Blockchain Papers

Nir Kshetri

This chapter identifies and evaluates a broad range of ethical and moral issues that can be anticipated in the development of Web3 and the metaverse. It delves into concerns that have been raised regarding the exploitation of young game developers and game players by metaverse platforms and other powerful actors. It also contends that Web3 is potentially more harmful than other forms of data colonialism due to blockchain's decentralization, which leads to a lack of accountability for any wrongdoing when issues arise. The chapter also provides a perspective on ethical issues of P2E games in which NFT owners take a large share of earnings of players who rent NFTs. It also explores carbon footprints and environmental impacts of Web3 and the metaverse. Finally, the chapter also highlights a range of pollution-reduction strategies that have been proposed for Web3 and the metaverse.

Steven J. Keays

The great digital convergence runs through the internet, the mother of all technological threads, the virtual tapestry upon which are inscribed the patterns of transformation. The tapestry is woven from five main threads offered in several hues: the power chip, artificial intelligence, distributed ledgers, the energy lattice, and the internet of things. The relentless advances in chip design has powered the third industrial revolution and doing the same for the Symbiocene. The science of “artificial intelligence” began in the 1950s and has evolved by fits and starts along dramatically different theoretical directions. Five application subsets are associated with artificial intelligence: big data, materials, medicine, complexity, and job automation. Functional sentience captures the essence of the transformative character of the Symbiocene age. A successful digital management transformation cannot be brought to fruition without understanding a firm’s relationship to its holobiome, as a consequence of the first digital paradox.

Richard Kenney

Theologicals Richard Kenney (bio) Face East Palms open, we pray.Napalm swamp of the sunrise:Name god again day. There The god is not there.And still, it casts a shadow,as in answered prayer. Another Question for God Q: Whyare you not more resolutely high-minded? You jape, you clown … A: I look down. [End Page 25] Necessity Re: rain, and the long theological stalemateconcerning its origins, a tale Talmudic in nuance, Homeric in scope: this was classic Lachrymismvs. vulgar Micturism, paired like the chromosomes of our tradition. At stake: the nature of heaven.At issue: the source of life, in rain. In the event, the conclusive stroke was dealt by the geochemists,who by the closing years of the last century had amassed data demonstrating the identity of rain and tearsto the 97th part, in a theorem which survived rigorous peer review. By contrast, undistilled urine assayedas correlative only to the 60th part, notwithstanding acid precipitates, adjusted mathematically, allowing for a salt-correction constant. The question was settled. Of course, rearguard Micturian diehards and tenuredprofessors with careers at stake and minds too inured to the old way of thinking continued to cavil. Attemptsto impeach experimental procedure failed. Die or adapt: [End Page 26] The science proved solid. And we were happy, were we not?Sure, though heaven knows one cannot count on nature to conform to human preference, none could denya private relief at the proof: the tragic mind of Adonai might henceforth be petitioned. The vulgar Eironwas cast down. Earth bloomed. Heaven wept pure thereon. ________ The droughts began in the second decade following.Crops failed in successive seasons. Fields lay fallow. We attempted public supplications, under open skies,the sadness of our plight sharpened by rhetors, our cries drawn taut by singing masters, our keeningspitched by poets to the asymptote of pity, razor-keen. Still God withheld his tears. We sacrificed.We burned barns, livestock, houses, towns. We revisited more ancient screeds. With stricken reluctanceunimaginable to any human not so fated, we looked into the red eye of necessity, and agreed to beginsacrificing the children again. [End Page 27] Richard Kenney Richard Kenney teaches at the University of Washington's marine laboratories in Friday Harbor. Copyright © 2018 The University of the South

Jorge N. Ferrer

HOW DO WE creatively participate in the mystery of spirituality? The participatory approach holds that human spirituality emerges from human co-creative participation in an undetermined mystery, generative power of life, the cosmos, or reality. My understanding of the mystery is aligned with Rabbi Michael Lerner’s account (in his book Spirit Matters) of Spirit as the “energizing Force” behind the Big Bang and the ongoing evolutionary process.Spiritual participatory events can engage the entire range of human epistemic faculties (e.g., rational, imaginal, somatic, vital, aesthetic) with both the creative unfolding of the mystery and the subtle entities or energies in the enactment — or “bringing forth” — of ontologically rich religious worlds. In other words, the participatory approach presents an enactive understanding of the sacred that conceives spiritual phenomena, experiences, and insights as co-created events. The emergence of spiritual knowing can be located amidst the connections of human multidimensional cognition, cultural context, subtle worlds, and the deep generativity of life or the cosmos. Importantly, this account avoids both the secular postmodernist reduction of religion to cultural-linguistic artifact and, as discussed below, the dogmatic privileging of a single religious tradition as superior or paradigmatic.The rest of this essay introduces nine distinctive features of the participatory approach: spiritual cocreation, creative spirituality, spiritual individuation, participatory pluralism, relaxed spiritual universalism, participatory epistemology, the integral bodhisattva vow, participatory spiritual practice, and social engagement.Spiritual co-creation has three interrelated dimensions — intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal. These dimensions respectively establish participatory spirituality as embodied (spirit within), relational (spirit in-between), and enactive (spirit beyond).Intrapersonal co-creation consists of the collaborative participation of all human attributes — body, vital energy, heart, mind, and consciousness — in the enactment of spiritual phenomena. This dimension is grounded in the equi-primacy principle, according to which no human attribute is intrinsically superior or more evolved than any other. To be sure, the mind-centered character of Western culture hinders the maturation of non-mental attributes, normally making it necessary to engage in intentional practices to bring these attributes up to the same developmental level the mind achieves through mainstream education. In principle, however, all human attributes can participate as equal partners in the creative unfolding of the spiritual path, are equally capable of sharing freely in the life of the mystery here on Earth, and can also be equally alienated from it. The main challenges to intrapersonal co-creation are cognicentrism, lopsided development, mental pride, and disembodied attitudes to spiritual growth. Possible antidotes to those challenges are the integral bodhisattva vow (discussed below), integral practices, the cultivation of mental humility, and embodied approaches to spiritual growth. Intrapersonal co-creation affirms the importance of being rooted in spirit within (i.e., the immanent dimension of the mystery) and renders participatory spirituality essentially embodied and integrative.Interpersonal co-creation emerges from cooperative relationships among human beings growing as peers in the spirit of solidarity, mutual respect, and constructive confrontation. It is grounded in the equipotentiality principle, according to which “we are all teachers and students” insofar as we are superior and inferior to others in different regards. This principle does not entail that there is no value in working with spiritual teachers or mentors; it simply means that human beings cannot be ranked in their totality or according to a single developmental criterion, such as brainpower, emotional intelligence, or contemplative realization. Although peer-to-peer human relationships are vital for spiritual growth, interpersonal co-creation can include contact with perceived nonhuman intelligences, such as subtle entities, natural powers, or archetypal forces that might be embedded in psyche, nature, or the cosmos. The main challenges to interpersonal co-creation are spiritual pride, psychospiritual inflation, circumstantial or self-imposed isolation, and adherence to rigidly hierarchical spiritualities. Remedies to those challenges include collaborative spiritual practice and inquiry, intellectual and spiritual humility, deep dialogue, and relational and pluralistic approaches to spiritual growth. Interpersonal co-creation affirms the importance of communion with spirit in-between (i.e., the situational dimension of the mystery) and makes participatory spirituality intrinsically relational and eco-socio-politically engaged.Transpersonal co-creation refers to dynamic interaction between embodied human beings and the mystery in the bringing forth of spiritual insights, practices, states, and worlds. This dimension is grounded in the equiplurality principle, according to which there can potentially be multiple spiritual enactions that are nonetheless equally holistic and emancipatory. For example, a fully embodied liberation could be equally achieved through Christian incarnation or Yogic integration of purusa (consciousness) and prakriti (nature); likewise, freedom from self-centeredness at the service of others can be attained through the cultivation of Mahayana Buddhist karuna (compassion) or Christian agape (selfless love) in the context of radically different ontologies. This principle frees participatory spirituality from allegiance to any single spiritual system and paves the way for a genuine, ontologically and pragmatically grounded, spiritual pluralism. The main challenges to transpersonal co-creation are spiritual disempowerment, indoctrination, spiritual narcissism, and adherence to naive objectivist or universalist spiritualities. Antidotes include: the development of one’s inner spiritual authority and the affirmation of the right to inquire, heretical courage, and enactive and creative spiritualities. Transpersonal co-creation affirms the importance of being open to spirit beyond (i.e., the subtle dimensions of the mystery) and makes participatory spirituality fundamentally inquiry-driven and enactive.Although all three dimensions interact in multifaceted ways in the enactment of spiritual events, the creative link between intrapersonal and transpersonal co-creation deserves special mention. Whereas the mind and consciousness arguably serve as a natural bridge to subtle spiritual forms already enacted in history that display more fixed forms and dynamics such as cosmological motifs, archetypal configurations, and mystical visions and states, greater access to the more generative power of life or the mystery can be found through attention to the body and its vital energies. From this approach, it follows, the greater the participation of embodied dimensions in religious inquiry, the more creative one’s spiritual life may become and a larger number of creative spiritual developments may emerge.In the infancy of participatory spirituality in the 1990s, spiritual inquiry operated within certain constraints arguably inherited from traditional religion. As the historian of religion, Mircea Eliade famously argued, many established religious practices and rituals are “re-enactive” in their attempt to replicate cosmogonic actions and events. Expanding this account, I have suggested that most religious traditions can be seen as “reproductive” insofar as their practices aim to not only ritually reenact mythical motives, but also replicate the enlightenment of their founder or attain the state of salvation or freedom described in allegedly revealed scriptures. Although disagreements about the exact nature of such states and the most effective methods to attain them abound in the historical development of religious ideas and practices — naturally leading to rich creative developments within the traditions — spiritual inquiry was regulated (and arguably constrained) by such pre-given unequivocal goals.Participatory enaction entails a model of spiritual engagement that does not simply reproduce certain tropes according to a given historical a priori, but rather embarks upon the adventure of openness to the novelty and creativity of life or the mystery. Grounded on current moral intuitions and cognitive competences, for instance, participatory spiritual inquiry can not only undertake the critical revision and actualization of prior religious forms, but also the co-creation of novel spiritual understandings, practices, and even expanded states of freedom.This emphasis in creativity is central to spiritual individuation, that is, the process through which a person gradually develops and embodies her or his unique spiritual identity and wholeness. Religious traditions tend to promote the homogenization of central features of the inner and outer lives of their practitioners, for example, encouraging them to seek the same spiritual states and liberation, to become like Christ or the Buddha, or to wear the same clothes (in the case of monks). These aspirations may have been historically legitimate, but after the emergence of the modern self, our current predicament (at least in the West) arguably calls for an integration of spiritual maturation and psychological individuation that will likely lead to a richer diversity of spiritual expressions. In other words, the participatory approach aims at the emergence of a human community formed by spiritually differentiated individuals.It is important to sharply distinguish between the modern hyper-individualistic mental ego and the participatory selfhood forged in the sacred fire of spiritual individuation. Whereas the disembodied modern self is plagued by alienation, dissociation, and narcissism, a spiritually individuated person has an embodied, integrated, connected, and permeable identity whose high degree of differentiation, far from being isolating, actually allows him or her to enter into a deeply conscious communion with others, nature, and the multidimensional cosmos. A key difference between modern individualism and spiritual individuation is thus the integration of radical relatedness in the latter.The participatory approach embraces a pluralistic vision of spirituality that accepts the formative role of cultural and linguistic factors in religious phenomena. This simultaneously recognizes the importance of nonlinguistic variables (e.g., somatic, imaginal, energetic, subtle, archetypal) in shaping religious experiences and meanings while also affirming the ontological value and creative impact of spiritual worlds.Participatory pluralism allows the conception of a multiplicity of not only spiritual paths, but also spiritual liberations, worlds, and even ultimates. On the one hand, besides affirming the historical existence of multiple spiritual goals, the increased embodied openness to immanent spiritual life and the spirit-in-between fostered by the participatory approach may naturally engender a number of novel holistic spiritual realizations that cannot be reduced to traditional states of enlightenment or liberation. If human beings were regarded as unique embodiments of the mystery or the cosmos, would it not be plausible to consider that as they spiritually individuate, their spiritual realizations might also be distinct even if potentially overlapping and aligned with each other?On the other hand, participatory pluralism proposes that different spiritual ultimates can be enacted through intentional or spontaneous participation in an undetermined mystery, spiritual power, or generative force of life or reality. Whereas I take these enactions to be ultimate in their respective spiritual universes, this consideration in no way relativizes the various traditions’ ultimates — nor does it posit a supra-ultimate spiritual referent beyond them. In contrast, I hold that participatory enaction allows one to not only move away from representational and objectivist accounts of spiritual cognition, but also avoid the problematic dualism of the mystery and its enactions. Building on both the enactive paradigm’s account of cognition as embodied action, I maintain that in the same way an individual is her actions (whether perceptual, cognitive, emotional, or subtle), the mystery is its enactions. In this understanding, emptiness (sunyata), the Tao, and God (in their many inflexions) can be seen as creative gestures of the mystery enacted through participating human (and perhaps nonhuman) individuals and collectives.Hence, the participatory perspective does not contend that there are two, three, or any limited quantity of pre-given spiritual ultimates, but rather that the radical openness, interrelatedness, and creativity of the mystery or the cosmos allows for the participatory co-creation of an indefinite number of ultimate self-disclosures of reality and corresponding religious worlds. Participatory approaches seek to enact with body, mind, heart, and consciousness a creative spirituality that lets a thousand spiritual flowers bloom. Although this may at first sound like a rather “anything goes” approach to religious claims, I hold to the contrary: namely, that recognizing a diversity of co-created religious worlds in fact asks both scholars and practitioners to be more perspicuous in discerning their differences and merits. Because such worlds are not simply given but involve human beings as agents and co-creators, individuals are not off the ethical hook where religion is concerned but instead inevitably make cosmo-political and moral choices in all their religious actions. As discussed below, ethical considerations are crucial, especially in light of the demonstrably pernicious ecological, political, and social impact many religions historically had — and continue to have today.The pluralistic spirit of the participatory approach should not eclipse its “more relaxed” spiritual universalism — although eschewing dubious equations among spiritual ultimates (e.g., the Tao is God or Buddhist emptiness is structurally equivalent to the Hindu Brahman), the participatory approach affirms an underlying undetermined mystery or creative spiritual power as the generative source of all spiritual enactions. This shared spiritual dynamism should be distinguished from any Kantian-like noumenon or “thing-in-itself” endowed with inscrutable qualities and from which all spiritual ultimates are always derived as incomplete, culturally conditioned, or cognitively constrained phenomenal manifestations. In contrast, the enactive epistemology of the participatory approach does away with the Kantian two-worlds dualism by refusing to conceive of the mystery as having objectifiable pre-given attributes (such as personal, impersonal, dual, or nondual) and by affirming the radical identity of the manifold spiritual ultimates and the mystery, even if the former do not exhaust the ontological possibilities of the latter. Put simply, the mystery co-creatively unfolds in multiple ontological directions.Moreover, the relationship between pluralism and universalism cannot be consistently characterized in a hierarchical fashion. Whereas there surely are “lower” and “higher” forms of both universalism and pluralism (e.g., more or the between universalism and pluralism, between the and the it may be the dynamics of the of the mystery. The affirmation of a between the and the in spiritual unfolding renders any or hierarchical between universalism and pluralism cannot be that participatory pluralism does not entail the or of or religious or forms of Put the participatory of an objectifiable pre-given spiritual ultimate referent does not in spiritual To be sure, like of traditions cannot be ranked according to their in or this account does not cannot be more or the participatory renders the of among traditions according to a or a of spiritual insights, these can be in a of (e.g., cognitive, emotional, I have suggested the which the to which spiritual and practices practitioners from and subtle forms of and and the which the to which the same the of all dimensions of the the many and in the of religion, it may be to an which the to which spiritual social and religious and and and other human light of these differences among traditions can be and this is important — from both and In a for example, traditions may have contemplative more than the same could be about emotional intelligence, social or and practices a relationship with In a traditions may be more than others to dissociation, and religious and or among The fact that different traditions have different human is of makes and arguably for the development of more integral spiritual and important be spiritual and may be more for different psychological and cultural as for the same individual at distinct developmental but this does not make them superior or The of action, and to mind in this as do other spiritual that can be found in other the participatory emphasis on and although arguably central to most spiritual may not be shared by more most religious traditions would likely not in of the or the For example, or subtle forms of or of the human body and its energies are the in most and contemplative one could and participation of the body in spiritual many religions have had a demonstrably and about of human even they have also vital to them. the and of the participatory is for the development of a participatory critical of these the of a which the of a fully is open to can as a principle The of is thus capable of for critical in spiritual that is, in spiritual might be From this principle, or to spiritual choices and practices can be In to self and one might consider the of such as the In the of other may the degree of integration of spiritual states, for of with of body and in this it will no be a practitioners a or account of the mystery, or their of spiritual cultivation is social conscious or communion with The spiritual in contrast, will be the degree to which each spiritual both an of self-centeredness and a fully embodied integration to make individuals not only more to the of others, nature, and the but also more effective agents of cultural and in their unique the conscious mind is the of most of an liberation of consciousness can be insofar as one can that one is fully in dimensions of the self are or in — as the of modern spiritual teachers Participatory spirituality to the engagement of all human attributes in the spiritual or his the spiritual of and the vital the was that the liberation of consciousness cannot be to an integral the spiritual of all human this in mind, I have an integral bodhisattva vow in which the conscious mind its liberation the body, the heart, and the can be as from that them from sharing freely in the unfolding life of the mystery here on to to an integral bodhisattva vow is not a to the spiritual aspirations of it entails a to the integral liberation of all rather than only of their conscious or of as the of the bodhisattva does not a to Buddhist accounts of liberation as of and and from the of vow is arguably to the of many religious such as Michael and for or and These and many others spiritual and of their traditions that seek not only to and but also to human dimensions that had been or even such as the of and body and or relationships and to many spiritual and of or participatory spiritual practice the embodied, and enactive (i.e., and dimensions of spiritual growth. This emphasis can be found in traditional practices, many of traditional practices, and a number of spiritual Whereas traditional practices (e.g., are participatory in many The Participatory in their modern one can more and of participatory I for example, Michael Lerner’s and and embodied of Buddhist and account of modern and Western approaches to and Christian of the body and in Christian among many the have the emergence of a of novel participatory spiritual practices, such as and embodied cooperative spiritual inquiry, and of embodied spiritual of practice with important participatory include and spirituality modern forms of integral relational approaches to spirituality, and modern of as spiritual path, among a are our relationships with both the human and nonhuman This is inevitably with a to social To be sure, this can take many different forms, from more social or in the (e.g., social spiritually grounded to more subtle of social or discussed by in his there is to about the of subtle embodied spirituality cannot be from a to political, and — this may arguably calls for the of a This however, cannot of moral religious and even mystical but to be in the of religious on human and cooperative spiritual In other words, it is likely that any will be grounded not only in human spiritual but also in the critical on such a history in the context of moral intuitions (e.g., about the of religious narcissism, and its for and the of — for with — to of the most of the such as the of and the of rich and the to cultural and and in although participatory spirituality arguably for critical in spiritual it is to consider the participatory or any participatory approach, a spiritual tradition that could be all In contrast, participatory spirituality might be as a spiritual (i.e., and creative that can be found in various within many that is in the ongoing of and that may also to spiritual and the emergence of novel religious or spiritual I that the participatory should be seen more as a of sharing a about the nature of spiritual the of and multidimensional cognition, or the of religious pluralism than as a of or through traditional The pluralistic character of a can greater diversity than a of which achieves its identity through to or a is not only with the pluralistic of the participatory but also in the of not a constraints to or the to into a the nature of a is with the of hierarchical and in and religion by many participatory as as with for peer-to-peer of and and of is an important of such might seek to not only sharing of but also to promote a of for and the and of a participatory approach the spiritual of not in any spiritual or but in the shared of communion with the generative dimension of the mystery. In other words, the spiritual of may not be found in the (i.e., in or even mystical but deep into the (i.e., in the embodied with our creative As the to and are among the for only in the The of such creative may to by in creative a of deep communion a may also engender a of to a spiritual to the spiritual individuation of its and the eco-socio-politically of the an to both scholars and practitioners to their and to the and to participatory in and into I with the that the participatory approach and to a more individuals in the embodied co-creation of their spiritual perhaps most participate more fully in the mystery of which

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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