2024 (No. 2)
AHEAD Update
Dear AHEAD Colleagues,
Welcome to the next issue of the AHEAD Update. As always, if you would like to post an item in the next Update, please just send it to us – thanks.
This new (2024) report is one of the most important ones we've collaborated on in several years. It is the second of a three-part project under the auspices of the KAZA Animal Health Sub Working Group, evaluating veterinary fences in Botswana's component of KAZA, some of which border Namibia, and their impact on the overall vision for an ecologically and economically successful TFCA. The first phase, completed in 2022 (and which AHEAD hopes to have in the public domain in 2025), evaluated the fences based on their impacts on wildlife movements and recommended the removal of sections of several fences from a wildlife conservation perspective. The second phase (this new report, which includes a thorough summary of the first phase report starting on page 152) analyzes how the risk of important livestock diseases might change, or not, if these same fence sections were removed to promote habitat connectivity across the greater KAZA landscape.
This assessment was conducted to inform national, bilateral and KAZA-level planning efforts on veterinary fences and includes delineation of risks at each fence line under three different scenarios assuming that (i) no changes are made, i.e. status quo, (ii) the fence section is removed and (iii) the fence section is removed with specific risk mitigation in place. While veterinary fences have a longstanding role in disease control in southern Africa, there is growing recognition that the time has come to consider alternative disease control methods in some parts of the region. This risk assessment offers a look at how key fence sections might be removed in areas deemed critical for wildlife and habitat connectivity, while maintaining low levels of risk for transboundary diseases. Although land use and livestock density around each fence contribute to its unique risk profile, there are some commonalities in the risks assessed at each fence, including but not limited to the finding that the risks for disease outbreaks remained the same under proposed fence section removals. Removing fence sections can increase the risk at certain steps in a risk pathway, but in all cases, the probability of disease occurrence and overall risk estimate were the same under both the status quo and proposed removal. In some cases, the probability of disease occurrence decreased with the addition of risk mitigation measures.
The report's top-line recommendations, finalized based on a May 2024 validation meeting involving, among other stakeholders, expert coauthors from DVS Botswana and DVS Namibia, are featured in the map below. A third and final phase will entail consultations with communities that could be impacted, positively or negatively, by the removal of any specific fence or fence section as proposed by the first two phases and associated deliberations, which also yielded a compelling recommendation for broader community access to the Herding for Health (H4H) model in (for example) Botswana's eastern panhandle as a key disease risk mitigation approach. It's worth noting that the costs of implementing H4H broadly in Ngamiland may compare favourably with the expenses associated with the constant need for fencing repairs due to elephant damage and other causes.
Cumulatively, the three phases of work have been designed to inform planning efforts at various scales within the context of regional collaboration and cooperation in the areas of disease risk management, natural resource use and management, and community development.
Fence sections recommended for Phase 3 community consultations on potential removal (green) with risk mitigation or re-evaluation in future (yellow) based on bilateral consideration. Sections of the Western Border fence (dark and light orange) were not recommended for removal at this time, though one 23 km section (light orange) was highlighted as
being a potential candidate in the future pending further information.
Full report citation: Rosen, L. E., Amuthenu, N. S., Atkinson, S. J., Babayani, N. D., Elago, S. A. T., Hikufe, E., Mafonko, B. R., Mbeha, B., Mokopasetso, M., Motshegwa, K., Nkgowe, C., Penrith M-L., Ramokwena, E. M., Ramsden, N., Segale, K., Sharpe, J., Shilongo, A., Shoombe, K. K., Shuro, T., Thololwane, O. I., van Rooyen, J. & Osofsky, S. A. (2024). Veterinary Fences in the KAZA TFCA: Assessment of Livestock Disease Risks of Potential Removal of Specific Fence Sections, with an Emphasis on the Botswana-Namibia Border. AHEAD Programme, Cornell University on behalf of the KAZA Animal Health Sub Working Group. 300 pp.
New Initiatives
PhD Fellowships in Wildlife Health
The Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health is excited to offer up to two PhD fellowships focused on wildlife health. Students pursuing a PhD or DVMs seeking a PhD who complete the first year of the program and successfully match with a wildlife health faculty mentor following laboratory/program rotations will be eligible. This prestigious fellowship provides up to 5 years of support, beginning in the summer of the first year of study.
Residency in Wildlife Population Health
The Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health is excited to offer a Residency in Wildlife Population Health.
First Postdoctoral Fellowship Awarded for Work on the Pathology of Free-Ranging Wildlife
The Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health is pleased to welcome inaugural Free-Ranging Wildlife Pathology Fellow Dr. Carmen Smith to the team.
Additional New Resources
Naidoo, R et al. (2024) Landscape Connectivity for African Elephants in the World's Largest Transfrontier Conservation Area: A Collaborative, Multi-Scalar Assessment.
Journal of Applied Ecology
Using data on actual, observed animal movements from nearly 300 collared elephants and their associated herds, this research provides a robust picture of landscape connectivity for elephants in KAZA.
Elephant Expressways: Examining Multi-Scalar Elephant Connectivity in KAZA.
The Applied Ecologist
In a 'behind the paper' piece, Callie Cho and Robin Naidoo discuss how, using observed animal movements rather than conventional models, a connectivity conservation blueprint for African elephants in KAZA was produced.
Stein, A & Emanuel, W (2024) Cows For Climate: CLAWS' Revolutionary Rangeland Management System.
Botswana Guardian
A communal herding program in northern Botswana is restoring rangeland health, improving livestock health, and creating a market for "wildlife and climate friendly" beef. The program is being implemented by CLAWS, with technical support from Herding 4 Hope.
Bamouh, Z et al. (2024) Evaluation of a Combined Live Attenuated Vaccine Against Lumpy Skin Disease, Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia and Rift Valley Fever.
Vaccines
The safety, efficacy, and duration of immunity of a combined vaccine is evaluated for the prevention of these diseases among cattle in a laboratory setting and in a large-scale vaccination trial under field conditions, with promising results.
Fasina, FO et al. (2024) Semiquantitative Risk Evaluation Reveals Drivers of African Swine Fever Virus Transmission in Smallholder Pig Farms and Gaps in Biosecurity, Tanzania.
Veterinary Medicine International
Risky practices and breaches in biosecurity in the pig value chain in Tanzania are profit driven and extremely difficult to change. The progressive reorganization of the livestock industry to align with, for example, the Tanzania Livestock Modernization Initiative is imperative.
Upcoming Meetings
Wildlife Disease Association (WDA) Conference
1-6 Dec 2024, Canberra, Australia & online
The 72nd WDA conference will exist as two parallel and interwoven experiences at the same time: an 'on Country' conference taking place in Canberra, Australia, and an 'off Country' conference taking place online.
Again, if you have items for the next AHEAD Update, please just let us know – thanks.
Yours in One Health,
Steve & Shirley
Steve Osofsky, DVM
Cornell University, College of Veterinary Medicine
Jay Hyman Professor of Wildlife Health & Health Policy
Director, AHEAD Program
Director, Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health
s.osofsky@cornell.edu
Shirley Atkinson, MSc
Cornell University, College of Veterinary Medicine
AHEAD Program Coordinator
Associate Director, Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health
s.atkinson@cornell.edu
What is AHEAD?
AHEAD works 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 and provide technical support and resources for projects locally identified as priorities. AHEAD, one of the first applied One Health programs, recognizes the need to look at health, disease, and the environment together, while always taking a given region's socioeconomic, political, and policy context into account.
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