Complex problem
What the researchers ended up doing was to generate a simplistic headline that betrays the difficulty of finding a solution to a complex problem on the ground. The net result is environmental advocacy masquerading as public health concerns.
This matters because it undermines some important research principles. A goal of attempting to quantify public health outcomes in one country, based on land-use management policy and practices in another, is a minefield.
Land tenure is an inherently political issue that touches on governance, legal systems and property rights. Land-use management is intertwined with economic considerations. Fire management – and environmental management more broadly – has at its core financial management and administrative capacity.
Each of these issues is big enough on its own; each should be resolved for its own sake. To manufacture a headline around public health as a way of glossing over these challenges is just opportunistic and unprofessional.
The study provides a clear example of where ‘research’ has crossed over into advocacy. A fundamental question therefore needs to be posed and answered: are these health researchers or environmental campaigners?
The scholars involved should now publicly decry the Greenpeace action in Warsaw, reiterate the actual intentions of the study, and emphasise what is proven (or not) by the little hard health data in their study.
MPOC
