Weeks after the 2021 UN climate change conference (known as COP26), Malaysia experienced intense flooding at a scale that has never been seen before, while the Philippines was once more hit by a super typhoon that killed hundreds and displaced a hundred thousand more. While we continue to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the past months have also revealed the sorry state of our collective planetary health, including in southeast Asia. Safeguarding Planetary Health for Southeast Asia's Future Children Protecting the welfare of environmental defenders must be part of the solution to preventing future pandemics. Through sustained involvement in activities that reduce deforestation and biodiversity loss (eg, lobbying against powerful industries or politicians, and patrols to curb illegal harvesting), environmental defenders face increasing duress, ranging from occupational burnout to life-threatening attacks. However, proposals for preventing pandemics at the source tend to focus on high-level policies and actions, with relatively little support afforded to ground-level environmental defenders, who are arguably the most important front-line defence in stopping future zoonotic spillovers. Protecting Environmental Defenders to Prevent PandemicsĪlthough the jury remains out with regard to the origin of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this global health crisis is a stark reminder of the continuous threat of emerging infectious diseases, and the need to tackle their upstream drivers (eg, deforestation and illegal wildlife trade). Planetary health is the achievement of the highest attainable standard of health, wellbeing, and equity worldwide through judicious attention to the Earth’s living systems and the political, economic, and social forces that shape them. In response to these challenges, planetary health – a new field and vision – has emerged. The deterioration of our collective health and the health of the natural world across the planet are accelerating ever more rapidly, diminishing the chance of healthy and happy lives and survival for succeeding generations.Īnd so there is a need for a new approach that emphasizes humanity coming together, assuming greater responsibility for our collective actions, working with a stress on equalizing responsible access to and use of limited resources, underwritten by the need to act urgently, here and now. These crises are driven by a complex interplay of human-generated political, social, economic, and environmental factors, and have dire humanitarian consequences. These include infectious disease outbreaks and pandemics, rising food and water insecurity, rapid biodiversity loss and climate change. Today, we are facing a confluence of multiple crises affecting our collective health as well as that of this planet that we inhabit – Earth. Planetary Health is where people and planet collide
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