As we all know, wildlife trade activities bring various health risks and environmental damages. The risks of spillover from wildlife trade come in the form of pathogens that would lead to the threat of zoonosis diseases. In Indonesia, we are dealing with issues such as insufficient public knowledge and awareness regarding wildlife trade risks and threats. Thus, we feel that educating the community, starting from an early age, is essential. With this goal in mind, we plan to raise awareness of wildlife protection for children using local values and customs. Illustrated storybooks with 5 native languages are planned to be created, provided, and distributed to elementary schools in Indonesia. We will collaborate with native language experts, local design and illustration artists, wildlife veterinarians, and other relevant stakeholders. We consider this to be fulfilled if the copy of the books can be disseminated to schools in each One Health Collaborating Center (OHCC) area (Bali, East Java, Yogyakarta, Aceh, and Papua). Furthermore, a storytelling event and a book launching event will be held. By carefully paying attention to the delivery of mother languages in the book, it can provide children with a better understanding of the issue and raise awareness around it.
Project Categories: Alliance funded project
Health Monitoring of Animals Subject to Illegal Trafficking from the One Health Perspective
The realities of illegal wildlife trade, the changes in ecosystem dynamics, and the closeness of the population to wild areas, are events that could potentially trigger the appearance of diseases. These elements joined with the fact that there is significant lack of knowledge regarding the health of wildlife in northern Guatemala, highlight the need to train personnel, equip an entity dedicated to the health of wild animals and create a methodology for obtaining viable samples for correct long-term storage, safeguarding irreplaceable biological information, and facilitating present and future research. Improving the chances of early detection of pathogens and the future conservation of the integral health of the wild fauna of the Maya Biosphere Reserve.
Main objective: Strengthen the regional knowledge on One Health issues, through the generation of a baseline of information on pathogens in wild animals, produce a bank of properly managed and preserved samples, and training the staff of institutions related to this work and topic.
- Strengthen the capacity of ARCAS to handle and store biological samples.
- Train people from different institutions based in the mayan jungle in issues regarding one health and recognition of events of importance in animal health, specimen collection and biosecurity.
- Obtain, process, and store biological samples.
Changing Dynamics and Health Risks along the Illegal Wildlife Trade Supply Chain from Myanmar to China and Thailand
This interdisciplinary and intersectoral research project aims to investigate the changing dynamics and health risks at multiple levels along the wildlife trade supply chain from Myanmar to China and Thailand. Myanmar has been the most important source of wildlife and wildlife product imports to neighbouring China, but the wildlife trade in this country is severely understudied. In this project, researchers from Germany, Myanmar and Thailand conduct field, clinical and laboratory research. Their joint research aims to identify pathogens circulating in wildlife, including the prey, predators, and arthropod vectors of disease of traded or locally consumed species. Following a One Health approach, livestock, and other domestic and peri-domestic animals as well as humans are also screened to assess if, where, and how such pathogens succeed in crossing species barriers along the wildlife capture, trade, and supply chain. These investigations are embedded in a contextually sensitive socio-cultural and socio-economic study of people who are involved in wildlife conservation, extraction, trade, and consumption in the study areas. The research will test the hypotheses that such an integrative approach is useful to measure actual human exposure in fragile contexts, that critical control points can be identified, and that cross-border travel and trade restrictions in the COVID-19 pandemic as well as a fast-growing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar have led to more local wildlife consumption, increasing spill-over and health risks.
Preventing the next pandemic: human and wildlife health monitoring and formulation of best practice guidelines and inclusion of health indicators in development planning
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the interconnected nature of human, animal and environmental health. The wide-ranging effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have shown how zoonotic spillover events can have profound impacts on economies, social orders and global public health.
The project has a field component and looks at the direct contact between humans and wildlife, often connected to activities such as consumption of wild meat, as they often act as key drivers for disease emergence. Even if these activities happen on a local scale, on today’s interconnected planet, effects can quickly spread and have global impact. The project will feed information from human and wildlife health monitoring into the formulation of best practice guidelines and explore options to include health indicators in development planning.
This session will focus on the policy side and discuss how traditionally environmental and social impact assessments only look at the more proximate risks such as oil spills, toxic waste, pollution, but not at more complex and interconnected issues such as the links between environmental, economic and social transformation – often associated with large scale development projects – and disease.
A Buddhist Wildlife Trade Demand Reduction Initiative In Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is a major hub for national and international wildlife trade – both legal and illegal. The region also plays a key role as an end-market as well as onward trafficking in the illegal trafficking of high-value endangered species products, including elephant ivory and rhino horn. SE Asian markets therefore play a key role in the accelerating destruction of both local, regional, and global biodiversity and have been identified as a hotspot for the development of new zoonotic disease. Our initiative comprises targeted public awareness and demand reduction campaigns in Vietnam, Bhutan and Mongolia that draw on the fundamental Buddhist principles of compassion towards all life, universal responsibility, and interdependence. The project enjoys the support of the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC), the world’s largest Buddhist umbrella body, and the Buddhist leaders of the three project countries. By promoting conscious compassionate and sustainable lifestyle choices, based on the Buddha’s teaching, the initiative aims to make a tangible contribution towards mitigating zoonotic disease spread and spill over risks, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, livelihood protection and peace. In addition, we hope to generate a model for effective Buddhist demand reduction initiatives that may be transferable to other faiths.
Mitigating zoonotic disease emergence risk in wildlife trade in Southeast Asia
This project, entitled “Mitigating zoonotic disease emergence risk in wildlife trade in Southeast Asia”, integrates three key components – scientific method and evidence, human behavior change, and policy – into pilot studies to form One Health-based risk-mitigation strategy targeting zoonotic spillover risk in the wildlife trade, aiming to establish an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral network to facilitate communication and foster collaborations among scientists, policymakers, and communities to promote One Health collaborations in preventing zoonotic disease emergence in the wildlife trade. The project will showcase One Health approaches to address the challenges at the interconnections of conservation and public health, facilitate dialogue among stakeholders to support evidence-based policymaking, and translate policy into local-context practices.
Next Generation One Health Philippines: Building national capacity for transdisciplinary and translational research and advocacy for wildlife conservation and zoonotic spill over prevention in the next 50 years
Entitled “Next Generation One Health Philippines,” the project aims to enhance the domestic capacity of the Philippines for One Health transdisciplinary research and knowledge translation to effectively tackle wildlife trade and biodiversity loss as drivers of infectious disease emergence, with the purpose of preventing future zoonotic spillovers in the next 50 years.
This program comprises a small cohort of fifteen professionals from diverse sociocultural and interdisciplinary backgrounds related to One Health, wildlife conservation, and zoonotic spillover prevention. They are participating in a year-long fellowship that began with an online introductory course, followed by a workshop in collaborative research, leadership, advocacy, and communications. Supported by mentors and small grants, fellows will conduct transdisciplinary research on issues surrounding wildlife trade and zoonotic spillover prevention.
To ensure immediate dissemination and translation of findings, fellows will participate in One Health dialogues with relevant stakeholders.
The diversity among fellows along the lines of geography, culture, gender, and discipline allowed for rich exchange of knowledge and ideas around One Health, wildlife trade and emerging infections. The design of the fellowship, which covers the entire knowledge cycle – from its creation through research, re-creation through education, and translation into policy and practice – ensures that the program is producing the next generation of One Health leaders who are not only scientists but also educators and leaders. The fellowship is currently in the training phase, hence the actual research projects are yet to be developed. More information can be found on the project website.
Reducing Risks in Tanzania’s Game Meat Industry: Developing a One Health Model for Safe, Sustainable and Legal Supply
This project is framed by Tanzania’s Game Meat Selling Regulations, which when fast-tracked into law by Presidential decree in 2020 presented both threats and opportunities to manage a legal supply of wild animal meat (i.e., game meat, as distinguished from illegal ‘bushmeat’) for the domestic market.
TRAFFIC is working with the Tanzanian Wildlife Management Authority and other government departments and research institutions, as well as private sector and civil society actors. The project is developing a bespoke approach which incorporates One Health concerns together with insights from trade chain analysis to identify critical control points for mitigation of potential zoonotic disease risks and ensure that the game meat industry develops in a safe, legal and sustainable direction.
Risk management measures need to be acceptable and sustainable: the Tanzania focus provides a valuable opportunity to develop a specific risk-management approach which has government support from the outset. This project is gathering qualitative and quantitative data to understand potential disease and spillover risks via wildlife disease risk analysis. In developing recommendations for risk management, the project is also considering the importance of livelihoods and socio-economic motivations, traceability and compliance with supply chain management protocols by priority stakeholders.