‘THE world is currently facing a devastating crisis with the outbreak of the Ebola disease. Yet the wider world is probably not aware of the ways in which the underlying drivers of disease are linked to development and biodiversity loss; the connections are rarely made.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Wildlife Health Specialist Group said this in a statement read by Dr. Jane Smart at the recent Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference in Pyongchang, South Korea.
The statement said the CBD needs to show leadership on the issues of biodiversity and health, and draw attention to the fact that it is crucial to demonstrate how habitat change and associated biodiversity loss and human health are connected.
It said it is important to explain clearly how an “upstream” approach to protect both human health and biodiversity is absolutely essential.
The IUCN statement added that it is not widely appreciated, even among biodiversity experts, that land-use change through deforestation is the leading driver of disease emergence in humans. Habitat change also threatens food security and deprives human populations of access to traditional medicines, as well as fundamentally changing the function of ecosystem.
Citing the ongoing Ebola case, the statement said the virus is highly devastating to both human and Great Ape populations, representing both a human health and biodiversity threat.
Ebola outbreaks have occurred from hunting and consumption of infected wildlife, which, in turn, poses a pressure on wild populations. The cause of the initial “spill over event” is not clearly known for this outbreak but landscape change in the affected area is significant in recent years. The IUCN said that conservation and health communities can work together to address the drivers of disease and biodiversity loss in a coordinated fashion to promote a “One Health” approach.
Toward this goal, further discussion on health and biodiversity planned for the IUCN World Parks Congress next month will be extremely timely.
The statement announced that the Wildlife Health Specialist Group of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission and IUCN member-organization EcoHealth Alliance are urgently working on the scientific connections between humans, animals and environmental health.
IUCN now strongly encourages the CBD to work with these groups and other partners to optimize the networks dedicated to investigating and taking action on strong health and biodiversity synergies.
The statement reiterated IUCN’s readiness to support this work and proposed that CBD develop a mechanism to facilitate scientific input from biodiversity and health communities to support actions related to the health of the people of this planet.
Rolando Inciong