Healthy Wetlands, Healthy People. (page 7)

By Lucy Adoma Yeboah (February 2, 2008)

ON February 2, each year, the world celebrates World Wetlands Day to mark the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
Since 1997, government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), individuals and groups have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake programmes aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.
Ghana, like the rest of the world, would have to remind itself of the importance of the day and find ways to protect its wetlands.
For this year’s celebration, the theme suggested by the Convention on Wetlands is, “Healthy Wetlands, Healthy People”, and this will also be the theme for Ramsar's 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in the Republic of Korea in October-November 2008.
Wetlands are areas where water is the primary factor controlling the environment and the associated plant and animal life. They occur where the water table is at or near the surface of the land or where the land is covered by shallow water.
Wetlands in Ghana, just like elsewhere, are unique ecosystems that provide valuable products and services to satisfy social, economic and ecological needs at the local, national and international levels.
Ghana’s wetlands support fisheries, they play an important role in flood assimilation and provide a source of food, medicines, fuel and building materials for local people and are, therefore, important. All these come together to provide efficient health needs for individuals.
As the world celebrates the World Wetlands Day, there is the need for Ghanaians to have a look at the importance of wetlands. It is important for the celebration to offer us the opportunity to remind ourselves of a few keys issue that exemplify both the direct, positive effects on human health of maintaining healthy wetlands — such as the provision of food, clean water, pharmaceutical products and also the negative effects of mismanaging wetlands that result in the impairment of our health and even the loss of lives — such as the effects of water-related diseases, burning farmlands, floods and water pollution.
This year’s theme, “Healthy wetlands, healthy people”, is aimed at emphasising the strong relationship between healthy functioning wetland ecosystems and human health which underlines the importance of management strategies that support both the health of wetland ecosystems and the health of humans.
Information available at the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission of Ghana on the World Wetlands Day celebration indicates that wetland-related diseases claim the lives of more than three million people every year and bring suffering to many more.
It is also significant to note that adequate, good quality food is a prerequisite for a healthy people and wetlands are key contributors, since they supply us with, for example, fish, including shellfish, and also plants such as fruits and seeds.
Globally, about one billion people rely on fish as their main or sole source of protein and many more consume fish regularly.
In terms of cultivated wetland plants, rice is the most important at a global level, providing 20 per cent of the world's dietary energy supply. Other wetland plants, such as seaweed, although not harvested on the same scale as fish, are still an important source of food for local use and for international markets.
Indirectly, wetland plants often play a vital role as food for livestock on which the health of billions of people depend.
Many people are aware that well managed wetlands will continue to provide food to keep mankind healthy, but there are many human actions that negatively affect the capacity of wetlands to continue to provide for us.
In Ghana, just like many countries of the world, pollution, excessive water abstraction, poor sanitation, over harvesting and, of course, direct wetland destruction by developers and farmers, among others, reduce or destroy the capacity of wetlands to provide food for human consumption, which in turn affects our health.
Water supply
In the area of water supply, wetlands perform a vital function in filtering and purifying freshwater and, therefore, rendering it clean for human consumption. Wetlands have never been a more valuable service for human populations than today when more than one billion people lack access to clean water supplies. But wetlands can only provide us with clean water if we keep them healthy through effective management.
What happens when we destroy our wetlands is obvious — we lose this source of clean water, as well as all the other ecosystem services they provide.
Despite the capacity of freshwater wetlands in purifying water, they do have their limits and that is why it is important to preserve them.
Of particular concern is the 2.6 billion people today who lack access to adequate sanitation and, therefore, pollute wetlands through indiscriminate littering and directly dumping into such water bodies.
Water-related diseases
In many parts of the world, human health is closely linked to water-related diseases. Malaria, because mosquitoes breed in wetlands, and diarrhoea infections, because of sewage contamination, are globally the worst in terms of severity in impact. The problems accounted for 1.3 and 1.8 million deaths, respectively, in 2002, and affected the health of many.
While malaria and diarrhoeal diseases are the two worst in terms of human impact, we may add to this the debilitating effects of other wetland-related diseases such as schistosomiases, onchocerciasis and others.
Diarrhoeal diseases can be controlled through the provision of clean water, good sanitation practices and hygiene education. Poorly treated human sewage contains pathogens that are a key cause of diarrhoeal infections — and wetlands (both inland and coastal) — can be an important transport mechanism for such pathogens where sanitation is poor.
Floods have become more destructive in recent times because, increasingly, human infrastructure is being built in flood-prone areas. This we are all aware of from media reports, statisticians and our own personal experiences.
The direct and immediate impacts on human health include the loss of lives, injuries and, within a very short period of time, the lack of clean water and destruction of sewage systems which result in another set of threats to human health such as diarrhoea, cholera and other life-threatening, water-related ailments.
Receding floods in some countries also provide the perfect environment for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Finally, there are the long-term effects on mental health, such as anxiety and depression that often follow a major flooding event.
While we cannot easily prevent major floods, we can ensure that we benefit from the flood protection services that wetlands supply. We should know that rivers, lakes and marshes slow down and retain floodwaters to prevent flooding such as the one we recently experienced in the northern part of the country.
Wetlands medicines
Many wetland plants and a number of animal species have been used in traditional medicines for certain ailments and this continues today. They are also used in homeopathic medicines, an ever-growing industry in the developed world, and have a role in the development and production of modern medicines. Activities such as over-collection, destructive harvesting techniques and habitat loss and alteration together challenge the capacity of wetland species to continue to fulfil these roles.
Mental well-being
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that depression and depression-related illnesses will become the greatest source of ill-health by 2020 and the effects on health of physical inactivity in urban populations are becoming ever more costly in terms of medical treatment. We use urban green spaces (parks), including rivers, lakes and reservoirs, for recreation, education and relaxation.
The value of green spaces such as parks in improving the mental and physical health of urban populations is gaining greater recognition and current studies indicate measurable physical and psychological benefits from regular contact with urban green spaces. It is unfortunate that such facilities are not readily available in Ghanaian cities and towns.
Knowing the important role wetlands play in the health of human beings, every Ghanaian should support the fight being fought by groups such as the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, the Wildlife Society of Ghana, the Friends of the Earth, Ghana (FOE–Ghana) and other like-minded institutions and groups to save our wetlands and enable them to continue providing us the needed health needs.