↓ Skip to main content

Sleeping sickness and its relationship with development and biodiversity conservation in the Luangwa Valley, Zambia

Overview of attention for article published in Parasites & Vectors, April 2015
Altmetric Badge

Citations

dimensions_citation
26 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
153 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Sleeping sickness and its relationship with development and biodiversity conservation in the Luangwa Valley, Zambia
Published in
Parasites & Vectors, April 2015
DOI 10.1186/s13071-015-0827-0
Pubmed ID
Authors

Neil E Anderson, Joseph Mubanga, Noreen Machila, Peter M Atkinson, Vupenyu Dzingirai, Susan C Welburn

Abstract

The Luangwa Valley has a long historical association with Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) and is a recognised geographical focus of this disease. It is also internationally acclaimed for its high biodiversity and contains many valuable habitats. Local inhabitants of the valley have developed sustainable land use systems in co-existence with wildlife over centuries, based on non-livestock keeping practices largely due to the threat from African Animal Trypanosomiasis. Historical epidemics of human sleeping sickness have influenced how and where communities have settled and have had a profound impact on development in the Valley. Historical attempts to control trypanosomiasis have also had a negative impact on conservation of biodiversity.Centralised control over wildlife utilisation has marginalised local communities from managing the wildlife resource. To some extent this has been reversed by the implementation of community based natural resource management programmes in the latter half of the 20(th) century and the Luangwa Valley provides some of the earliest examples of such programmes. More recently, there has been significant uncontrolled migration of people into the mid-Luangwa Valley driven by pressure on resources in the eastern plateau region, encouragement from local chiefs and economic development in the tourist centre of Mfuwe. This has brought changing land-use patterns, most notably agricultural development through livestock keeping and cotton production. These changes threaten to alter the endemically stable patterns of HAT transmission and could have significant impacts on ecosystem health and ecosystem services.In this paper we review the history of HAT in the context of conservation and development and consider the impacts current changes may have on this complex social-ecological system. We conclude that improved understanding is required to identify specific circumstances where win-win trade-offs can be achieved between the conservation of biodiversity and the reduction of disease in the human population.

Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 153 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 <1%
Australia 1 <1%
Unknown 151 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 30 20%
Student > Ph. D. Student 27 18%
Student > Master 19 12%
Student > Doctoral Student 15 10%
Student > Bachelor 12 8%
Other 25 16%
Unknown 25 16%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 42 27%
Environmental Science 18 12%
Medicine and Dentistry 10 7%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 9 6%
Social Sciences 7 5%
Other 37 24%
Unknown 30 20%