-
Cultural links to the forest: The web of health
Many cultural systems are intimately
interconnected with forested environments, whether the people
live within the forest or on the forest fringe (including city
dwellers and researchers studying culture). Forest based cultures
have evolved within the forest environment, and their survival
requires that that environment be sustained.
Cultural links to the forest
include subsistence, income generation, medicinal plants, gender
roles, knowledge and symbolic systems, and spiritual links. Fundamentally,
this kind of intertwining between culture and forests creates
important elements in the meaning of people’s lives. Without the
forest, such people can be set adrift. As the forest is destroyed,
the related aspects of their culture are adversely affected. This
in turn leads to both mental health problems and loss of forest-related
knowledge systems. The effects are even more likely when forest
loss is unplanned, uncontrolled, and/or initiated externally —leading
to feelings of disempowerment, inferiority and impotence among
local people.
People’s mental health has
been closely tied to the idea of cultural integrity: They live
and die within a particular cultural and ecological context, and
they derive meaning in their lives —a central component of human
well being (and therefore, health)— from these contexts. When
such contexts change —whether through accelerated rates of deforestation
or exposure to alien cultures or other forces— people tend to
suffer adverse emotional and stress-related physical effects.
Mental illness can destroy
both motivation and capacity to manage remaining resources effectively.
Loss of environmental knowledge can have a similar effect. A vicious
downward cycle ensues, further adversely affecting the environment.
[There are a] variety of approaches
to health and illness among forest peoples. Such cultural differences
can explain forest dwellers’ sometimes-negative responses to medical
and public health approaches based on assumptions of the universality
of human health care preferences, needs and beliefs. Trying to
cure illnesses without understanding local interpretations of
causation often results in ineffective treatment, lack of follow-through
by patients, and misuse of medications. Attempts to address hunger
may be ineffective if local concepts of hunger are not understood;
a common error is providing culturally unacceptable foods. Maintaining
human health requires attention to the holistic nature of culture
and the interconnections among forest peoples, their cultures,
and their forests.
The centrality of the forest-people-health
links is clear, particularly among hunter- gatherers and many
swidden farming groups. Other important issues include the degree
to which health beliefs and practices are integrated with other
parts of cultural systems (their embeddedness), the differing
theoretical orientations and philosophical assumptions about health
and health care, and the variety of approaches to health and illness
that exist in the world’s forests. Maintaining human health requires
attention to the holistic nature of culture and the interconnections
between forest peoples, their cultures and their forests. On a
more global scale, protection of cultural diversity can serve
as an insurance policy against overreliance on western cultural
models.
Effective communication with
forest peoples requires understanding of their world views and
openness to learning about their perceptions. Indigenous knowledge
about foods and medicines varies in its wider applicability and
should be assessed but is likely to include useful elements for
health and forest professionals. Wider recognition of useful indigenous
knowledge can contribute to the self-confidence of forest peoples,
with positive implications for mental health.
Rigidly adhering to a western-based
view of health may in fact do more harm than good. The overuse
and misuse of antibiotics is perhaps the best-known example, but
others include the marginalization (or even criminalization) of
traditional practitioners, which reduces access to any kind of
health care; the promotion of western vegetables when more nutritious
local vegetables are readily available; and the unwillingness
of formal medical practitioners to acknowledge traditionally defined
mental illnesses, resulting in the hiding of such occurrences.
New medicines and their uses may be interpreted differently and
used inappropriately unless providers construct a bridge to local
views about health, illness and treatment. As many authors have
suggested, participatory approaches to health care may be necessary
to improve health among forest (and other) peoples.
Excerpted from: “Forests and
human health: assessing the evidence”, Carol J. Pierce Colfer,
Douglas Sheil, Misa Kishi, Center for International Forestry Research
(CIFOR), 2006, CIFOR Occasional Paper; No. 45,
http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-45.pdf
