Healthy Communities, Healthy Ecosystems

Johnson & Johnson partners with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on efforts to simultaneously support human health and environmental preservation in the pristine coastal area of Kenya’s Kiunga Marine National Reserve. The reserve contains coral reefs, sea grass meadows, and mangrove forests that act as a refuge for marine wildlife. Reserve resources are threatened, and a further increase in population under current conditions will make matters worse.

The Company funds several mobile health clinics that provide direct health care to the area’s communities. Together, WWF and Johnson & Johnson work to promote health interventions and improved and expanded health resources, including supporting efforts in reproductive health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, immunizations, preventive care, safe drinking water, and sanitation. Johnson & Johnson also supports a similar project in the Congo Basin to address ecosystem conservation and access to health care in very poor and, often, isolated communities.

Over the last year, the partnership with WWF has made significant advances in promoting environmental conservation by improving human health. For example, a dispensary clinic for communities in the reserve was constructed to help improve community health and encourage local participation in natural resource management. The dispensary also provides safe drinking water in the reserve’s main villages. Additionally, residents are learning about family planning options from newly trained health care workers from the Ministry of Health and Family Health International. Mobile clinics are reaching villages that have no access to quality health care, and people are receiving prenatal and postnatal care, immunizations, nutritional counseling and education about environmental health and conservation efforts.