Under this project, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) strategic objective is to use the COVID-19 pandemic to re- frame action on commercial trade of wild birds and mammals as a public health issue, mobilizing the public health sector, at global and national levels, to lead and take action. WCS provides technical support to policy and legislative reform on wildlife conservation issue across the globe. The project outlines four main components of this approach, including developing policy-influencing strategies, developing informed constituencies in government through joint research studies, creating targeting media campaigns to generate support for the proposed reforms, and analyzing to understand how criminals are adapting to post-COVID changes in policies and consumer behavior.
Project Categories: Members project
Advocating to key Philanthropies and multilateral Organizations
Our coalition is conducting targeted advocacy to key philanthropies and multilateral donors urging them to use their programming and influence to break down sector silos, pioneer early funding of spillover prevention efforts and influence the global agenda.
Further resources:
Influencing priority global and regional Processes and Frameworks
Our coalition is conducting targeted advocacy urging member states and decision- makers to include spillover prevention in the WHO pandemic accord and the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework and Action Plan for Biodiversity and Health, as well as the Pandemic Fund.
Further resources:
Advocating to priority Countries with a high Risk of zoonotic Spillover
Our coalition is conducting targeted advocacy to Global South countries with a high risk of zoonotic spillover urging them to implement reforms to mitigate that risk,channel funding towards effective interventions and support the inclusion of spillover prevention in relevant multilateral efforts.
Further resources:
Advocating to US and priority G7 Governments
Our coalition is conducting targeted advocacy to the US and select G7 governments urging them to allocate significant funding to spillover prevention, ensure relevant language is included in multilateral frameworks and adopt supportive domestic reforms and interventions.
Further resources:
Monitoring the global E-Commerce of Wildlife to assess new Trends and the Scale of the Problem
Since 2007, CEWS monitors (formal and/or common methods) the global illegal and legal e-commerce of wildlife. We are the only NGO doing formal monitorings of the e- commerce outside of Central and Eastern Europe, and the only NGO doing it globally.
Our results are shared during CITES CoP’s, with the enforcement authorities, INTERPOL, NGO’s, media, the monitored classified advertisements and social media platform managers. Our lobbying helps to protect endangered wildlife from the exploitation and trade, raise awareness about the international e-commerce of fauna species, and the urgency needed for the governments to act, by monitoring their own e-commerce of wildlife to tackle and enforce it properly.
CEWS uses advocacy, education and lobbying to let the public and governments learn about how the e-commerce of wildlife is decimating the international fauna populations.
More information can be found on CEWS’s website, for instance, further resources on e-commerce and CITES CoP 19.
Global Health Risks associated with Wildlife Products hunted and traded as “Bushmeat” in Cross River State, Nigeria
This project has three interrelated aims, all with the goal of identifying Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) risks associated with human-wildlife contact and understanding gradients of risks across socio-ecological contexts. Specifically, we are characterizing pathogens of bushmeat and the nature and frequency of human-wildlife contact across the bushmeat commodity chain. The final product will be identification of potentially zoonotic pathogens circulating undetected in bushmeat and the underlying factors that shape human exposure risks.
Further Resources:
https://www.saganfriant.com/cross-river-ecology-and-health-proj
Prevalence and molecular surveillance of zoonotic pathogens in domesticated and farmed wild animals in Vietnam
Southeast Asia (SEA) is a hotspot for emerging infectious diseases, and Vietnam, a low- and middle-income country (LMIC) in SEA, has unprecedented demand for meat from livestock such as pigs and farmed wild animals that act as zoonotic reservoirs for emerging and re-emerging pathogens. For instance, our previous studies in northern Vietnam have shown that a. HEV-3 superinfection and high seroprevalence are associated with poor clinical outcomes in patients with hepatitis B-related liver disease, b. high HEV seroprevalence in occupationally exposed individuals is associated with risk of HEV exposure and infection, c. high (12%) HEV RNA positivity in pig livers and an associated risk of foodborne transmission in the human population. The aim of this project is to identify circulating zoonotic pathogens in domesticated and farmed wild animals and then to molecularly characterize them to understand their abundance, transmission dynamics and associated human health burden.
Who we are: The PAN ASEAN Coalition for Epidemic and Outbreak Preparedness (PACE-UP) is a Center for global health and pandemic prevention in Asia led by a multidisciplinary consortium of North-South and South-South collaborations. Our consortium leverages on equitable Asia-Europe-Africa partnerships to build and strengthen regional and ASEAN-wide capacity and systems to respond rapidly and effectively to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in the region. The Global Health and Pandemic Prevention Center is located at Vietnamese-German Center for Medical Research (VG-CARE) in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Unfolding the Wildlife Crime Initiative the Congo Basin
The project aims to tackle the most impactful, large-scale and organised forms of wildlife crime. It addressed the three main drivers of wildlife crime: consumption of illegal or endangered wildlife products, poor or ineffective legal or policy frameworks, and illegal financial flows.
One Health Program in the Congo Basin
The goal of the project is to set up a One Health approach in three WWF project areas in the Congo Basin (Dzanga Sanga, Campo Ma’an and Malebo) with the long-term aim to improve the health of humans and animals. The project uses wild great apes, and other wildlife species (e.g. animals hunted as bushmeat, rodents, bats, etc.), as sentinels for novel pathogens which have the potential to spread to humans. At the same it investigates how pathogens of humans and their domestic animals can be a threat for wildlife conservation, especially for great apes, and how spill-over can be prevented.
