Blockchain Papers

Anthony J. Berry

The contribution of theology to control and accounting has been traced through the
\nmonastic tradition demonstrating how the Cistercians used decentralized control of their
\nextensive farms in contrast to the centralized control of the Benedictines (Knowles,1948).
\nThe contribution of theology to political economy was traced by Weber and Tawney in
\ntheir analysis of the Calvinist roots of liberal market capitalism and more subtly by Adam
\nSmith in his ironic use of a phrase from Isaiah Ch 60 as the title for his seminal work on
\nmarkets.
\nThis paper reports upon a case of the interplay of theology and control and accountability
\nwhich occurred as the Church of England set out to respond to a financial crisis.
\nAccountability was theorized as stemming from the three elements of covenant, constitution
\nand contract all of which were contested in the ground metaphor of autonomy. It
\ndemonstrates how a group of financiers from within the evangelical tradition (which places
\nstress on headship and control) led an attempt to create a new church governance body (a
\nnational council) with strongly integrated central control and diminished democratic and
\nconciliar participation. They had described the church as 'a cats cradle of autonomous and
\nsemi autonomous organizations'. The case then demonstrates how the other theological
\ntraditions (anglo-catholic and liberal) were mobilized , over a period of several years, to
\npermit the new body to come into life but to unravel the proposed centralised control and
\nto maintain the existing nature of governance and to enrich the complexity of the 'cat's
\ncradle'.
\nThe case analysis is based upon the theory of eco-systems (as a more formal view of the
\ncat's cradle) to show how the loosely coupled nature of eco systems with their multiple
\ntheological stances and their multi layered processes of relationships and accountabilities
\nwere almost impervious to the attempt to shift them into an ordered and controlled
\nhierarchy.

Scott Norris

Of the various brewing biological crises of our time, the issues of declining biodiversity and emerging disease are among the most complex and far-reaching. In many respects they are also different sides of the same coin, a perspective that is central to the new field of conservation medicine. The product of a growing coalition of conservation biologists and ecologists, wildlife veterinarians, and biomedical researchers, conservation medicine explicitly addresses the interlinked and transdisciplinary nature of many of today's most urgent health and conservation issues. The field is being advanced most forcefully by researchers associated with the recently established Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM). Originally established in 1998 within the School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, CCM consists of three partner organizations representing the veterinary, wildlife conservation, and human health components of conservation medicine. Collaborating with Tufts are Wildlife Trust, a US-based wildlife conservation organization, and the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. The advent of conservation medicine is timely. In this era of widespread environmental degradation, declining biodiversity, and emerging diseases in both humans and animals, many medical experts and conservationists agree with conservation medicine's defining theme: The concept of health—for both humans and animals—must be understood in an ecological context. One of the aims of conservation medicine is to formalize and advance this multidisciplinary perspective. “Health connects all species on the planet,” said Philip Kosch, dean of the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, in introducing a special symposium on conservation medicine at the June 2000 meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology in Missoula, Montana. Much of the focus at the symposium was on the complex problem of emerging diseases—that is, those with increasing incidence or geographic range. “There are almost no examples of emerging wildlife diseases not driven by human environmental change,” said Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist at the University of Georgia. “And few human emerging diseases don't include some domestic animal or wildlife component.” Proponents of conservation medicine argue that, just as an ecological perspective can aid health workers in understanding the mechanisms of disease, adopting a medical model can benefit conservationists. Most directly, the integration of the veterinary community's biomedical perspective with the theoretical, ecological focus of conservation biologists can inform efforts to preserve biodiversity. At the same time, a focus on human health may be an effective way to “sell” biodiversity protection programs to the public, both in the United States and around the world. Some conservation biologists hope that their basic environmental message will garner greater authority and respect when delivered by doctors and public health officials. Despite the enthusiasm of ecologists for the concept of conservation medicine, other observers take issue with a few of the field's claims and assumptions. Members of some veterinary and biomedical organizations point out that they already have a long history of dealing with issues at the interface of public health, wildlife health, and conservation. Beyond these mostly territorial disputes are other, more serious concerns. Some biologists, for example, question the assumption that conservation efforts can only benefit from a strong linkage with human health issues. Clearly, conservation medicine is a field that is still trying to define itself. But whether it is new in substance or in name only, the problems it has staked out are substantial ones. “Human and animal populations are more mobile than ever before,” notes Mark Pokras, a Tufts University veterinarian who helped organize CCM. “At the same time, wildlife habitat is decreasing and populations are declining and under stress. We're seeing an accelerating trend of exchange of disease among taxonomic groups, and it's going to get a lot worse over the next hundred years.” Richard Ostfeld, an ecologist at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, says conservation medicine has an important role to play in making explicit the linkages between wildlife veterinary medicine, conservation biology, and epidemiology. “There really hasn't been any unified field that combines these perspectives,” he says. Conservation medicine provides a formal disciplinary framework within which scientists can piece together an understanding of the processes—spanning all levels of biological organization, from cells to ecosystems—that comprise the ecological context of health. Such an approach is a radical shift away from viewing diseases solely in terms of the response of individual organisms to infection or the spread of infection through populations. Consider Lyme disease, for example. Ostfeld has spent years unraveling the ecology of this tick-transmitted disease, which affects tens of thousands of people annually in North America and Europe. “To a physician,” he says, “a case of Lyme disease begins when a patient enters a clinic complaining of symptoms. But to an ecologist, that visit to the clinic is the culmination of a series of events that began one to two years earlier and involved several different species—ticks, mice, deer, oak trees, bacteriain nature.” In forests of the northeastern United States, the white-footed mouse is the most efficient host for transmitting Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease bacterium, to ticks. Lyme disease risk is governed by two factors: the percentage of tick nymphs infected with the disease organism and the absolute density of infected nymphs. The greater the summer abundance of white-footed mice, the greater the abundance of infectious tick nymphs the following year. When mouse populations are low, chances are greater that a larval tick will parasitize some other, nondisease-carrying species and thus will remain uninfected. The same is true when mice coexist with a diverse assembly of potential tick hosts. Through this “dilution effect,” Ostfeld has shown, increased biodiversity directly reduces the infection rate of ticks. When species diversity is reduced—and especially when predators of mice are eliminated—both mouse and tick densities climb steeply, and disease risk to humans increases. Ostfeld's data show that the small habitat patches in fragmented forests support few vertebrate species and large mouse populations with a high rate of B. burgdorferi infection. The work is still in progress, but if Ostfeld's data continue to support his hypothesis, the implication for land management is significant: Maintaining forests with high vertebrate diversity and healthy predator populations can directly benefit human health. Ostfeld and coworker Felicia Keesing are also investigating the possibility that a diverse assemblage of potential hosts might reduce the risk of other vector-borne diseases. Although more data are needed, Ostfeld says, “We think this dilution effect is likely to be very widespread.” The case of Lyme disease is unusual only in the degree to which its ecology is understood. The emergence or reemergence of vector-borne diseases worldwide is nearly always the result of ecological changes affecting human, animal, and pathogen populations. Habitat loss and fragmentation, the disruption of food webs and other ecological relationships, environmental contamination, and climate change all contribute to new patterns in the manifestation and spread of disease. Thus, complete understanding of the human health risk posed by emerging diseases must include knowledge of causes that lie outside the traditional domain of physicians and epidemiologists. Most emerging infectious diseases in humans result from exposure to zoonotic pathogens, organisms that invade and complete some portion of their life cycle in other animals. Any changes in the density, distribution, population dynamics, or ecological interactions of host animal or insect vector species may result in new patterns of disease incidence. For example, work by Jonathan Patz of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health has shown how deforestation in northern Peru has produced vast areas of prime habitat for Anopheles darlingi, the mosquito species that is the main vector for the malaria parasite in South America. Dense forest habitat, which favored other Anopheles species less likely to carry the disease, has given way to sunlit areas with a thin soil layer and standing pools of water—conditions in which the malaria-carrying A. darlingi thrives. From 1987 to 1997, the incidence of malaria in the region increased sixfold. Climate change is another factor driving the expansion of malaria, encephalitis, and other diseases into new geographic regions. In the southwestern United States, recent changes in rainfall patterns have been linked to increases in rodent populations, which in turn lead to outbreaks of vector-borne diseases such as plague and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Morover human populations are changing and expanding, and the increased movement of people and materials around the world are creating new opportunities for the transfer of disease from wildlife to humans. Human encroachment into formerly isolated habitats has been associated with the emergence in people of previously unknown pathogens such as the Ebola virus and the human immunodeficiency virus. The recent appearance of West Nile virus in the eastern United States is a perfect example of a disease agent emerging in a novel location and ecological setting. First discovered in the Western Hemisphere in 1999, the virus was passed from infected birds to humans by mosquitoes. Over a dozen birds species, including a number of wide-ranging migrants, carry the virus. Ostfeld says the outbreak vividly illustrates the need for a transdisciplinary approach to disease research. A traditional medical and epidemiological investigation of West Nile virus, he notes, leaves many questions unresolved: “What role do American crows play in disease transmission? Why do mosquitoes in New York City's Central Park show very high infection prevalence, whereas mosquitoes in rural upstate New York show little or no infection? What impact does the pathogen have on wildlife populations? Answers to these questions require interdisciplinary or collaborative approaches, and conservation medicine can provide an important framework for such explorations.” Conservation medicine, proponents claim, does more than recognize the ecological context of health. It may also play an important role in protecting biodiversity. Although a small but active group of veterinarians have long focused on the health and conservation needs of wildlife populations, coordinated efforts drawing on the expertise of both field veterinarians and ecologists have been more the exception than the rule. Proponents believe that conservation medicine can both clarify the need for such a unified approach and provide the theoretical and logistical foundation for such efforts. At the same time, by emphasizing the human health costs of environmental damage, conservation medicine has the potential to leverage public understanding and support for protecting species and natural systems. In an October 1999 editorial in Conservation Biology, journal editor and University of Florida ecologist Gary Meffe wrote that “an added biomedical perspective surely would give conservation biology a higher public profile and offer even stronger arguments for biodiversity protection…. Strong scientific links between conservation biology and human health could be our most powerful tool in reaching larger expanses of humanity.” The need for a biomedical perspective in conservation efforts can be seen most clearly in the case of emerging diseases that threaten wildlife. Just as cholera, malaria, and tuberculosis pose a resurgent threat to human beings, a growing number of infectious diseases in both captive and wild animal populations now threaten wildlife species. In a recent review article (Science 287: 443–449) Peter Daszak and several coauthors surveyed a large number of terrestrial wildlife diseases that can be classified as “emerging” on the basis of criteria such as increased geographic range, appearance in new populations, and increased incidence. Perhaps the best example is the fungal disease chytridio mycosis in amphibians. Outbreaks of the disease have caused mass die-offs of frogs and salamanders in different parts of the world, including Central America and Australia. “This is probably the most significant emerging disease in wildlife,” Daszak commented. Chytridiomycosis is particularly alarming because it has appeared in relatively undisturbed habitats, can affect a wide variety of amphibian hosts, and has caused population declines and possibly extinctions in widely separated geographic regions. Just as European expansion in previous centuries introduced novel pathogens such as smallpox to aboriginal populations in the Americas and Australia, the growing international movement of people and livestock has resulted in the spread of diseases affecting wildlife. This globalization of infectious diseases is continuing at an accelerating rate, and the transfer of pathogens among humans, domestic animals, and wildlife occurs in all directions. Daszak describes a “host–parasite ecological continuum” within which various environmental changes and disruptions facilitate the spread of disease across taxonomic boundaries. Mountain and lowland gorillas, for example, are susceptible to many human diseases. Among them is the measles virus, which tourists may unwittingly introduce to gorilla populations, with devastating consequences. A greater threat to wildlife may be diseases spread by domestic animals. Canine distemper and rabies, spread by domestic dogs, have led to declines and local extinctions in African wild dogs. A domestic chicken pathogen is believed to be the cause of myco plasmal conjunctivitis in wild house finches, a fatal disease that has spread throughout the eastern United States since its introduction in 1994. The global exchange of agricultural materials, domestic animals, food products, timber, and biologically contaminated wastes has resulted in a phenomenon Daszak terms “pathogen pollution.” Pathogens introduced into immunologically naive host populations can have catastrophic effects on wildlife. In the late 1800s an outbreak of the morbillivirus disease rinderpest, originating in cattle imported from India, swept through Africa, decimating native ungulate populations. Introduced diseases contributed to the extinction of several native Hawaiian bird species. Like other forms of pollution, exotic pathogens now appear in remote and seemingly pristine habitats, as exemplified by the presence of a domestic chicken pathogen, the infectious bursal disease virus, in Antarctic penguins. As health pressures on both humans and wildlife mount, scientists from the biomedical and conservation communities are responding by joining forces. Although some issues clearly demand expertise from multiple disciplines, forging a coalition among ecologists, conservation workers, and health professionals is not easy. “We need to develop a common respect, a common language, and a common set of priorities,” Pokras says. “We have to bridge the gap between the people in muddy boots and jeans and those in white coats.” Forging a new coalition of health researchers is part of the goal of CCM. The consortium began as an outgrowth of established Tufts programs in international veterinary medicine and wildlife medicine. 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