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Research paper looks set to establish new healthcare benchmark A
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assessment across all of Tairāwhiti (and likely other areas of Aotearoa) to identify those plantations that are located in the wrong place in terms of potential harvesting impacts. There should be no further harvesting in Tairāwhiti plantations until this exercise has been completed. We also need to identify those areas that currently lack plantations but should never be planted in exotic tree crops (for any purpose). The government then needs to buy out the current owners of these plantations and embark on a programme of careful conversion to native forest. This will come at a cost, but it needs to be done. We already have models for this in Tairāwhiti where the Gisborne District Council has started converting pine forests in its water supply catchment to native forests. Finally, we need to establish substantially more native forests throughout all Tairāwhiti, and Aotearoa more generally, to help build resilience in our landscapes.
Consequences of short-term thinking
For too long we have been fixated in Aotearoa with maximising short-term returns from exotic tree crops without thinking about long-term consequences. The legacies of this fixation are now really starting to impact us as the climate emergency exposes the risks that poorly sited and managed exotic tree crops pose. And we are now making the same mistakes with exotic carbon tree crops, again leaving unacceptable legacies for future generations to deal with because of a focus on short-term financial gains. Exotic tree plantations have dominated forest policy in Aotearoa and we urgently need to shift this to a focus on diverse native forests. Our native rainforests provide so many benefits that exotic tree crops can never provide. They are critical for the conservation of our native biodiversity, providing habitat for a myriad of plant, animal, fungal and microbial species. They also regulate local climates, enhance water quality and reduce erosion. This helps sustain healthy freshwater and marine environments. Native replanting initiatives championed by charities like Pure Advantage need to be the primary focus of forest policy in Aotearoa now and in the future.
literature review completed by an Otago Medical School student appears set to establish a turning point in the application of plant-based nutrition in general health care. Working over the summer semester Joshua Thomas, completed an extensive online investigation of all known research on plant-based nutrition. At the time this issue went to print, he was compiling the findings into a paper that is soon to be released. His paper, Can Whole Food Nutrition Prevent Lifestyle Related Diseases? involved a detailed inspection through numerous online search engines. “The main ones I used were Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and Ovid Embase. There were a variety of keywords I used; some of them were whole food plant-based, reversal and prevention. I specifically focused on reversal of heart disease, prevention of diabetes, prevention of stroke, hypertension and other chronic lifestyle diseases. “From this search we found 483 studies. After the exclusion criteria were applied, we had about 45 studies that we analysed in the literary. Of those studies, we found numerous trials; some notable ones were the Broad Study which was a randomised control trial conducted here in New Zealand. Overall, we have four randomised control trials, 19 intervention studies, five cohort studies, and 16 case studies.” His literature review found that whole food plant-based nutrition decreases BMI, total LDL cholesterol, HbA1c and fasting blood glucose, as well as systolic and diastolic blood pressure. “It improves cardiovascular disease risk factors such as coronary artery occlusion, obesity and preventing recurrent cardiovascular events. It also helps diabetes and its related causes, such as macular oedema and diabetic nephropathy. All benefited by whole food plant-based nutrition. “Numerous other conditions were shown to be improved. These are all from case studies, not from randomised control trials, things such as breast cancer, arthritis and gut microbiota. People with substance use disorders were shown to have more resilience in abstaining from drug use on a whole food plant-based diet. Also, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis improved.” He said the findings also showed whole food plantbased eating to be a sustainable diet by the EAT-Lancet Review and, in the Broad Study, was found to be “quite well adhered to when non-calorie restricted.” Overall, he said, the conclusion was that there was consistent evidence that whole food plant-based nutrition can be used to treat a wide range of lifestyle diseases, although it depends on the individual circumstances and adherence to the diet. wholefoodliving.life | Autumn 2023
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