacity in the Bolivian Amazon through programs such as this one in Planetary Health. And today protecting the Amazon is more important than ever: in 2024 Bolivia experienced its most devastating extent of forest fires in recorded history, with sources estimating of the country’s forests had burned by October. Almost all were caused by human activities to clear land for cattle and agriculture.

Expanding education and investigation on Planetary Health as it relates to the Amazon is thus a key way to support efforts of those most affected by such devastation and best positioned to fight it. As Jimena continues, “All of the knowledge we have been acquiring allows us to better visualize and implement future projects in order to insist in public policy, in national, departmental, or municipal policy."

In short, we must insist upon upholding one of the principal ideas of Planetary Health - that our actions now can not only seek to benefit current human society, but must be aligned with safeguarding the well-being of human, plant and animal societies alike for generations to come.

The "seeds" that we "plant" today

This urgency was best expressed and captured by Yolanda López Ochoa (a medical doctor at the Red de Salud 07 Riberalta) during our visit to Santa María. When clarifying if the acai trees on the Bayuma family’s parcels were natural or had been planted (they were natural), she asked, “Why don’t you make beds and plant [more]?”

-“You can,” came the response of Edward Flores Villanueva (research technician with the Amazon Forest Research Institute). “but it takes a lot of time to grow.”.

-“Yes,” Yolanda said, “but if you plant now, your grandchildren can harvest.”

This is how we must now live - thinking about how the “seeds” that we “plant” today serve to create the “harvest” in the world that we want for our grandchildren in the future.

For more information

Documentary: https://youtu.be/b-wLtaUs7cI?si=q7DKd182eLYlcS4p

And visit: https://cursos-iifa.online/

https://saludplanetariabolivia.org/#/website/proyecto/fortalecimiento-docencia-e-investigacion-uab/16/pagina/100

https://donbenjamin.org/