Ecosystem Crises Interactions. Merrill Singer
its foundation in 1970, it has provided funding for multiple projects. In 2002, for example, it funded a study in Molango, Mexico that traced the transport of locally mined manganese through various components of the ecosystem and examined its impact on human health. Researchers were able to track manganese from mine smokestacks, through wind and dust and along trucking corridors, into people’s homes. They showed that exposure to contaminated air led to motor skill damage in adults, especially in women, and they identified nervous system risks in children. These findings prompted changes in local policies (IDRC 2008). Similarly, in Lebanon, IDRC‐supported researchers implemented EcoHealth approaches to address water sanitation and waterborne diseases. In the town of Bebnine, they found that women played the greatest role in managing water at the household level. Consequently, they recruited more than 25 Bebnine women to shared their experiences working in the community. According to Iman Nuwayhid, who led the research, “In this way, researchers learned that some women preferred to use untreated well water rather than to pay for access to a new water network, even when they could afford to do so. They rejected the new network because they believed it was affiliated with certain political views or families, and refused to contribute to its shared costs” (IDRC 2010). Further, monthly water quality monitoring in 423 households revealed high levels of fecal contamination. These findings led the local municipality to install a water disinfection unit and to develop a health promotion communication strategy (IDRC 2010). In 2008, the IDRC co‐convened the International Ecohealth Forum in Mérida, Mexico with participants from around the world in order to consolidate an international community of practitioners around the EcoHealth perspective. It has provided funding to the Communities of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Health in Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as to a Field Building Leadership Initiative on EcoHealth in Asia. Its work of this sort has continued through to the present.
Another critical step in the development of the EcoHealth approach occurred at the “Healthy Ecosystems, Healthy People” conference in Washington, D.C. in 2002, which initiated a process that led both to the formation of the professional journal EcoHealth and to the eventual establishment of the IAEH. The IAEH seeks to support transdisciplinary initiatives that combine the strengths of various scholarly disciplines in order to achieve hybridized innovative approaches to problem‐solving. In the organization’s perspective, “Today’s complex environmental public health challenges demand this level of strategic team‐based approaches to the tightly coupled human‐natural system interactions underlying many of our most pressing threats to our sustained health and environment” (IAEH 2019). The IAEH has sponsored a series of annual conferences at sites around the world. The theme of its 2018 conference, for example, hosted by the University of Valle, Cali, Colombia, was “Environmental and Health Equity: Connecting Local Alternatives in a Global World.” This theme emphasized the need to connect local initiatives in a world with global drivers that threaten healthy ecosystems and populations in pursuit of both health and ecological justice.
The first issue of the journal EcoHealth, published by the International Society for Ecosystem Health (ISEH), appeared in March 2004. It provides similar‐minded researchers across disciplines a venue in which to communicate and participate in sometimes lively debate. As Wilcox et al. (2012, p. 27) observe:
[t]he rationale for ecohealth articulated in the first issue of the journal EcoHealth centered on the increasing need for applying ecological concepts to understand and nurture sustainable human health and, conversely, applying health concepts to understand ecosystems; collectively, this was referred to as “integrative studies in ecology, health, and sustainability.” Issues identified as within the scope of the journal included: 1) global loss of biological diversity; 2) the drivers of human‐induced changes in climate and the degradation and pollution of natural habitats; 3) health of human populations influenced by large‐scale environmental changes, including the increasing gap between the rich and poor; and 4) interactions between environment, development, and health.
In sum, the core value of EcoHealth is addressing and improving human health through participation in collaborative efforts to protect biodiversity in the context of development, as expressed in the preceding review, and as derived from its grassroots practical focus on the relationship among health, ecosystems, and sustainable development.
1.3.2 One Health
Development of the One Health approach was motivated at official levels (e.g., the World Health Organization, WHO; the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO; the World Organisation for Animal Health, OIE) by recognition that many of the same microbes infect both animals and humans. Diseases like COVID‐19 that have passed from nonhuman animal to human populations are known as zoonotic diseases. Almost two‐thirds of human pathogens have a zoonotic origin, and almost three‐quarters of emerging and re‐emerging infectious diseases of humans are zoonoses (Woolhouse & Gowtage‐Sequeria 2005). These include both newer human threats, such as COVID‐19, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus, Nipah virus, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and ancient zoonotic maladies, such as rabies, anthrax, brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis, and zoonotic trypanosomiasis. The incidence of both types has risen significantly over time, contributing to a significant contemporary burden on global public health (Morens et al. 2004). Moreover, their occurrence is significantly correlated with identifiable socioeconomic, environmental, and ecological factors, especially social inequality, environmental and habitat degradation, and ecosystem disruption. In the case of the emergence of COVID‐19 as a human disease, for example, there is growing evidence indicating the role of deforestation and land use for intensive farming in the pandemic (Arora & Misra 2020). Many of these multihost dangers require multisectoral responses, as efforts by just one sector (e.g., biomedicine or veterinary medicine) cannot prevent or eliminate the problem. In the case of rabies in humans, for example, targeting of the animal source of the virus (e.g., vaccinating dogs) is required to control incidence (Lloyd‐Smith et al. 2009). At any point in time, particular zoonotic threats may be wide‐ranging (e.g., the influenzas globally), regional (e.g., Middle East respiratory syndrome, MERS), or local (e.g., Kyasanur forest disease in parts of India). Different forms of monitoring at the human–animal interface are required depending on the conditions and route of transmission. Moreover, local and regional zoonotics may spread widely beyond their point of origin. While found primarily in Middle Eastern countries, for example, confirmed cases of MERS have been identified in Austria, China, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States (CDC 2017). In the case of COVID‐19, spread has included all nations. All disease vectors (e.g., mice, deer) and pathogenic diseases have their own features, and thus there is no single surveillance, prevention, or intervention strategy to tackle all zoonotic threats to health. One Health stresses expanding awareness of the conscious and less overt ways in which humans interact with animals in their daily lives (e.g., livestock for food, pets, hunting) (see Fig. 1.1). While animals represent part of the human physical environment, they also are deeply embedded in the human social environment. Increasing movements of people and an increased trade in animals and animal products are contributing to emerging zoonoses.
Fig. 1.1 Zoonotic disease triad.
The Washington, D.C.‐based One Health Commission defines One Health as “the collaborative effort of multiple health science professions, together with their related disciplines, and institutions—working locally, nationally, and globally—to attain optimal health for people, domestic animals, wildlife, plants, and our environment” (Roger et al. 2016). An outgrowth of collaboration between the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Medical Association (AMA), and ultimately the American Public Health Association (APHA) as well, the One Health Commission seeks to break down disciplinary silos and establish closer professional interactions, collaborations, and educational and research opportunities across the health science professions.