Cultivating Community Newsletter- 'One Health'
Amanda Shankland
Good day,
I am writing to share the January edition of the ‘Cultivating Community’ newsletter. The newsletter provides commentary on how community-centred thinking and action can drive sustainable environmental and food movements forward.
This month’s article comes from Dr. Jennifer Marshman. Jennifer is an adjunct professor teaching in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies in the Faculty of Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. Jennifer also works as a Curriculum Developer and Instructional Design Specialist and has a passion for creating online pedagogy that is effective, engaging, and inclusive.
Jennifer has undertaken community-based, action-oriented research in Canada and China. She specializes in research on socially just and ecologically sustainable food systems. Her doctoral research studied the human dimensions of pollinator conservation at the food-people-nature nexus. She is the recipient of the 2020 Laurier Student Teaching Award of Excellence and the 2021 ECO-Award from the Environmental Studies Association of Canada. These achievements, along with Jennifer’s background as a Registered Nurse, allow her to bring a truly interdisciplinary approach to her teaching and research.
I hope you enjoy this short article. You can also subscribe to my newsletter on Linkedin here. Thank you for your support!
Best regards,
Amanda Shankland Ph.D.
Amanda Shankland is a writer, consultant, and educator specializing in environmental water policy, sustainable agriculture, and food systems. She lives in the traditional territory of the Algonquin-Anishinaabe in what is now called Ottawa. She is committed to decolonizing our food system, affirming traditional knowledge of foodways, and seeking to advance a notion of community that includes all plants, insects, animals, and people. Amanda holds a Doctor of Philosophy from Carleton University and is an adjunct professor at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. She is also a freelance consultant and editor offering guidance on agricultural and environmental priorities. Please feel free to contact her if you would like to retain her services.
The gentle green sweat bee, genus Agapostemon, during a campus walk with students to explore pollinator habitat. Photo by J. Marshman.
‘One Health’
In 2013, I attended a workshop with pollination biologist Dr. Susan Willis Chan, who taught me that it’s ok to fall in love with a bee. Little did I know, less than a decade later, I would complete my own doctoral research looking at our connection with nature, with bees taking center stage.
One of the activities I ask students to do is draw the first thing that comes to mind when they think of the ‘natural environment’. Almost universally, their depictions exclude elements from the built environment. This sparks questions about the human-nature relationship and about why humans are perceived as separate. Environmental researcher and writer Thom Van Doreen's work offers an illustrative example that underscores these critical questions,
“Think about a forest. All around you there are trees rising up to form a dense canopy. In one of the trees is a bird’s nest, twigs carefully woven together by a pair of birds, to produce the perfect cradle for their delicate cargo. As you walk on a little further into the forest, you encounter a river. Looking downstream, you notice a large pile of sticks and branches gathered together. But this is not a haphazard collection of driftwood. Rather, it’s the purposeful work of a beaver, a lodge carefully constructed to provide shelter and warmth. All of what we’ve seen so far would be called nature, by most people. But if we move on a little further into the forest, and encounter a small clearing, and within it, a modest wooden hut, would this too be a part of nature? For many people, the bird’s nest and the beaver’s lodge are in, but the human hut is out. All three structures are built by their inhabitants, but only one is not natural” (van Dooren, 2016, 0:57).
I offer a critique and an alternative that removes people from the center of meaning-making. Aldo Leopold (1949) called for an ethic that “enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals” (p. 239). More than half a century later, Gibson et al., (2015) describe community as a process: “being-in-common—that is, community—can no longer be thought of or felt as a community of humans alone; it must become a multi-species community that includes all of those with whom our livelihoods are interdependent and interrelated” (p. 10).
In my research, I extend a whole-of-community approach to include all members of the biotic community. The roots of these ideas reach far earlier than Leopold’s land ethic. Indigenous knowledge and oral traditions connecting people to the land have been passed on for millennia. Today, we can see how this ethic is carried on through things like wildlife bridges, road closures for endangered species, pauses in development projects during the breeding season, maintaining or restoring landscape connectivity, and traffic signage to minimize wildlife-vehicle collisions. These interventions are all based on a whole-of-community approach by design.
Near the end of my dissertation writing, I discovered an emerging concept that brought together my expertise in health, geography, and environmental studies. One Health is an interdisciplinary approach that recognizes that human health is closely connected to the health of animals and the health of the environment(s) we share. Now, more than ever, care and innovative approaches are needed to help ensure a healthy future as we consider the inequity of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, growing food insecurity, global climate change, and mass species extinctions.
Defined by the World Health Organization, One Health seeks to harmonize and optimize the well-being of people, animals, and ecosystems. Its origins trace back to the 1800s with the term 'zoonosis,' encompassing diseases transmitted from animals to humans. An estimated 6 of every 10 known infectious diseases and 3 of every 4 new infectious diseases are zoonotic. In 1969, 'One Medicine' emerged in Schwabe's book Veterinary Medicine and Human Health, which emphasized collaboration between human and veterinary medicine for effective prevention, control, and treatment of shared illnesses.
The Wildlife Conservation Society developed the 12 Manhattan Principles in 2004, forming the foundational framework for One Health. This approach shifted the focus from disease treatment to health promotion. In 2008, driven by the threat of avian influenza, a strategic framework involving over 120 countries and 26 international organizations was released. Subsequently, The United Nations and the World Bank embraced and advocated the implementation of the One Health approach in 2010. The same year, the Hanoi Declaration garnered unanimous support from 711 regional bodies and countries, emphasizing broad implementation for targeted action at the human-animal-ecosystem interface. The inaugural One Health Congress took place in Melbourne in 2011, followed by the establishment of the annual One Health Day on November 3, 2016.
The COVID-19 pandemic reminded us that humans cannot operate in isolation from the global ecosystem. By spreading into wildlife habitats, diminishing the health of the environment in general and the health of wildlife populations in particular, humans are creating the perfect conditions for the emergence of zoonoses. One Health has recently evolved to “promote intergenerational and interspecies health equity” (Stephen, 2022). Specifically, attention to other species and ecosystems must recognize that societal health and well-being are inextricably linked to animal and ecosystem health.
Using a One Health approach embodies the spirit of community by considering all elements within the biosphere. One Health can provide a “holistic framework for decision-making” (Mumford et al., 2023) that integrates multisectoral, western, traditional, and community-based knowledge. There is an urgency to address health threats at the interface of people, animals, and the environment by moving policy into action. Strategic and systematic integration of methodologies and data provides opportunities to explore, develop, and put One Health into action. Dynamic and intentional action is required to address the many socio-ecological crises we face from the seemingly insurmountable changing global climate to the extinction of the tiniest bee.
Jennifer Marshman
References:
Gibson, K., Rose, D., & Fincher, R. (Eds.). (2015). Manifesto for living in the Anthropocene. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books.
Leopold, A. (1949). A Sand County almanac and sketches here and there. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mackenzie, J. S., & Jeggo, M. (2019). The One Health approach—Why is it so important? Tropical medicine and infectious disease, 4(2), 88.
Mumford, E. L., Martinez, D. J., Tyance-Hassell, K., Cook, A., Hansen, G. R., Labonté, R., ... & Parrish-Sprowl, J. (2023). Evolution and expansion of the One Health approach to promote sustainable and resilient health and well-being: A call to action. Frontiers in Public Health, 10, 1056459. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1056459/full
Stephen, C. (2022). One Health: A primer for environmental public health practice. https://ncceh.ca/sites/default/files/One%20Health%20primer%20-%20Sept%202022%20EN.pdf
Above: The teddy bear of bees, the common Eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens). Photos © 2020 J. Marshman
Above: An orange belted bumble bee (Bombus ternarius) on the left, next to a lovely bee mimic, possibly the Narcissus Bulb fly (Merodon equestris) on the right.
Two Ontario backyard bees shows the range of sizes of native bees. Top, possibly genus Ceratina. Bottom is the Eastern carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica). Photos by J. Marshman.
Above: Two bees sleeping on a chilly morning, Genus Colletes. Photo © 2019 J. Marshman