Biodiversity is essential for well-functioning ecosystems, which in turn provide the foundation for human life. Ecosystem services include providing clean air, fresh water, medicines, and food security (WHO, 2015). Wildlife is an important and integral part of biodiversity. At the same time, it is also a source of known and currently unknown pathogens, some of which have the potential to become pandemic in humans.
The Panorama partnership initiative recently published a booklet on “Wildlife Health and Zoonotic Disease Risk Reduction“ (IUCN and EcoHealth Alliance, 2022) as part of their Solutions in Focus series. The format is meant to provide an insight into some of the current best practices to achieve risk reduction in the human-wildlife interface.
Many of PANORAMA’s partners are also members of the Alliance, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and EcoHealth Alliance. Even more Alliance members appear in the project descriptions, like the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRAE), and the Southeast Asia One Health University (SEAOHUN).
We congratulate our colleagues for the insightful contribution to this important topic and encourage everyone who did not yet have the chance to have a look at the booklet. You can find it here.
Sources:
IUCN and EcoHealth Alliance (2022). PANORAMA Solutions in Focus: Wildlife Health and Zoonotic Disease Risk Reduction. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN and New York, United States of America: EcoHealth Alliance. https://panorama.solutions/sites/default/files/mediathek/panorama_zoonotic_solutions_v10_final_web.pdf
World Health Organization (WHO) (2015). Biodiversity and Health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/biodiversity-and-health
Image from EcoHealth Alliance (@EcoHealthNYC) / Twitter
Photo: Francesco Ungaro