Forest Protection and Human Health – The Case of Malaria in the Brazilian Amazon

Open online seminar with Luiza Martins Karpavicius, Department of Food and Resource Economics.

Luiza's description of the study behind the seminar:

We examine a quasi-experiment involving two forest protection policies with different levels of enforcement and their consequences to malaria incidence.

The first inadvertently increased forest degradation in part of the Brazilian Amazon, whereas the second curbed deforestation in the entire region. Using actual malaria cases data distributed across space and over 17 years, we estimate that effective forest protection reduced malaria incidence by over 50%.

The results cannot be explained by socioeconomic or human population dynamics, leaving less favorable conditions for mosquito proliferation as the most likely mechanism. Thus, we bring strong evidence that ecosystem protection can be an important tool for the control of zoonoses.

 ____

How to participate

The seminar is open to all.
The seminar will take place online via Zoom