Ecosystem health and sustainable livelihoods : exploring the prospects in community - based resource management in the East Mamprusi District, Ghana
Date
2002
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Abstract
Institutional processes, social and economic trends play a role in defining the outcomes of people's
interaction with and use of their ecosystems. The resource use decisions of households influence the
livelihood and health dimensions of ecological change. This paper uses the ecosystems approach to human
health to study the relationship between ecosystem and human health by examining how agro-ecosystem
based resource use systems influence community environmental change and vulnerability to health and
livelihood problems. It identifies community assets and activities and examines how they both affect
human and ecological health and productivity and community sustainability. Decline in quality and
abundance of assets such as livestock, arable land and economic trees that have been a source of wealth and
for meeting expenditures such as medical expenses, food and school fees is attributed to the transformation
of community resource tenures and polices, increasing incidence of animal mortality resulting from
chemicals used in farms and the decline in grazing land, while household wastewater is a source of
breeding grounds for mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Agro-ecosystem based livelihood activities have
introduced environmental changes that have contributed to decline in food production and poor health
resulting from poor nutrition. It is argued that improvements in health (both human and ecosystem) and the
sustainability of livelihoods have to focus on the creation of livelihood and environmental opportunities
which enable communities to adapt to weather risk and expand their livelihoods and prosperity beyond
simple dependence on the shrinking natural resource base.
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Working Paper
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Keywords
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH, ECOSYSTEMS, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, COMMUNITIES, RESOURCES MANAGEMENT, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, GHANA, COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION