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8 BusinessDay www.businessday.co.za Wednesday 6 February 201 9

among the very young, old andpeople with HIV or otherimmune-mediated conditions.For its part, TB spreads mostreadily in closed environments.

Chronic lower respiratorydiseases include chronicbronchitis, emphysema andasthma and occur as a result oftoxins, chronic infection andinflammation. Cigarette smokeis the primary factor, butindustrial pollution and

ACCESS TO RESOURCES

Poor people face biggest climate-change health risksLenore Manderson

Evidence of the effectsof climate change onhuman habitat andhealth, on plant andanimal life, on water

resources and shorelines ismounting. These changes arefelt unevenly within andbetween nations andcommunities. This is due todifferences in access toresources, infrastructure, socialstructure and p o l icy .

Climate change is, and willcontinue to be, most severelyfelt by the poorest people in anypopulation, particularly those inpoorly resourced, isolated andextreme environments.

But extreme weather events,famine and epidemics are nothow people most commonlyexperience climate change.Rather, the unprecedentedpeaks in temperature across theworld affect the conditions ofeveryday life in subtle ways.This is particularly true amongt ho s e with the fewest resources.

For example, people wholive in poorly constructed

houses and shacks, oftenwithout ventilation, and in oldinner-city dwellings, are atheightened risk of heat-stresshealth problems that can befatal. These include dehydration,heat stroke and asthma.

In Africa, people living incramped housing in informalsettlements, and those in run-down inner-city apartments,are most at risk. And, wherethere is no ready access topotable water, their health is ateven greater risk.

The effect of global warmingon health conditions and deathsis the hardest to predict. Butresearchers are beginning toidentify the biggest potentialrisks, particularly for developingcountries. Developedeconomies are able to reduceenvironmental health risksthrough improvedinfrastructure, legalinterventions and education. Butthe poorest populations, withthe least political traction,remain vulnerable. Globalwarming simply adds to theirhealth risks.

A few examples illustrate

how changes in weatherpatterns can have a negativeeffect on the world’s ability tomanage diseases.

For example, in the absenceof a vaccine, infectious diseasessuch as malaria have largelybeen controlled by managingthe environment better.

But this is complicated bychanges in ambienttemperature, temperatureranges, changes in precipitation,and water flow.

CLIMATE CHANGEAll affect the geographic habitatand behaviour of vectors, suchas mosquitoes and snails. This,in turn, is making it harder todeal with infections such asmalaria, dengue andschistosomiasis (bilharzia).

Additionally, changes inrainfall patterns and increaseddrought are likely to affectwater supply. Lack of water forhousehold use and personalconsumption affects hygieneand sanitation, contributing tothe risk of waterborne diseasessuch as dysentery.

Again, people who don’t

have ready access to runningwater, and those who live inrun-down and crowdedaccommodation, are especiallyat risk. Changes in water supplycan also affect commercial foodand subsistence production.This, in turn, affects foodsecurity and the price of food.

Social, economic andstructural factors also shapehealth risks, worseningenvironmental exposure andrisk factors in health and illness.This is particularly true in Africa,where many of the top 10causes of death are linked to thee nv i r o n me nt .

In 2016, the World HealthOrganisation (WHO) associatedmost of the top 10 causes ofdeath with physical work andsocial environments.

How this unfolds isparticularly clear if we look atSA statistics on the top 10diseases affecting the country.

One of them is diabetes. Thedisease is strongly linked tonutrition, food availability andaffordability. This means that, inmost populations that havebecome dependent on

purchased food, diabetes trackspoverty. A range of diseases areclosely associated with diabetesand share strong links to dietand nutrition.

These include hy p e r t e n s iv ediseases, cerebrovasculardiseases, and ischaemic healthdisease, including heart attacks.

Influenza, pneumonia andTB are also in the top 10. All areairborne infections, with therisk of these conditions highest

occupational health hazardscontribute to this toll.

Many of these conditions arelinked to the environment in avery direct way.

Water, sanitation, crowdingand poor ventilation, and indoorand outdoor air pollution — fromcooking and heating,manufacturing, and the use offossil fuels in transport — allcontribute to continued highrates of lower respiratory

infections and diarrhoealdiseases and lung cancer.

The WHO draws attention todecreased exposure toenvironmental health risks associoeconomic developmentincreases. But we cannot waitfor this to be resolved withoutactive steps being made.

Financial resources,research and developmentthrough collaborations withuniversities and corporationshave been set aside to developnew, affordable technologies todiagnose disease and to developdrugs to intercept thedevelopment of the disease.

While these investments willcontinue, more urgently needsto be done.

To reduce deaths anddisease associated with climatechange, governments andcommunities must addressglobal warming. /This article wasoriginally published by TheConversation Africa

● Manderson is distinguishedprofessor in public health andmedical anthropology at theUniversity of the Witwatersrand

The last Knysna elephant has anurgent message for the world• She is the metaphor for our treatment of all species

Heather Dugmore

Only one elephantremains in theKnysna forestand surroundingfynbos: a mature

female. There is enormouspathos and tragedy in thisfinding as she is the last trulywild, free-roaming elephantin SA and the southernmost inthe world.

The finding was recentlypublished in a scientific articletitled And Then There Was Oneby leading mammal scientists,following a rigorous cameratrap survey using 72 passiveinfrared-triggered cameras,24/7 from July 2016 to October2017 in the Knysna elephantrange that spans 185km².

This range includes theGarden Route National Park,privately owned commercialtimber plantations and privatelyowned forested land.

The Knysna elephants havealways moved directionally andseasonally along clearly definedpathways between feedingpatches and water in the area.

“There has been a debate foryears now about how manyKnysna elephants there are, asthey are difficult to see orlo c at e ,” says Graham Kerleyfrom the Centre for AfricanConservation Ecology at NelsonMandela University, one of therenowned mammalresearchers who participated inthe research and co-authoredthe article. “To have it confirmedthat there is only one Knysnaelephant left is a shock to manyas there is a deep aura ofmystique and mythologyaround them, fuelled bytheir elusiveness and by storieslike Dalene Matthee’s Circles ina Forest.”

To conduct the survey, the72 cameras were deployed at38 locations within the elephantrange and set to take high-quality images with a one-second interval betweensequential photographs, and atwo-second delay betweenvideo clips. They were fastenedto trees within 1m of elephant-used roads and paths, at a heightof between 1m and 1.5m.

Recent technological

improvements in camera-traptechnology make it a widelyused, reliable application inecological studies.

“The cameras were all activefor 15 months and covered therange evenly during this time,ensuring there were no gapareas where elephants mightreside undetected,” s ay sSANParks scientist LizetteMoolman, one of theresearchers who workedon the study. Over a period of17,306 active camera trappingdays, a total of 5,195 elephantphotographs or video clips (15 to

30 seconds each) werecaptured, in 144 capture events.

All of these solely identifiedone heavy, round-bodied adultfemale with a highly wrinkledforehead that forms a unique,easily identified pattern.

“She is about 45 years oldand moves in the indigenousforest and fynbos areas onSANParks and neighbouringprivate land,” says Moolman.

Elephants have uniqueindividual physical featuressuch as ear notch patterns andtusk shape and size, makingthem individually identifiable. In

addition to this female’s shapeand forehead, she has uniqueserrated ear notch patterns andrelatively wide-spacedasymmetrical unbroken tusks,the left higher than the right.

“The brutal reality is there isno longer a population ofKnysna elephants. All themystique of the Knysnaelephant is reduced to a singleelephant left in rather tragicc i r c u m s t a nce s ,” says Kerley.

Female elephants are notmeant to be alone — they spendtheir lives in family units ofrelated adult females with theircalves. The images reveal thatalthough she is a fully matureadult female, she lacksdeveloped breasts, because sheis neither pregnant nor lactating.Her shrivelled mammaryglands suggest that she has nothad a calf in a long time, if ever.

Kerley says she appears to

be in reasonably good conditionwith the exception of herswollen temporal glands withexcessive temporal streaming,which suggests that she isexperiencing stress, possibly asa result of being alone.

“Considering all thesefactors, the debate about howwe have allowed thispopulation to go functionallyextinct and how to manage thelast elephant is very emotionaland very serious as she is asymbol of how we are treatingbiodiversity as a whole,” he says.

“It is a societal responsibilityas we have forced theseelephants, which are savannaelephants, into inhospitableforest habitats as a result ofhundreds of years of huntingthem and chasing them out oftheir natural habitat.”

The leaves of the Knysnaforest trees are low in protein

and high in fibre — a poor-quality food. Most of the forestcanopy is 30m-40m high, andout of browsing reach. Bydeduction, the Knysnaelephants supplemented theirdiet on the forest edge and inthe fynbos.

Historically, the Knysnaelephants roamed in theirthousands as a continuouspopulation for hundreds ofkilometres along the southernCape coast. They had access tothickets, fynbos and Karoohabitat. Over the past 300-oddyears they were forced, as aresult of persecution andhuman encroachment, toretreat into the forest as arefugee population.

By 1876, as a result ofhunting and persecution, thethousands of southern Cape andKnysna elephants were downto 400 to 500 animals,

according to the official reportsof conservators of forests.

In 1920, Ma j PJ Pretoriusconducted the last-known legalhunt of Knysna elephants. Hehad a permit to kill oneelephant, but five died in theprocess, reducing the elephantsto about 13. By 1970 they weredown to 11 (Wildlife Societysurvey); by 1981 down to three(forestry department records).

In 2007 a faecal DNAgenotyping survey suggested anincrease to five femaleelephants, a calf and a breedingmale, but this kind of surveyonly provides statisticalestimates of population size, notan actual count, which thecamera survey does. Rigorousfollow-up counts have beenneglected, and we are nowdown to one. She could live to65 years, as elephants do, andshe could be in the forest for

another 20 years, or not, we justdo n ’t know.

“Managing her is a hugechallenge because she is veryshy and avoids humans,” Ke r leysays. “It is not viable tointroduce savanna elephantsfrom other populations — fromAddo or Kruger — to the forest.This was tried with three youngKruger elephants in September1994 and it failed. In less than amonth, one died of stress-related pneumonia. The othertwo left the forest causinghuman-elephant conflict andthey ultimately had to be movedto Shamwari Game Reserve.

“The last Knysna elephanthas the same genetics as theAddo and Kruger populationsand so the question has beenraised whether she should bemoved out of the forest to aherd. The option of capturingher and moving hersomewhere else would bedangerous for her and we don’tknow if it would even be of anyvalue to her as she only knowsthe forest and she might not beable to settle into another areawith other elephants.”

The same goes for anyattempts at artificialinsemination. It’s too risky and ifit was decided to attempt the“i mp r e g n at io n ” route, it wouldbe better to move her to anotherelephant population, which,Kerley says, could be tootraumatic for her.

He says a major voice thatneeds to be considered in thedecision about her managementis the people of Knysna — w ho ,in all probability, would notwant to see her go. “It comesdown to a societal decision as itis no longer a populationdecision, it is about the lastKnysna elephant’s well-being.My personal opinion is that weshould leave her be.

“Hopefully we humans havelearnt a nasty lesson because itis ultimately our fault that weare down to the last elephanthere. She is the metaphor forour treatment of all species thatlive on this planet with us.

“The saying ‘the elephant inthe room’ could not be moreapt; she is telling us we aremaking some big mistakes andwe are going to lose a lot morethan her if we don’tsubstantially change how wetreat and value biodiversity.”

Tapping intohealth :Access towater andsanitation willhelp tom iti gatesome of thehealth risksposed byc l i m atechange ./Bl o o m b e rg

At closequarters: P rofGra h a mKerley fromthe Centrefor AfricanConserv ationEco l ogyco n d u ctse l e p h a ntresearch atAd d oEl e p h a ntNational Parkin the EasternCape. /Ne l so nMa n d e laUniv ersity

Deadly harvest: Maj PJ Pretorius conducted the last known legalhunt of Knysna elephants in 1920. /Forestry SA

On her own: The only surviving Knysna elephant is a female of about 45 years. Her image was snapped during a survey using 72 cameras at38 locations within the elephant range. /SAN Pa rks