How important is a concept like “healthy parks healthy people” in developing nations?
The “Healthy parks, healthy people” concept is very important in developing nations because the poorest people tend to live next to protected areas, where government services are least available. This leads to people having preventable infectious diseases that could spread at the human/wildlife/livestock interface. Furthermore the high fertility rate, population densities and population growth rates experienced in developing nations, puts greater pressure on the natural resources because people go into the parks to poach, get firewood and other forest products to meet their basic needs. We have had people say that they have 10 children, half of whom are for going to school, while the other half are to chase wildlife back from their gardens. When a couple has too many children they are less likely to feed them, give them adequate modern health care or send them to school, so that the children end up having teenage pregnancies, getting married very young, and not gaining meaningful emplo
