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In reflecting on her experience at IEF 2008, Dr Suzana Padua, president of the Brazilian Institute for Ecological Research (IPE) said: “The more you understand the interconnection of everything that is alive in the planet, then it has to touch you somehow.”

As an environmental educator, “[health] is not my field,” she went on, but “to my surprise, I saw myself participating or learning or offering a great deal . . . The content of ecohealth right now has to do with all fields of knowledge.”

Because IPE “works with ecosystems and the balance with humans and wildlife,” Dr Padua said, it has a great deal to contribute to ecohealth research. Wildlife and climate change are closely linked to human health.

 

The education centre at IPE recently expanded to include a graduate program. As a non-governmental organization, IPE takes a different approach from that offered by universities. “We . . . do the research and then do the action that the research indicates,” Dr Padua noted. And ecohealth has an important place in the institute’s education efforts.

 “Ecohealth is one of the themes we consider to be important to teach and apply within our own projects,” Dr Padua said. “The stronger we get in the field [of ecohealth], the more contribution we will give internally to our projects, and also to the audience that comes for our courses.”

For more information on IPE and its education programs, please visit the Institute’s website.

 

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