AHEAD
Update – Special Edition –
Breakthrough for African Farmers and African Wildlife
Changes to International Regulatory Standards Regarding Foot
and Mouth Disease Adopted at OIE World Assembly in Paris
New Policy Flexibility Means Poorest
Livestock Farmers No Longer Excluded from Global Beef Markets and Environmentally
Devastating Veterinary Fencing is No Longer the Only Option for
Managing Foot and Mouth Disease in Southern Africa
With newly accepted revisions to the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code,
we’ve reached a critical turning point in regards to resolving
the more than half century-old conflict between (a) international beef
trade policy based on foot and mouth disease control fencing in the
southern African context and (b) the migratory needs of free-ranging
wildlife in the region and beyond.
On May 27th 2015, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE),
which provides standards for its 180 member countries related to international
trade in commodities (including beef) that are a potential source of
animal disease agents, updated the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code
and made it possible for African countries with wild species like buffalo
that naturally harbor foot and mouth disease (FMD) viruses to be able
to trade beef without necessarily requiring the physical separation
of wildlife and livestock through the extensive veterinary cordon fencing
that has characterized animal disease management in southern Africa
since the colonial era. While there is now much to be done
to make new quarantine-based value chain approaches to beef production
a routine option (see new AHEAD guidelines flagged in the
previous AHEAD Update
http://www.wcs-ahead.org/kaza/181114-guidelines-for-implementing-cbt-final.pdf),
this policy change offers the unprecedented possibility of access to
new beef markets for southern African farmers and pastoralists as well
as unlocks the potential for restoring migratory movements of wildlife
and thus enhancing prospects for long-term wildlife population viability
within individual countries as well as in transboundary landscapes
like the KAZA transfrontier conservation area. This new flexibility
represents a true 'win-win' for sustainable and diversified land use
and livelihoods, even in the face of some of the uncertainties related
to regional climate change models.
New markets for beef within Africa itself and in Asia – and, ideally,
more diversified beef products – likely merit increased attention.
A recent piece from the Botswana newspaper Mmegi (http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=51336&dir=2015/may/22),
written just before the decision at OIE in Paris, points out just how
significant this policy change is for the subregion's people and wildlife.
To be clear, this is not about "removing all fences," but
this new, more flexible policy paradigm represents a vitally important
opportunity for the wildlife and livestock sectors to work together on
collaborative land-use planning, knowing that there is now the option
to realign or remove specific fences impacting important wildlife habitat
corridors – since beef export market access can be attained utilizing
new meat-processing value chain-based approaches, regardless of whether
buffalo or other wildlife live in or near a particular locality or not.
Of course with great opportunity, comes great responsibility. A
collective investment in earnest stewardship of natural resources, with
an eye towards our children’s children, must be made by all sectoral
stakeholders dependent on southern Africa’s precious land-base.
There is now, for the first time in several generations, an opportunity
to find ways to optimize land-use choices in the interest of system resilience
and diversified livelihood opportunities. Neither the livestock nor wildlife
sectors should seek to dominate the other. Instead, it is time to make
land-use decisions that will be socially, ecologically and economically
sustainable for generations to come.
There is of course still much to do, and on-the-ground change takes
time and concerted collaborative effort. AHEAD’s focus
in our next phase of ongoing work with southern African partners includes
further sensitization of key local, national and regional entities (in
both the livestock and wildlife sectors, et al.) as to the significance
of this landmark change in international beef trade standards. We also
envision the need for critical pilot work through public-private partnerships
involving local communities, with all stakeholders motivated and encouraged
by the fact that we are closer to reconciling FMD-related conflict at
the livestock / wildlife interface than we've ever been before.
Again, if you have items for the next AHEAD Update,
please just let us know– thanks.
"What is AHEAD?" Animal & Human
Health for the Environment And Development was launched 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 environmental and socioeconomic context.
Sincerely,
Steve |