Climate-Health Solutions Showcase at COP28
Today at the Climate-Health Solutions Showcase at COP28, our CEO for Business and Scale, Ashley Emerson, showcased Health in Harmony's Radical Listening approach.
"Through an anti-colonial process called Radical Listening, which was inspired by the long-standing traditions of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, we ask communities these questions:
You are stewards of this precious rainforest that the whole world benefits from - what do you need to thrive in balance with the rainforest as a thank-you for your stewardship?"
Ashley then went on to emphasize how community-designed solutions put health at the center of community well-being. In West Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo, communities did just this when proposing two core solutions to protect and preserve Gunung Palung National Park. They were:
Access to high-quality affordable healthcare
Training in alternative livelihoods.
Over 10 years Health In Harmony invested 5.2 million USD in these solutions and conservative estimates revealed that communities returned 12X on this investment. That is over $65 M in averted loss of above-ground carbon.
Partnering with Alam Sehat Lestari, a medical center was established on the rainforest's periphery. Patient data analysis from this center demonstrated remarkable outcomes:
A significant declines in diagnosed cases of malaria, tuberculosis, childhood-cluster diseases, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and diabetes.
An infant mortality decrease of 67%.
A 70% reduction in forest loss and protection of habitat for over 2,500 endangered Bornean orangutans.
A 90% drop was observed in the number of households that reported logging as their primary source of income as they transitioned into organic farming and small business ownership.
This work has been cited by the Centers for Disease Control as an upstream and affordable Intervention to Reduce the Risk for Pathogen Spillover and Early Disease Spread to Prevent Outbreaks, Epidemics, and Pandemics.
Health in Harmony has replicated this success, scaling its initiatives alongside key partners such as the Indonesian Ministry of Health, Pawanka Fund, and Woodwell Climate Research Center. We have joined MSF in an ambitious initiative that will eventually cover an entire district in Madagascar, focusing on improving ecological and human health.
The underlying principle guiding these endeavors is decolonizing who is considered to be an expert. By acknowledging and empowering local communities as experts in their own right, significantly more impact can be achieved in the preservation of biodiversity and preventing global heating.
Hope, for Health In Harmony, is not a feeling – it is an action, and we have found that the impact is boundless when you listen to Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendent communities, local and rainforest communities and invest in their solutions to protect and preserve rainforests.