Well-preserved Amazon rainforest on Indigenous lands can protect people from diseases, study finds

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FILE - A fisherman walks to his boat in Santa Rosa, Peru, an island on the Amazon River on Aug. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)

Every time humans cut into the Amazon rainforest or burn or destroy parts of it, they're making people sick.

It's an idea Indigenous people have lived by for thousands of years. Now a new study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment adds to the scientific evidence supporting it, by finding that instances of several diseases were lowered in areas where forest was set aside for Indigenous peoples who maintained it well.

With the United Nations climate summit set for Brazil in November, the study authors and outside experts said the work highlights the stakes for people around