8. Health Problems from Mosquitoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
How mosquitoes cause illness . . . . . . . . . . 143 Yellow fever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Malaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Community mosquito control . . . . . . . . . . 149
Dengue fever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Using insecticides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
9. Protecting Watersheds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
How watersheds work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Managing the way water flows . . . . . . . . . 167
Health effects of damaged watersheds . . . . 160 Watersheds in towns and cities . . . . . . . . . 168
Protecting and restoring watersheds . . . . . .161 Large dams damage health . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Planning a community
Alternatives to large dams . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
watershed project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
10. Forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175
Forests and health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Forest destruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Forests, food, fuel and medicine . . . . . . . . . 180 Forest conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Women’s burden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Sustainable use of forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Forests and livelihood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Make a forest management plan . . . . . . . . 192
Farming in the forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Forest reserves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Ecotourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Reforestation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
11. Restoring Land and Planting Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Preventing erosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Restoring damaged land . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Natural succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Planting trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Selecting seeds or cuttings . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Growing trees in a nursery . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Soil for planting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Transplanting seedlings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Transplanting in difficult places . . . . . . . . 213
Caring for young trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Restoring waterways and wetlands . . . . . . 214
Restoring plant life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
12. Community Food Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Nutrition and food security . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Food security in cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Improving local food security . . . . . . . . . . 225 Social and political causes of hunger . . . . . . 231
Community food projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Safe food storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Food sovereignty is a human right . . . . . . . 235
13. The False Promise of Genetically Engineered Foods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Traditional plant breeding . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Allergies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
How are GE plants different from
Environmental problems from
traditional plants? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
GE crops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
GE foods and health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Ge food is dumped as food aid . . . . . . . . . . 245
14. Pesticides are Poison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Why are pesticides used? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Protective clothing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Pesticides cause many health problems . . . . 252 Storing pesticides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Children and pesticide poisoning . . . . . . . . 253 Transport pesticides carefully . . . . . . . . . . 269
When pesticides get on the skin . . . . . . . . . 256 If you spill pesticides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
When pesticides are swallowed . . . . . . . . . 257 Pesticides on food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
When pesticides are breathed in . . . . . . . . 259 Pesticides harm the environment . . . . . . . . 272
Long-term health effects of pesticides . . . . . 261 Resistance to pesticides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Reproductive health effects of pesticides . . . 263 Pesticide education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Reduce harm from pesticide use . . . . . . . . 267 Read and understand pesticide labels . . . . . 276
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012