One Amazon, One Health: Understanding Asháninka People’s Perspectives to Health and Well-Being in Response to Epidemic Threats, Like COVID-19

Wild meat or ‘bushmeat’ has long served as a principal source of protein and a key contributor to the food security of millions of people across the developing world, most notably in Africa, Latin America and Asia. More recently, however, growing human populations, technological elaborations and the emergence of a booming commercial bushmeat trade have culminated in unprecedented harvest rates and the consequent decline of numerous wildlife populations. Most research efforts aimed at tackling this problem to date have been rooted in the biological disciplines, focused on quantifying the trade and measuring its level of destruction on wildlife and ecosystems. Comparatively little effort, on the other hand, has been expended on illuminating the role of bushmeat in human livelihoods and in providing alternative sources of food and income, as well as the infrastructure to make these feasible. This paper aims to shift the focus to the human dimension, emphasising the true contributions of bushmeat to food security, nutrition and well-being, while balancing this perspective by considering the far-reaching impacts of overexploitation. What emerges from this synthesis is that bushmeat management will ultimately depend on understanding and working with people, with any approaches focused too narrowly on biodiversity preservation running the risk of failure in the long term. If wildlife is to survive and be utilised in the future, there is undoubtedly a need to relax adherence to unswerving biocentric or anthropocentric convictions, to appreciate the necessity for certain trade-offs and to develop integrated and flexible approaches that reconcile the requirements of both the animals and the people.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019) pandemic struck Latin America in late February and is now beginning to spread across the rural indigenous communities in the region, home to 42 million people. Eighty percent of this highly marginalized population is concentrated in Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. Health care services for these ethnic groups face distinct challenges in view of their high levels of marginalization and cultural differences from the majority. Drawing on 30 years of work on the responses of health systems in the indigenous communities of Latin America, our group of researchers believes that countries in the region must be prepared to combat the epidemic in indigenous settings marked by deprivation and social disparity. We discuss four main challenges that need to be addressed by governments to guarantee the health and lives of those at the bottom of the social structure: the indigenous peoples in the region. More than an analysis, our work provides a practical guide for designing and implementing a response to COVID-19 in indigenous communities.