AHEAD Update – June 2005

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 AHEAD up-to-date on developments post-Durban World Parks Congress over time, 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.

*The AHEAD Great Apes Working Group has posted a downloadable PDF of their "Consensus document outlining practical considerations for reducing health risks to African great apes and conservation employees through an occupational health program, February 2005" on the AHEAD website at
http://www.wcs-ahead.org/workinggrps_greatapes.html

*Congratulations to Innocent Rwego, a founding member of the AHEAD Great Apes Working Group, who was recently awarded a 2005 WCS Research Fellowship for his upcoming graduate work on “The Ecology of Disease Transmission: Implications for Primate Conservation in Kibale National Park, Uganda.”

*The AHEAD Great Limpopo TFCA Working Group held their 5th working meeting on February 17th and 18th, 2005 hosted by the University of Pretoria's Mammal Research Institute. The forum was highly successful, with consensus obtained on an operational structure for defining the consortium, and on specific ways forward on a range of key institutional issues. The overarching framework, themes, modules, and projects / project concepts were reviewed and updated. Additional ideas for potential sources of funding were discussed. Several new agencies and individuals participated in the meeting, and will (we hope) become integral components of the Working Group. [If you would like to add a link between your institution's website and the AHEAD website (see http://www.wcs-ahead.org/links.html), please just let me know and I'll get it sorted out on the AHEAD side.] The 5th meeting's notes are finally compiled (!) and are being emailed to all Working Group members within the next few days, and will also be posted at http://www.wcs-ahead.org/workinggrps_limpopo.html along with materials from previous AHEAD GLTFCA Working Group meetings. (If you are not currently on the AHEAD GLTFCA Working Group emailing list and would like to receive the notes from

In April, fruitful discussions between AHEAD GLTFCA and TPARI (Transboundary Protected Areas Research Initiative) were held, with a focus on prospects for expanded interaction and collaboration, particularly on social science issues. Finally, a small AHEAD GLTFCA Working Group 'frameworking' team has been established (one of the agreed points at the 5th Working Group meeting), and met for the first time in May (hosted by SANParks and WCS in Skukuza) to begin to flesh-out the theoretical and practical parameters for successfully understanding and addressing the health issues and their socioecological context in a complex, dynamic system like the GLTFCA. A sixth AHEAD GLTFCA Working Group meeting is tentatively being explored for August/September or thereafter.

*After discussions with various AHEAD GLTFCA colleagues within and outside of Mozambique over the past year, the World Bank has decided to add pilot support for an animal disease component to its GLTFCA program on the Mozambican side- approximately $350,000 over several years for addressing disease issues in and around Limpopo NP, and for related training. We are extremely pleased to see the Bank taking these critically important issues into account.

*The AHEAD launch 'Proceedings' are on their way toward final galley proofs- this is progress! The first set of galleys were carefully reviewed, and after the next set of (final) galleys we do anticipate the book being available toward the fall of 2005- perhaps coinciding with the actual 2-year anniversary of the launch of AHEAD. Given that some of the papers in the book were not received until a year after the actual WPC Durban launch, the publication process is still on schedule and will, we believe, deliver a cutting-edge contribution to practical, strategic thinking about the wildlife / domestic animal / human health interface- with a focus on southern and East Africa. The book is titled Conservation and Development Interventions at the Wildlife/Livestock Interface: Implications for Wildlife, Livestock, and Human Health. Additional citation data will be provided shortly, as will information on distribution of hard copies and a web-based version of the book.

If you have items for the next AHEAD Update, please just let me know – thanks.

All the best,

Steve O.