AHEAD
Update – April 2009
Dear AHEAD Colleagues:
*I should again note that if you wish to be removed from this
e-mail list please just let me know. My hope is to keep parties
interested in Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development
up-to-date on relevant developments, but I certainly understand
if anyone wants to opt out of receiving such messages. Updates
are also posted (and archived) on the AHEAD website
at www.wcs-ahead.org,
which also features a new AHEAD Update 'sign-up' feature on the
home page. Please note that URL hotlinks for many of the organizations
mentioned below can be found at http://www.wcs-ahead.org/links.html.
If
you would like to post an item in the next AHEAD Update, please just send it to me- thanks! And please send me your nominees
for the new ‘AHEAD Beyond
Boundaries Journal Subscription Awards' (see below).
MINI-TORIAL
"What's in a Name?"
If you've been to the AHEAD website recently, you
may have noticed that we've updated what AHEAD stands
for from "Animal Health for the Environment And Development" to "Animal & Human
Health for the Environment And Development." I think when
we launched AHEAD back in 2003, we may have taken the
public health dimensions of the concept (although clear to us
from the start) a bit for granted. I'll confess that it also
seemed somewhat presumptuous to me, working for a wildlife conservation
organization, to reference human health up-front in the original
program name. But it didn't take long for the One World,
One Health™ concept to fill an interdisciplinary niche
long overdue for attention, and for more and more physicians,
public health specialists and members of related biomedical fields
to participate in and actively contribute to a range of important
One Health initiatives, including AHEAD. So, to the many colleagues
who have been suggesting that we officially broaden the name
of the program, thank you! And as we have from the start, AHEAD will continue to focus on problem-solving at the interface of
wildlife health, domestic animal health, and human health
and livelihoods as underpinned by enhanced environmental stewardship.
Shouldn't every day be Earth Day?
RECENT FORA OF INTEREST
* 9th AHEAD (Animal & Human
Health for the Environment And Development) Great Limpopo
Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) Working Group (WG)
meeting held March 4, 5 and 6, 2009 in
Namaacha, Mozambique, with almost 80 participants from Mozambique,
Zimbabwe and South Africa. This year's meeting broke several
records- in terms of attendance, in terms of the number of
graduate students from the tri-national region attending
as well as actively presenting, and in terms of the number
of attendees whom were able to make it from Zimbabwe, which
was particularly encouraging. Winners of all ten AHEAD
GLTFCA Seed Grants (http://www.wcs-ahead.org/gltfca_grants/grants.html)
shared their plans for the coming year, making it clear that
finding additional donors to maintain the Seed Grants program
longer-term would be of tremendous value to the overall TFCA
initiative. This year's meeting themes, which helped drive
much discussion and highly constructive debate, included
but were not limited to: Surveillance
and Disease Management in the GLTFCA; Communications at
Different Scales; Climate
and Other Environmental Change and ‘One Health'; Livelihoods
and Governance in a Transboundary Context; and
Human / Wildlife Conflict in the GLTFCA. Public health
issues also featured prominently in this year's
meeting, given recent major outbreaks of rabies as well as
cholera in the region. The spread of bovine tuberculosis,
a zoonotic disease, was also discussed, and the challenges
of surveillance, management and awareness-raising / outreach
remain in the face of the reality of limited resources. The
importance of the human health component of the 'AHEAD Triad'
was more clear than ever, so much so that we are officially
recognizing this by changing AHEAD from "Animal
Health for the Environment And Development" to "Animal & Human
Health for the Environment And Development," as per
the MINI-TORIAL above. With this year's
funding from the Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations, as
well as from USAID, to catalyze problem-solving by Great
Limpopo stakeholders, AHEAD GLTFCA continues
to mature into a critical regional mechanism for addressing
the key conservation and development challenges facing the
vision of a vast, tri-national transfrontier conservation
area. PDFs of most of the Powerpoint presentations from the
diverse agenda of the 9th AHEAD GLTFCA
WG meeting
are now available online at http://www.wcs-ahead.org/workinggrps_limpopo.html,
and the meeting photo gallery will be posted as soon as possible.
The final minutes from the 9th meeting of the AHEAD Great
Limpopo TFCA Working Group will be emailed to AHEAD GLTFCA
WG members and posted on the website in PDF
as soon as they are finalized. Special thanks go to our Mozambican
hosts, and to SANParks' Dr. Nicky Shongwe, AHEAD GLTFCA
WG Coordinator.
*Climate Change, Health and Sustainable
Use: IUCN SASUSG (Southern African Sustainable Use
Specialist Group) meeting held December 2 and 3, 2008
in Cape Town, South Africa - The Southern
African Sustainable Use Specialist Group (SASUSG) is
a voluntary network of approximately 80 individuals involved
with both research and applied aspects of the sustainable use
of natural resources in the region. A two day meeting was held
to explore the linkages between the impacts of climate change
and growing health threats (human and animal) on the sustainable
use of natural resources, with an emphasis on rural communities’ dependent
on natural resources in southern Africa. An initial conceptual
framework for SASUSG work was developed at
the meeting, and key issues and themes for next steps were
identified. These included a
need to undertake case studies and support the development
of tools relevant to climate change, health and sustainable
use. It was also noted that there were considerable benefits
for SASUSG in deepening the linkages with
other IUCN Commissions. These include the World Commission
on Protected Areas (WCPA)
and its Protected Areas and Climate Turnaround (PACT)
2020 initiative; and the Commission
on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP).
An important issue noted during the workshop was the recruitment
of new members and additional expertise into SASUSG from
climate change and health perspectives. Anyone with an interest
in contributing to this voluntary network would be most welcome
and should contact the group via the
SASUSG website (www.sasusg.org)
or through Mike Kock mdkock@kingsley.co.za or
Simon Anstey simon.anstey@gmail.com. The IUCN
Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group is one
of the founding partners of the AHEAD initiative.
NEW RESOURCES AND PUBLICATIONS
*New Special Issue of IUCN's World Conservation
Magazine- "Life Support: Human Health and the Environment" -
See http://cms.iucn.org/resources/world_conservation/2009_issue1/ for
freely available PDF downloads of articles / the entire magazine.
*AHEAD Great Limpopo TFCA Seed Grant Projects
- abstracts (including contact information for
project leaders) for all ten winning projects are now viewable
online. Please see http://www.wcs-ahead.org/gltfca_grants/grants.html.
*Addressing the social aspects of sustainable
forest / natural resources management - The Learning
for Sustainability site - http://learningforsustainability.net -
brings together resources to help address the social and capacity-building
aspects of managing forests and other natural resources in
a sustainable manner. The site highlights the wide range of
social skills and processes that are needed to support collaborative
change and capacity-building initiatives, and structures these
in a practical way with a wide range of supporting links. New
sections link to resources to help with governance, community
resilience, adaptive management, and visioning and scenario
development. A central guides, tools and checklists section
provides practical guidance to help readers address issues
involved in managing multi-stakeholder participation and engagement
initiatives. Lessons are drawn from different sectors including
agriculture, health and conservation. Research links cover
action research, systems thinking, participation, integration
and interdisciplinarity. Feedback is welcomed, and users are
encouraged to suggest links to add. Point of contact: Will
Allen will@learningforsustainability.net
*Africa Drought Risk and Development Network
(ADDN) on the web - The ADDN http://www.frameweb.org/CommunityBrowser.aspx?id=3003&lang=en-US is
focused on promoting exchange of experience on key issues linking
drought risk and development; provides a platform for the development
and dissemination of good practice and tools; is a bridge to
various resources and opportunities in Africa and beyond; and
acts as a forum for the elaboration of policy-relevant collective
practice on drought risk management. This group is sponsored
by the UNDP's Dryland Development Centre and the UN International
Strategy for Disaster Relief. Monthly newsletters are accessible
under Tools
and Resources. FRAMEweb point
of contact: Carmen Tedesco ctedesco@aed.org
*Conserving and Valuing Ecosystem Services
and Biodiversity: Economic, Institutional and Social Challenges,
edited by K. N. Ninan with
a forward by Achim Steiner - new book published
by Earthscan.
The book has contributions from leading experts reflecting
experience from around the globe including Charles Perrings,
Clem Tisdell, Jefffrey McNeely, Timothy Swanson, R. K. Turner,
Randall Kramer and others. Conserving
and Valuing Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity addresses the
economic, social and institutional difficulties in conserving
biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides. It
covers a wide range of issues such as biodiversity, ecosystem
services and valuation in the context of diverse ecosystems
such as tropical forests, marine areas, wetlands and agricultural
landscapes; non-timber forest products; incentives and institutions;
payments for ecosystem services; governance; intellectual property
rights and the protection of traditional knowledge; management
of protected areas; and climate change and biodiversity. It
also covers the application of environmental economics and
institutional economics to different cases and the use of techniques
such as contingent valuation and game theory. See http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?TabId=34100&v=451721 for
more details. Point of contact: K. N. Ninan ninankn@yahoo.co.in.
NEW SUB-SECTION: REVIEWED BOOKS
with book mini-reviews courtesy of Marshall
Murphree
(1) Fortmann, Louise, ed. (2008) Participatory
Research in Conservation and Rural Livelihoods: Doing
Science Together. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 316 pp. More
information available at http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405176792.html
Participatory
Research in Conservation and Rural Livelihoods: Doing Science
Together starts
from the understanding that all people create knowledge and
that the creation of sustainable livelihoods and of conditions
that protect and sustain rural ecosystems are interrelated. Here
local experts and professional researchers write independently
about the participatory research processes through which they
created new knowledge together. They demonstrate that interdependent
science can produce more accurate and locally appropriate data,
while frankly addressing persisting issues such as unequal
power, whose knowledge and what ways of knowing count, whose
voice can be heard or appear in print, and other dilemmas of
this practice. Conservation scientists and practitioners will
both benefit from reading this book.
from Marshall Murphree: "This is one in the 'Conservation
Science and Practice' series published in association with
the Zoological Society of London. The series' stated objective
is 'to publish books that address the multidisciplinary aspects
of conservation, looking at how biological scientists and
ecologists are interacting with social scientists to effect
long-term, sustainable conservation measures.' When the
membership of AHEAD gets to the stage where it wishes to
publish more of its findings, this might be a publication
channel. The book presents eight case studies from around
the world dealing with seed and soil science (pathologies
included), agricultural practice and production, and natural
resource use and management. While topically interesting
in their own right, the central message of the case studies is
on methodologies which seek knowledge production through
'interdependent science.' The book should be of relevance
and interest to those involved in AHEAD who work
in areas which conjoin technical and social issues."
(2) Mandondo, A., Prabhu, R. and F. Matose,
eds. (2008) Coping Amidst Chaos: Studies on Adaptive Collaborative
Management from Zimbabwe. Bogor: Center for
International Forestry Research (CIFOR). 132pp. More information and
freely downloadable PDF of publication available at http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/Publications/Detail?pid=2558
from Marshall Murphree: "The empirical base for this book
consists of three extended case studies in forestry and
agricultural management, each with a history of considerable time-depth. Although
taken from Zimbabwe the case studies will resonate with
the rural experience of AHEAD Great Limpopo
TFCA researchers
in Mozambique and South Africa as well. The value of the
book lies in this cognate material and the candour of the
authors in their analysis of the shortcomings of the project planning
and implementation approaches which were taken. The book also records
elements of modest success that have been achieved and the resilience
that rural people demonstrate in times of stress."
SELECTED UPCOMING MEETINGS & COURSES
*The Ecological Society for Eastern Africa
(ESEA) 2nd Regional Scientific Conference- June 16-20, 2009 at
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. The theme for this year's
annual conference is: "Challenges in Sustainable use of
Natural Resource in Eastern Africa." The conference is
open to all professionals who are involved with the science
and practice of ecology within the eastern African region.
Students are particularly encouraged to use this forum to share
their work with other scientists in the region. The deadline
for abstracts is May 4, 2009. For more information, see http://www.ecsea.org/.
*The 12th International Symposium on Veterinary
Epidemiology and Economics (ISVEE)- August 10-14, 2009 at
the International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa. ISVEE is
the premier international congress linking veterinary epidemiology
and economics, and has been held every three years since 1976.
This will be only the second time that the meeting has been
held in Africa (the first was in Nairobi, Kenya in 1994). Please
consider taking advantage of the geographical setting of the
meeting to facilitate strong participation from developing
countries, particularly those in Africa. ISVEE hopes
to bring together veterinary and medical epidemiologists, economists,
and associated professions to address common themes and challenges,
with special emphasis on facilitating decision making on animal
health issues in the developing world. Please note that "Zoonoses
and Emerging Diseases" and "Wildlife Diseases and
the Wildlife/ Livestock/ Human Interface" are two of the
ten key conference themes. For details, see the ISVEE web
site: http://www.isvee.co.za. For
more information, please contact Vernon
Ndlovu vernon@confcall.co.za or Ferran
Jori ferran.jori@cirad.fr.
AWARDS, FUNDING AND TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES
*Announcing the ‘AHEAD Beyond
Boundaries Awards' - for young researchers and managers
conducting promising work at the interface between wildlife
health, domestic animal health, and human health and livelihoods.
Wiley-Blackwell will sponsor the awards: ten one-year subscriptions
to the journal "Transboundary and Emerging Diseases" (as
described in previous AHEAD Updates at http://www.wcs-ahead.org/newsarchive.html and
at http://www.wiley.com/bw/aims.asp?ref=1865-1674&site=1).
The awards are available to up-and-coming colleagues in developing
nations making a difference on emerging disease and related
One Health interface issues. Anyone can nominate a colleague
or student. All that is required is the nominee's name, institutional
affiliation and postal address, the nominee's email address,
and a 150 word or less (!) overview of why the nominee's work
is particularly promising. Nominations should be submitted
to sosofsky@wcs.org by June 1, 2009, and winners
will be announced in the next AHEAD Update after
the due date, as well as on the "Transboundary and
Emerging Diseases" journal homepage. Thanks in advance
for your nominations!
*African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) Charlotte
Conservation Fellowships available - The application
process for the 2009-2010 AWF Charlotte Conservation Fellows
is open through July 31, 2009. Under the Charlotte Conservation
Fellowship Program, AWF is offering scholarships for full MSc
or partial PhD programs with field research components that
produce knowledge or insight into specific conservation challenges
in the African Heartlands or conservation in general. Citizens
of Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique,
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Niger, Benin and Burkina Faso are eligible
to apply. Expenses that AWF expects to cover under the
scholarship will vary depending on the individual program selected
by the scholarship recipient, but each scholarship is valued
at a maximum of US$25,000. Those whose total costs for their
studies exceed this figure must demonstrate that they have
secured additional funding from other sources to enable them
to complete their studies. All application
documents must be submitted by close of business on July 31,
2009. Successful
candidates will be notified by August 15, 2009. The Charlotte
Conservation Fellows 2009-2010 Application form and Reference
form are available at: http://awf.org/section/people/education/charlotte/2009application.
For additional information, contact charlottefellowship@awfke.org.
*The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation
Fund - First announced at the 2008 World Conservation
Congress in Barcelona, The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation
Fund is a significant philanthropic endowment established to: provide
targeted grants to individual species conservation initiatives;
recognize leaders in the field of species conservation; and
elevate the importance of species in the broader conservation
debate. The fund is open to applications for funding support
from conservationists based in all parts of the world, and
will potentially support projects focused on any and all kinds
of plant and animal species, subject to the approval of an
independent evaluation committee. The application process
is being finalised, but early applications are now being accepted.
For more information, see: http://mbzspeciesconservation.org.
OTHER NEWS
*AHEAD website gets a facelift- please
take a moment to visit the revamped http://www.wcs-ahead.org,
and the range of resources available.
*HALI (Health for Animals and Livelihood
Improvement) update - HALI http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/whc/hali.cfm is
in its 3rd year of activities investigating zoonotic disease
and water management in the Ruaha ecosystem of Tanzania. 2008
was an exciting year for the HALI team and the highlights are
below:
Bovine Tuberculosis (BTB) Update:
(a) Livestock: 21% of 62 pastoralist households tested had positive bovine tuberculosis
reactor cattle in their herds. We are continuing to test more
households this year.
(b) Wildlife: Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex
bacteria were isolated from 4/40 (10%) wildlife samples. Strains
will further be characterized to determine their genotypes and
relatedness to strains of M.bovis circulating in
people and domestic animals within Tanzania.
In November, HALI team members conducted a pilot
effort to immobilize buffalo in the Pawaga-Idodi WMA. Despite
our best efforts, we were not successful in capturing buffalo
due to disturbance from concurrent hunting activities. We will
attempt additional immobilization efforts in 2009 and have redoubled
our outreach to hunting organizations in order to determine the prevalence
and species distribution of infection in wildlife, and to identify
geographic areas where risk of bovine tuberculosis transmission
between wildlife and livestock may be high.
For information on other HALI modules related to water-borne
diseases; socioeconomic impacts of disease and water scarcity;
and neonatal diarrhea, see:
HALI blog: http://haliproject.wordpress.com/
HALI research briefs: http://glcrsp.ucdavis.edu/publications/?project=hali
HALI in UC Davis Magazine: http://ucdavismagazine.ucdavis.edu/issues/win09/troubled_water.html to
view the article entitled “Troubled Waters."
Point of contact: Deana Clifford dlclifford@ucdavis.edu.
*More organizations continue to be
added to the LINKs section of the AHEAD website at - http://www.wcs-ahead.org/links.html. We
are pleased to now have a link in place to the International
Conservation and Education Fund http://www.incef.org/,
an innovative collaborating institution focused on integrating
conservation and health through communication.
If you have items for the next AHEAD Update, please
just let me know – thanks.
What is AHEAD?
Animal & Human Health for the Environment And
Development was launched six years ago – at
the 2003 IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa. By
assembling a ‘dream team’ of veterinarians, ecologists,
biologists, social and economic scientists, agriculturists, wildlife
managers, public health specialists and others from across East
and southern Africa, the Wildlife Conservation Society, IUCN,
and a range of partners tapped into some of the most innovative
conservation and development thinking on the African continent – and AHEAD was
born. Since then, a range of programs addressing conservation,
health, and concomitant development challenges have been launched
with the support of a growing list of implementing partners and
donors who see the intrinsic value of what WCS has called the
One World, One Health™ approach. AHEAD is a convening,
facilitative mechanism, working to create enabling environments
that allow different and often competing sectors to literally
come to the same table and find collaborative ways forward to
address challenges at the interface of wildlife health, livestock
health, and human health and livelihoods. We convene stakeholders,
help delineate conceptual frameworks to underpin planning, management
and research, and provide technical support and resources for
projects stakeholders identify as priorities. AHEAD recognizes
the need to look at health and disease not in isolation but within
a given region's socioeconomic and environmental context.
All the best,
Steve
Steve Osofsky, DVM
Wildlife Conservation Society
Director, Wildlife Health Policy
WCS AHEAD Coordinator
sosofsky@wcs.org
ph/fax: 1-703-716-1029
www.wcs-ahead.org
Please see the News Archives
page for previous AHEAD updates. |
