Natural Resource Extraction, Ecosystem Services and Population Health: An Empirical Test of 170 Countries, 1990-2019

Abstract

Many argue that natural resource use and degradation of ecosystems reduce human health. Others prioritize economic development for increasing human health and wellbeing, acknowledging that some environmental assets are necessarily sacrificed for human development. Neo-Marxists and other critical theorists argue that extraction of natural resources are indirect forms of exploitation of the poor, where the rich benefit while the poor sacrifice their natural capital. We test these large propositions using several measures of natural resource extraction and country-level indicators of ecosystem health on health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) for 170 countries over a 30-year period. The results suggest that resource extraction has very little effect on population health, except that mineral resource extraction improves human health. Ecosystem services generally do not matter, but there is evidence to suggest that lower availability of biome associates with better human health, suggesting that human health is generated by factors quite independent of available biodiversity and protected area. Indeed, per capita income levels show the most robust relationship with healthy life expectancy, as does population density, results generally at odds with neo-Malthusian explanations about people, planet, and human wellbeing. Our results, taken together, support the view that development generates better human health, and perhaps as a result, spurs local-level environmental protections.