Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity
The Earth's biodiversity—the rich variety of life on our planet—is disappearing at an alarming rate. And while many books have focused on the expected ecological consequences, or on the aesthetic, ethical, sociological, or economic dimensions of this loss, Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, published in June, 2008 by Oxford University Press, is the first to examine the full range of potential threats that a loss of biodiversity poses to human health.
Edited and written by Harvard Medical School physicians Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, with contributions by over 100 leading scientists, Sustaining Life presents a comprehensive—and sobering—view of how human medicines, biomedical research, the emergence and spread of infectious diseases, and the production of food, both on land and in the oceans, depend on biodiversity. The book's ten chapters cover everything from what biodiversity is and how human activity threatens it to how we as individuals can help conserve the world's richly varied biota. Seven groups of organisms, some of the most endangered on Earth—sharks, bears, primates, amphibians, cone snails, gymnosperms, and horseshoe crabs—provide detailed case studies to illustrate the contributions they have already made to human medicine, and those they are expected to make if we do not drive them to extinction. Drawing on the latest research, but written in language a general reader can easily understand, Sustaining Life argues that we can no longer see ourselves as separate from the natural world, nor assume that we will be unharmed by its alteration. Our health, as the authors so vividly detail, depends on the health of other species and on the integrity and vitality of natural ecosystems.
With a foreword by Edward O. Wilson and a prologue by Kofi Annan, and more then 200 poignant color illustrations, Sustaining Life contributes essential perspective to the debate over how humans affect biodiversity and a compelling demonstration of the human health costs.
Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity is a project of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, under the auspices of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Book Overview | Praise for Sustaining Life | Book Chapters | Speaking Engagements |
Interviews and Lecture Videos | Selected Media Appearances | Purchase
Book Overview:
View Sustaining Life online with Google Books
Press Release | UNEP Press Release | Sustaining Life Flyer | Book Jacket | Title Page | Dedication | Foreword | Preface | Table of Contents | Author Bios
Quotes from the Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita, and the Buddha about Life on Earth
For more information about this book please contact Natalie Wicklund at 617-384-8530 or natalie_wicklund@hms.harvard.edu.
The chapters in the book and their authors are as follows:
- What is Biodiversity?—Professor Stuart L. Pimm (Duke University), Professor Maria Alice dos Santos Alves (University of Rio de Janeiro), Eric Chivian M.D., and Aaron Bernstein M.D.
- How is Biodiversity Threatened by Human Activity?—Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein
- Ecosystem Services—Jerry Melillo Ph.D. (Ecosystem Center, Wood’s Hole) and Professor Osvaldo Sala (Brown University)
- Medicines from Nature—David Newman Ph.D. (Natural Products Branch, National Cancer Institute), John Kilama Ph.D. (Global Bioscience Development Institute), Aaron Bernstein, and Eric Chivian
- Biodiversity and Biomedical Research—Eric Chivian, Aaron Bernstein, and Joshua P. Rosenthal Ph.D. (Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health)
- Threatened Groups of Organisms Valuable to Medicine—Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein
- Ecosystem Disturbance, Biodiversity Loss, and Human Infectious Diseases—Professor David H. Molyneux (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine), Richard S. Ostfeld Ph.D. (Institute of Ecosystem Studies), Aaron Bernstein, and Eric Chivian
- Biodiversity and Food Production—Professor Emeritus Daniel Hillel (University of Massachusetts) and Professor Cynthia Rosenzweig (Columbia University)
- Genetically Modified Foods and Organic Farming—Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein
- What Each of Us Can Do to Help Conserve Biodiversity—Jeffrey A. McNeely (World Conservation Union), Eleanor Sterling Ph.D. (Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History) and Kalemani Jo Mulongoy Ph.D. (U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity)
Appendix—Agencies, Organizations, Treaties, Conventions, and NGOs Working to Conserve Biodiversity
Praise for Sustaining Life:
The Library Journal named Sustaining Life, along with Ed Wilson's and Bert Holldobler's Superorganism, the best biology book for 2008.
“The book is perfect for undergraduate students in any biologic field, or as supplemental reading for a large number of graduate students in areas ranging from public health and medicine to ecology or biologic sciences. I also highly recommend it for physicians, scientists, policymakers, and the general public. ”
-The New England Journal of Medicine, 4/9/09
“Well researched and with stunning graphics, the volume could serve admirably as a college text or recommended reading for politicians, health and resource managers, and citizens at large.”
-Science, 3/20/09
“[Sustaining Life] should be on every undergraduate reading list and everyone else’s gift list.”
-The Lancet, 7/12/08
“Sustaining Life is the most complete and powerful argument I have seen for the importance of preserving biodiversity.”
-Al Gore, former Vice President, Co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
“It was an exhilarating moment when scientists broke the genome code and showed us the basic building blocks of the human being. Now scientists are showing us how biodiversity works and why it is crucial to saving our planet for our children’s children and beyond. This important and compelling book is a blueprint for acting wisely and urgently.”
-Bill Moyers, former White House Press Secretary, Host of PBS's Bill Moyers Journal
“There is probably no better way to convince anyone still uncertain about the urgent need to preserve biodiversity, which is rapidly diminishing as a result of human activities, than to document its importance to human health and medicine. The authors have done this with great thoroughness and from every possible angle, producing a volume that pairs authority with anecdote and scholarship with passion.”
-Harold Varmus, President, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, former Director of the National Institutes of Health
“As a public health physician, I have been deeply involved for decades in helping political leaders, policy-makers, and the general public understand the relationship between human beings and the environment. Sustaining Life is the best and most comprehensive resource available demonstrating how human health depends on the health of the natural world.”
-Gro Brundtland, former Director General of the World Health Organization, former Prime Minister of Norway
"One of the main reasons the world faces a global environmental crisis is the belief that we human beings are somehow separate from the natural world in which we live and that we can therefore alter its physical, chemical, and biological systems without these alterations having any effect on humanity. Sustaining Life challenges this widely held misconception by demonstrating, definitively, with the best and most current scientific information available, that human health depends, to a larger extent than we might imagine, on the health of other species and on the healthy functioning of natural ecosystems."
- Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, from the Prologue
Purchase Sustaining Life
OrderSustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity directly from Oxford University Press or on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble, or Powell's Books.
Customers in Europe and the UK should visit the Oxford University Press UK website.
Sustaining Life Events
Upcoming Events
June 24, 2009Eric Chivian will be the opening keynote speaker at a Joint Meeting of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and The Linnean Society of London.
Recent Events
April 28, 2009Eric Chivian was a breakfast speaker during the event, "Healthy Home, Healthy Work" at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, Boston.
April 21, 2009Eric Chivian was a featured speaker during "Earth Week" at Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA.
March 17, 2009Eric Chivian was a featured speaker at the World Bank during "Environment Month," Washington D.C.
February 25, 2009Eric Chivian was a featured speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Canopy Group, Rainforest Alliance, New York City.
February 24, 2009Eric Chivian was a featured speaker at the Countway Library of Medicine Notable Book Series, Harvard Medical School.
February 8, 2009 Aaron Bernstein was a featured speaker at Cornell University, College of Veterinary Medicine during the first annual Zoonotics Symposium.
January 26, 2009Eric Chivian was a featured speaker at Techfest, the Annual International Science and Technology Festival of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India.
January 23, 2009Aaron Bernstein was a featured speaker at a breakfast seminar held by the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
January 14, 2009Eric Chivian was a featured speaker at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C.
December 10, 2008Aaron Bernstein spoke at the National Council on Science and the Environment conference in Washington, DC.
December 10, 2008 Eric Chivian spoke at Conservation International's Women's Conservation Forum, Washington, DC.
December 9, 2008Eric Chivian moderated a breakout session titled Biodiversity and Health at the National Council on Science and the Environment conference in Washington, DC.
December 8, 2008Eric Chivian spoke as part of the Opening Plenary Panel at the National Council on Science and the Environment, Washington, D.C.
November 20, 2008Eric Chivian gave a lecture to the students of Harvard College's Pforzheimer House.
November 20, 2008Eric Chivian participated in a booksigning at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Boston.
November 15, 2008Eric Chivian spoke at the Changing the World conference in Toronto, Canada for a group of 1,500 students ranging from high school to graduates.
November 6, 2008Eric Chivian gave a keynote lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Audubon Society.
October 30, 2008 Eric Chivian gave a lecture followed by a book signing at the Harvard Coop Bookstore.
October 29, 2008 Aaron Bernstein spoke at Children's Hospital Grand Rounds for the Departments of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Boston, Massachusetts.
October 16, 2008Eric Chivian spoke at the Harvard Museum of Natural History with Edward O. Wilson in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
October 8, 2008Eric Chivian gave a keynote talk during the Sustainability Dialogue on Health and the Environment at the World Conservation Congress, Barcelona, Spain.
October 3, 2008Eric Chivian spoke along with Noel Michele "Missy" Holbrook, PhD, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry and Professor of Biology, Harvard University at the Science Celebrity Series, Boston Museum of Science.
September 19, 2008Eric Chivian spoke at Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts.
September 15, 2008Aaron Bernstein gave a talk at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University hosted by the student chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association, N. Grafton, MA.
September 10, 2008Eric Chivian spoke at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York.
September 2, 2008Eric Chivian spoke to executives at Johnson & Johnson Headquarters, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
August 30, 2008Aaron Bernstein signed copies of Sustaining Life after speaking on a panel on "Climate Change and Agriculture" at the Slow Food Nation 2008 event in San Francisco, CA.
August 20, 2008Eric Chivian gave a Keynote lecture to over 600 students, faculty, environmentalists and
public health professionals at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia.
August 21, 2008Eric Chivian spoke to more than 1500 business leaders, along with Cristian Samper, Director of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History and Juan Lozano Ramírez, Colombia's Minister of the Environment, in Bogota, Colombia at Expogestion.
June 25, 2008 Eric Chivian Spoke at Conservation International's headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
June 24, 2008 Eric Chivian spoke along with Edward O. Wilson at a Senate briefing titled "Biodiversity Loss and the Implications for Human Health." The briefing was sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and Ranking Member Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) along with Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Russell Feingold (D-WI, John Kerry (D-MA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
June 4, 2008Eric Chivian spoke at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
June 2, 2008Eric Chivian spoke at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England.
May 30, 2008 Eric Chivian spoke at Oxford University, Oxford, England.
May 21, 2008 Eric Chivian spoke at a side event of the Ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 9) in Bonn, Germany. Watch a webcast of the lecture here.
May 16, 2008Aaron Bernstein spoke at Grand Rounds at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford.
May 15, 2008Aaron Bernstein spoke to ~240 undergraduate students during the Human Biology Core Lecture, Stanford University.
May 14, 2008 Aaron Bernstein gave an evening lecture at Storey House, Stanford University.
May 14, 2008 Aaron Bernstein gave two talks at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, one to the Doris Duke Fellows and the other to the larger School of Medicine community.
May 12, 2008Aaron Bernstein gave a Dean's Invited Lecture at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine and University of Chicago Center for the Environment
May 7, 2008 A launch of Sustaining Life was held at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. The program included comments by Cristián Samper, Acting Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Eric Chivian, lead author and editor; and Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor, Emeritus, Harvard University.
WATCH THE LECTURE: Part 1 | Part 2 (Realplayer)
May 1, 2008Aaron Bernstein spoke at Grand Rounds at Boston Medical Center,
Department of Pediatrics.
April 23, 2008 A launch of Sustaining Life was held at the United Nations Headquarters. The program included comments by Eric Chivian, lead author and editor; Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute Columbia University, Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon; and representatives from the book's co-sponsoring organizations including the UNDP, UNEP, Secretariat of the CBD and IUCN.
March 19, 2008 Eric Chivian spoke at the World Wildlife Fund U.S. Headquarters in Washington D.C.
March 11, 2008 Eric Chivian spoke at Defenders of Wildlife National Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
February 25, 2008Aaron Bernstein spoke at the COHAB 2 - Second International Conference on Health & Biodiversity, 2008 in Galway, Ireland.
February 21, 2008Aaron Bernstein spoke at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland.
February 15, 2008Aaron Bernstein spoke at a side event to the Thirteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 13) of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
February 6, 2008Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein spoke at Grand Rounds at Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
November 27, 2007Eric Chivian spoke to the California Institute of Technology Biology Department.
November 13, 2007Eric Chivian spoke at the Marion County Medical Society in Ocala, Florida.
Interviews and Lecture Videos
Lives in the Balance: Human Health and Nature
On Wednesday, May 7, 2008 the Smithsonian Associates hosted a launch of the book Sustaining Life in the Baird Auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History. The evening's program was titled "Lives in the Balance: Human Health and Nature."
Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Cristian Samper, introduced the evening and welcomed the more than 400 guests. His remarks were followed by presentations from Edward O. Wilson and Eric Chivian. A discussion and book signing followed the lectures.
WATCH THE LECTURES
Part 1 | Part 2 (Realplayer)
Biodiversity Loss and the Implications for Human Health
On Tuesday, June 24, 2008 Eric Chivian and Edward O. Wilson spoke during a Senate briefing in Washignton, D.C.
Briefing for Senate (PDF)
Dear Colleague Letter from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and Ranking Member Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) along with Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Russell Feingold (D-WI, John Kerry (D-MA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
WATCH THE BRIEFING VIDEOS
Part 1 | Part 2 (Realplayer)
READ MORE ABOUT THE BRIEFING HERE
Sustaining Life: Featured Interview on NPR's Living on Earth
During the week of June 27, 2008, Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein were interviewed on National Public Radio's Living on Earth.
LISTEN HERE
Sustaining Life: A Lecture by Eric Chivian at Harvard Forest
On September 19, 2008, Eric Chivian spoke at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts.
LISTEN HERE
Sustaining Life: A Conversation - Science Celebrity Series, Boston Museum of Science
On October 3, 2008, Eric Chivian spoke along with Noel Michele "Missy" Holbrook, PhD, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry and Professor of Biology, Harvard University for the Science Celebrity Series, Boston Museum of Science.
WATCH THE LECTURE VIDEO (Realplayer)
Eric Chivian featured on The Hour, Canada's only late night talk show, 12/16/08
WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP
Eric Chivian featured on the Harvard Medical Labcast discussing the connection between biodiversity and human disease.
Selected Media Appearances
Spring 2009Hanken J. Rx for Human (and Planetary Health). ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America.
04.22.09Schulder M. Polar Man. CNN.com, Anderson Cooper's 360 Blog.
04.09.09Patz J. Review: Sustaining Life How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2009; 360(15): 1578-1579.
04.07.09Chivian E. Losing It. World Conservation Magazine. 2009; Issue 1.
03.20.09Schulder M. This one's for the bird brains. CNN.com, Anderson Cooper's 360 Blog.
03.20.09Mindell D. Review: Humans Need Biodiversity. Science. 2009; 323(5921):1562-1563.
03.13.09Schulder M. Killing me would not be in your interest. CNN.com, Anderson Cooper's 360 Blog.
01.08.09Zakharian L. The Guardian of Life. Yerevan.
Fall 2008Chivian E and Bernstein A. How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. The Consultative Group on Biological Diversity.
07.12.08Costello A. Apocalypse Now? The Lancet. 2008; 372(9633):105-106.
10.31.08Kushner JK. Nobel Peace Laureate Touts Biodiversity. The Harvard Crimson.
10.22.08Ventkataraman B. The secrets of crabs, polar bears, and snails. The Boston Globe Green Blog.
06.06.08Radford T. GOING, GOING, GONE? The Guardian.
June 2008Green Medicine: How Our Health Depends on the Health of the Earth. Children’s News.
Summer 2008Matthes L. Summer Reading List. Friends of the Earth Newsmagazine. 38(2):15.
Spring 2008Slomski A. Our Earth, Our Health. Proto.
04.23.08Wong G. UN Official: Biodiversity Loss Could Hurt Medical Research. Associated Press. |
