Biodiversity
Canadian Studies Research Nutrition and biodiversity of the Amazon
Water is everything to the villagers living near the Tapajos River in Brazil. It is their way, their livelihoods and their main food source. And it is affecting their health. Canadian researchers are working to solve this problem.
In 1994, Brazilian researchers asked Dr. Donna Mergler, neurotoxicologist and Dr. Marc Lucotte, a biochemist, Université du Québec à Montreal to visit the Tapajós, a major tributary of the Amazon River to find out why people living in the area had high levels of mercury in their bodies, and whether this mercury affected their health.
Dr. Lucotte team found that deforestation was the source of the problem. "There is mercury naturally in soil, and when you remove the cover forest increases soil erosion and soil water goes where it is converted into organic mercury, enters the food chain and accumulates in fish, "says Dr. Mergler.
People along the Tapajós eat much fish, especially predatory fish. These fish at the top of the food chain tend to have high levels of mercury contamination.
"We looked at ('the villagers) motor coordination, fine motor movement and vision, and found that the highest levels of mercury, the poorer their performance on tests that assess these skills, "says Dr Mergler." The person does not necessarily a clinical disorder, but if you're a fisherman who needs to repair its network, the fact that you are losing motor coordination, fine motor and vision is very important. "
Dr. Mergler and her team worked with villagers to find ways to reduce your exposure to mercury, while keeping fish on the menu. They developed an educational campaign and the motto: Eat more fish that eat other fish. Five years later, Dr. Mergler found that the villagers ate more herbivorous fish (fish that eat only plants), levels of mercury in their hair had fallen and improved motor skills were. But his performance on tests of vision had not changed.
Funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) allowed researchers to study this problem more closely. Their results confirm the negative effects of mercury in several visual functions, but also found the nutrients selenium, found in Brazil nuts grown locally, appeared to prevent some possible damage caused by exposure to mercury.
These studies have inspired another project to reduce deforestation and halt the mercury pollution at its source. The project will help farmers move away from agricultural practices that accelerate the erosion process, and encourage them to start growing local grains and trees to help preserve the soil.
"Al take an ecosystem approach and linking all these ideas together, we are trying to figure out how to maintain the biodiversity of the Amazon environment to promote good nutrition, reduce toxic risks and improve human health, "says Dr Mergler.
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Biodiversity – from “The Wild Classroom”
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