http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/loss-of-biodiversity-threatens-human-health.

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Biodiversity loss: threat to our health

By:Ken Eastwood | pril-!"-!#$# %ore &haring &ervices&hare | &hare on faceboo' &hare on twitter &hare on email &hare on print ( )&: biodiversity

* climate change * +ews * plantlife * science * &cience , Environment

(he environment holds hidden secrets to human well-being* provided we preserve biodiversity.

-aperbar' trees .-hoto: )etty /mages0 A MAJOR REASON WE should preserve biodiversity is for our own health* says a 1& researcher* doctor and author* who believes ustralia2s ecosystems could hold secrets to human well-being. 3r aron Bernstein of the 4enter for 5ealth and the )lobal Environment at 5arvard 1niversity ac'nowledges there are many reasons to preserve the natural world* but our focus should be on what it can do for us. 67e need to understand the loss of ecological biodiversity is a loss to ourselves*8 he says. 69ur health is ultimately inseparable from the health of the natural world.8 aron* who gave a tal' on the topic in &ydney last wee'* is the co-author of Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. 6(here is no determinant of health* be it food* water* air* shelter* medicine...that does not derive from nature*8 he says* and some secrets are yet to be discovered. Medicine from nature 5e says new pharmaceuticals are most li'ely to come from the natural world : a 'ey e;ample being the -acific yew* a tree bearing needles that were discovered to have anticancer properties* eventually leading to the drug (a;ol. 6/n its heyday* (a;ol was generating 1&<$.= billion per year*8 aron says. 6/n the years preceding its discovery >the -acific yew? was worthless.8 &imilar secrets may lie in ustralia2s ecosystem* such as the thousands of types of protein in marine cone shell snails. 9ne of these has already been used to ma'e the drug @iconotide* which is 6a thousand times more powerful than morphine. /tAs a watershed in the treatment of pain.8 -rofessor Bobert 4apon* at the 1niversity of Cueensland* is an e;pert in the identification and evaluation of potentially useful chemical compounds from ustralian marine and terrestrial biodiversity. 5e says there is no telling where the ne;t wonder drug will come from: 67eAll find the drugs from pretty much everything*8 he says. 6> discovery? could come from a rotten melon in your house.8 9ne of the areas Bobert is focusing on is microbes in soil. 6(hatAs biodiversity below the vision of everyone D including politicians*8 he says. 6/t doesnAt have to be a beautiful rainforest tree or a stunning cone shell.8 Bobert said that the biggest problems in the search for new pharmaceuticals lie in the comple; regulations and lac' of funding to support the research* and the fact that only a handful of people in ustralia are currently doing the wor'. Habitat loss and disease aron says one of the ways in which we havenAt joined the dots is how habitat loss has brought diseased animals into more contact with humans* leading to catastrophic

pandemics. Eor e;ample* & B& .&evere cute Bespiratory &yndrome0 came from bat populations that were concentrated into areas inhabited by humans. /n terms of food production* there are many thousands of fungi and bacteria that wor' together in the soil to produce something apparently simple* such as an apple. 69ne gram of soil may have in the order of millions* if not billions* of bacteria from thousands of different species.8 aron says. 67eAre losing species today at a rate not seen in =F million yearsGwe e;pect* by the most conservative of estimates* to have lost a third to a half of all species by the end of this century.8 &pea'ing at the Howy /nstitute for /nternational -olicy in &ydney last wee' .lecture available here0 on the need to fight drivers such as habitat loss and climate change* aron emphasised the need to hold onto as much biodiversity as possible. 69nce you lose an ecosystem or a species* you canAt buy it bac'.8