Bringing together the normally disparate disciplines of ecology, ethics, environmental management, economics, and medicine is the goal of the two-year-old International Society for Ecosystem Health. The society and its journal, Ecosystem Health (Blackwell Science Inc., Cambridge, Mass.), are run by ecologist David Rapport, who holds the Eco-Research Chair in Ecosystem Health at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
In 1994 Rapport and University of Maryland ecologist Robert Costanza cochaired the society's first international symposium on ecosystem health and medicine. Rapport mentions that leading researchers from the health-sciences community gave talks, including Harvard University's Paul Epstein and Richard Levins, and Anthony McMichaels, chairman of epidemiology at the London School for Tropical Medicine. Such famous ecologists as Eugene Odum from the University of Georgia and the Smithsonian Institution's Thomas Lovejoy also delivered special addresses. The society's second international meeting will be held in Copenhagen this summer. For more information, contact David ...
