FROM LEFT: CHELSEA CALL; STEPHANIE GEE (2)
POPSCI.COM / WINTER 2020 79variety of alternative currencies: manure, tree seedlings, hand-
icrafts, labor, and other noncash payments. A sign on the wall
shows the conversion rate between Indonesian rupiah and var-
ious goods and services. Manure, for instance, nets 700 rupiah
(about 5 cents) per kilo. In 2019, villagers cashed in a total of
23,000 seedlings as payment, which supplied reforestation ef-
forts. “The rarest species are worth the most,” Febriani says.
Webb points out that the system makes the interconnected-
ness between health and the environment plain to the members
of the community. “You can see it: I’m paying with seedlings
because healthy forests lead to healthy people,” she says. “I’m
paying with manure because manure can be used for organic
farming, which is healthier for humans and for the planet.”
Pandemic prevention joins a mountain of good reasons to
leave nature alone. Yet balancing conservation with population
growth remains a challenge. Webb believes she’s hit upon a vi-
able model, and she’s attempting to scale it up. In Borneo, she
has a discount program in the works for families who forest
guardians can confirm have stopped hunting protected species.
And the program’s reach can cross borders: A lack of affordable
health care drives destruction of habitats in rainforest commu-
nities everywhere, she says. Already ASRI has more than 100
employees in Indonesia (twice that number in tree-planting sea-
son), and Webb has recently established a similar program in
Madagascar and is launching another one in the Amazon.
Her team is one of many working across the globe on interdis-
ciplinary efforts considered part of the field of planetary health.
An initiative in Senegal, for example, will reintroduce edible
native river prawns that prey on the snails that transmit the par-
asitic flatworm that causes schistosomiasis.ASRI, says Planetary Health Alliance head
Myers, “is a fantastic example of how to pre-
vent the incursions into wildlife habitat that are
at the heart of a lot of emerging infectious dis-
ease.” The question, in his mind, is whether its
model can be sufficiently scaled. “We need to
be doing this in 10 million villages.” That degree
of growth demands buy-in from governments.
A fiscal analysis published in Science in
July 2020 put the global investment needed to
reduce zoonotic disease risk at about $30 bil-
lion per year—a pittance compared to the
estimated damage from COVID-19, which ranges from
$3 to $80 trillion over the next five years. The paper
addresses forest con servation and measures to reduce
wildlife trafficking, as well as medical and technolog-
ical solutions. In Brazil, for instance, an app allows
residents to report dead and afflicted fauna in hopes of
identifying emerging outbreaks.
For decades, many have been ignorant of the con-
nection between ecosystem health and infectious
disease. Now, with COVID-19, more people are con-
necting the dots. “Part of our messaging right now
is, ‘Hey, guys, you know how we’ve been telling you
it’s not such a good idea to eat wild animals? Here’s
some proof,’” says Webb, before recalling a sound-
byte from director Febriani: “COVID-19 is a symptom
of a sick planet. Planetary health is the cure.”
Hamisah, an ASRI health-care worker and chief of
a nearby village (the first woman to hold the distinc-
tion in the region), has never traveled farther than
the overnight trek to Jakarta, but fully understands
that her community’s actions can have global implica-
tions. “When the wildlife have to go out of the forest,
there’s a risk of transferring disease to humans,” she
says, sitting on the floor of a medical storeroom, face
mask looped around her neck. “If they are safe there
and have things to eat, it’s safer for us.”This article was produced in collaboration with the
Food & Environment Reporting Network, an indepen-
dent, nonprofit news organization.LIFE ON THE LINE