AHEAD Update – October / November / December 2012Dear AHEAD Colleagues: *Welcome to the fourth AHEAD Update of 2012. 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 us- thanks. This issue of the AHEAD Update is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Stuart Hargreaves, a luminary within and beyond southern Africa's veterinary fraternity. Please see IN MEMORIAM below.
*The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Wildlife Conservation Society's AHEAD (Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development) Program are co-hosting a workshop entitled "Reconciling Livestock Health and Wildlife Conservation Goals in Southern Africa: Strategies for Sustainable Economic Development." The basis for the meeting is this: It is now well recognized that across parts of southern Africa both livestock and wildlife represent economic growth opportunities. However, costs associated with current approaches to managing international trade-associated animal disease risks often preclude the livestock sector's access to international markets. Many attempts to meet international standards related to 'freedom from disease' under currently emphasized geographically-based policy constructs have had significant negative repercussions for free-ranging wildlife, largely related to veterinary cordon fencing. The time has come to seriously explore alternative animal health and trade management regimes that do not implicitly pit the livestock and wildlife sectors against each other. Invited delegates (from government, nongovernmental organizations, multilateral institutions, the private sector as well as academia) with expertise in the livestock agriculture, wildlife conservation and other sectors will be converging at this important forum in order to map out next steps for optimizing cross-sectoral land-use planning in the interest of resilient livelihoods and development success that is economically, socially and ecologically sustainable over the long term. It's worth noting that at the June 2012 meeting of the SADC Livestock Technical Committee, the Committee endorsed commodity-based approaches to disease management and trade, adopted OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code Article 8.5.25 as a regional standard, and delineated the significant challenges posed by foot and mouth disease (FMD) currently faced by the region. All of this provides an opportunity to rethink the region’s approach to FMD management. Please look for details on the outcomes from this meeting in the next issue of the AHEAD Update. Proceedings and related products from the meeting will be made available online in the months to come.
Dr. Stuart Kenneth Hargreaves, BVSc: 1946-2012 After a remarkable career with the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) that spanned 41 years and which ended with his passing on 28 August 2012 in Harare, Dr. Stuart Hargreaves will be fondly remembered as a respected leader, skilled veterinarian, accomplished athlete and proud Zimbabwean. Drawing on years of experience spent in the field during the early part of his career, Dr. Hargreaves became a world-renowned expert in the management and control of foot and mouth disease (FMD). In the late 1970s, he was instrumental in controlling one of the most devastating outbreaks of FMD in Mashonaland in northern Zimbabwe. In the midst of his fieldwork, Dr. Hargreaves also helped establish a curriculum for the newly established Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Zimbabwe, and in 1983 was elevated to the position of Deputy Director in charge of all field services, responsible for a wide range of animal health activities relating to both livestock and wildlife. In 1990 he was appointed Director of Veterinary Services, responsible for directing all aspects of animal health, veterinary diagnostics, research and veterinary public health. In 2002, the post of Principal Director, Livestock and Veterinary Services was created which brought livestock production and veterinary services under one authority; Dr. Hargreaves held this position from its inception until his death. Dr. Hargreaves was responsible for the management and control of all important livestock disease concerns in Zimbabwe. He effectively managed various departments within the Division of Livestock and Veterinary Services, including veterinary field and diagnostic services, veterinary public health, tsetse and trypanosomiasis control and livestock production, and was for many years also involved in and responsible for wildlife health and disease control. He established an enduring and highly effective Veterinary Wildlife Unit, headed by Dr. Chris Foggin, and was involved in the design and establishment of the country’s wildlife conservancies. Dr. Hargreaves spearheaded institutional reform and changes in legislation, promoted adoption of new management techniques that allowed Zimbabwe to export livestock and livestock products, championed the establishment of community-based animal health workers across Zimbabwe, and proposed innovative approaches to disease management such as commodity-based trade. He was instrumental in developing strong and lasting linkages between the public sector and all sectors of the livestock and wildlife industries. On the international front, Dr. Hargreaves was the President of the OIE (World Organization for Animal Health) Regional Commission for Africa from 1995 to 1997, and was one of the five elected members of the OIE International Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission from 2000 onwards. He was also an OIE expert for the evaluation of veterinary services. He published a number of journal articles, mainly on FMD, livestock and tick-borne diseases, undertook several high profile international consultancies, and produced several international conference papers. He was a member of many professional associations, councils, committees and boards in the fields of veterinary science, animal production and public health, and was the recipient of multiple awards including: the Zimbabwe Society for Animal Production Gold Medal Award for outstanding contribution to the livestock industry; the J. F. Kapnek Charitable Trust Award for exceptional managerial commitment to the Zimbabwe Veterinary Journal and contributions to the veterinary profession; the Commercial Farmers Union Farming Oscar for outstanding contribution to the livestock industry and in particular ensuring continued beef exports; the Research Council of Zimbabwe Award for distinguished contribution in the agricultural sector in the service of Zimbabwe, and the World Organization for Animal Health - OIE Meritorious Medal. Dr. Hargreaves' contributions to animal health management and the control of transboundary animal diseases are widely known and well recognized in Zimbabwe, regionally and internationally. In honour of his selfless and dedicated service to his country and his profession, Dr. Stuart Hargreaves was given a state funeral. He was declared a hero of the nation who “flew the Zimbabwe flag high…and argued for clear measures that would not deny less-resourced nations from trading in meat products in the lucrative markets of Europe, Asia and North America. His contribution to the agriculture sector in general, and to livestock development in particular, was immeasurable.” He is survived by his wife, Shirley Anne and son, Ross.
*Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) Joint Management Board (JMB) Veterinary Committee Position Statement on “Promotion of trade standards for commodities and products derived from animals that are compatible with biodiversity conservation" – now available for download in PDF at http://www.wcs-ahead.org/workinggrps_limpopo.html. This is the first official statement from a transfrontier conservation area on this relevant and timely topic. *Welcome to new AHEAD-GLTFCA Working Group Coordinator! – Dr. Clara Bocchino has devoted most of her professional career to the study of socio-economic issues in the implementation of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA). Clara's Great Limpopo experience started when she was a BA student in Human Geography with the IULM University, Milan, with her thesis on the influence of foreign donors and agencies on community-based natural resource management projects. Later, her MSc in Environmental Management at the University of Nottingham, and her PhD research with the University of Bologna, focused on the border communities in Mozambique and the impact the GLTFCA has had on their economic and cultural networks. Following her PhD, Dr. Bocchino started working for the Centre for Environmental Management at the North West University, where in 2009 she renewed her involvement in the Great Limpopo during the inception phase of the CESVI Limpopo Transboundary Programme. It was during this period that she attended her first AHEAD-GLTFCA Working Group meeting. In 2010 Clara took up a postdoctoral research fellowship with the Faculty of Law of the North West University, and part of this research has involved an examination of policy and legislation in the GLTFCA. In this respect, Clara has been instrumental in incorporating legal and policy expertise into the AHEAD-GLTFCA Working Group. In addition to this, she has worked as an occasional consultant in the Limpopo National Park, Mozambique, and a resource person in the IDRC/CASS Local Level Scenario Planning Project. Clara is fluent in English, Portuguese and French, with Italian being her mother tongue. This rejuvenation of the AHEAD-GLTFCA Coordinator role has been undertaken under the auspices of and with funding from the University of Pretoria and SANParks. We wish Clara clara.bocchino@gmail.com all success in facilitating this vibrant Working Group into the future.
*New paper - Home on the Range: Factors Explaining Partial Migration of African Buffalo in a Tropical Environment (2012), Naidoo R, Du Preez P, Stuart-Hill G, Jago M and Wegmann M, PLoS ONE 7(5): e36527. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036527 – Excerpts: "Tensions between conservation and development, in the form of anthropogenic barriers to wildlife movements, as well as human-wildlife conflict around crops and livestock, pose a challenge to implementing the ambitious vision of KAZA as a conservation-based driver of human livelihood gains. In this context, assessing migratory behaviors and resulting connectivity in the region is of critical importance." "Our analysis also showed that non-environmental factors affect buffalo migration. As expected, individuals that were less constrained by barriers on their dry season home ranges migrated further than those nearer to barriers. At the level of the individual 5-hour step our data also show (informally) that fences and rivers block buffalo movements, while certain parts of the main tar road bisecting the Caprivi Strip also act as a barrier. As with elephants in this region, buffalo are inherently mobile herbivores that are nevertheless constrained by linear barriers such as rivers, fences, and roads, as well as by the presence of human settlements and cultivation. Although the buffalo movements in our study region were some of the longest on record for non-dispersing individuals, this was at least partly a function of anthropogenic barriers shaping movement trajectories. For example, the fence marking the southern border between Botswana and Namibia, along with the tar road and associated human settlement, acted to funnel a buffalo collared in the Horseshoe area over 100 km west down a narrow ~15 km channel, with an eventual retracing of its steps and ultimately a descent into Botswana through a 20 km gap in the border fence. These barriers rendered potential habitat to the south in Botswana and north of the tar road in Namibia inaccessible during the wet season, and therefore may have increased the distance ultimately traveled by this buffalo, with the consequent increases in energetic expenditures and predator risk." The full paper is freely available at http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0036527. *New paper - The Effects of Protected
Area and Veterinary Fencing on Wildlife Conservation in Southern
Africa (2012), Ferguson K and Hanks J, PARKS 18(1) pp. 49-60 – This
paper appears in the first issue of the re-launched PARKS Journal
(International Journal of Protected Areas and Conservation), and
summarizes and extends the review on the impacts of park and veterinary
fencing (Ferguson and Hanks, 2010) originally funded by AHEAD-GLTFCA.
Focusing on the functional importance of game fencing in African
national economies, it highlights the desperate need to integrate
fencing policies into both agricultural and conservation planning.
See: Ferguson, K and Hanks, J (eds.) (2010), Fencing Impacts: A Review
of the Environmental, Social and Economic Impacts of Game and Veterinary
Fencing in Africa with Particular Reference to the Great Limpopo
and Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Areas, Pretoria: Mammal
Research Institute, 329 pp. http://www.wcs-ahead.org/gltfca_grants/grants.html and
for the 2012 PARKS paper, http://www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/gpap_home/gpap_capacity2/ *New book - Pastoralism and Development in Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins (2012), Catley A, Lind J and Scoones I (eds.), Routledge, London, 328 pp. – Once again, the Horn of Africa has been in the headlines. And once again the news has been bad: drought, famine, conflict, hunger, suffering and death. The finger of blame has been pointed in numerous directions: to the changing climate, to environmental degradation, to overpopulation, to geopolitics and conflict, to aid agency failures, and more. But it is not all disaster and catastrophe. Many successful development efforts at ‘the margins’ often remain hidden, informal, sometimes illegal; and rarely in line with standard development prescriptions. If we shift our gaze from the capital cities to the regional centres and their hinterlands, then a very different perspective emerges. These are the places where pastoralists live. They have for centuries struggled with drought, conflict and famine. They are resourceful, entrepreneurial and innovative peoples. Yet they have been ignored and marginalised by the states that control their territory and the development agencies who are supposed to help them. Pastoralism and Development in Africa argues that, while we should not ignore the profound difficulties of creating secure livelihoods in the Greater Horn of Africa, there is much to be learned from development successes, large and small. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars with an interest in development studies and human geography, with a particular emphasis on Africa. It will also appeal to development policy-makers and practitioners. For more information, see http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415540728/. *New book - New Directions in
Conservation Medicine: Applied Cases of Ecological Health (2012),
Aguirre AA, Ostfeld RS and Daszak P (eds,), University Press, New
York, 646 pp. – In recent years,
species and ecosystems have been threatened by many anthropogenic
factors manifested in local and global declines of populations and
species. Although we consider conservation medicine an emerging field,
the concept is the result of the long evolution of transdisciplinary
thinking within the health and ecological sciences and the better
understanding of the complexity within these various fields of knowledge.
Conservation medicine was born from the cross fertilization of ideas
generated by this new transdisciplinary design. It examines the links
among changes in climate, habitat quality, and land use; emergence
and re-emergence of infectious agents, parasites and environmental
contaminants; and maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem functions
as they sustain the health of plant and animal communities including
humans. During the past ten years, new tools and institutional initiatives
for assessing and monitoring ecological health concerns have emerged:
landscape epidemiology, disease ecological modeling and web-based
analytics. New types of integrated ecological health assessment are
being deployed; these efforts incorporate environmental indicator
studies with specific biomedical diagnostic tools. Other innovations
include the development of non-invasive physiological and behavioral
monitoring techniques; the adaptation of modern molecular biological
and biomedical techniques; the design of population-level disease
monitoring strategies; the creation of ecosystem-based health and
sentinel species surveillance approaches; and the adaptation of health
monitoring systems for developing country situations. New
Directions in Conservation Medicine: Applied Cases of Ecological
Health addresses these issues with relevant case studies
and detailed applied examples. The book challenges the notion that
human health is an isolated concern removed from the bounds of ecology
and species interactions. Human health, animal health, and ecosystem
health are moving closer together and at some point, it will be inconceivable
that there was ever a clear division. For more information see: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LifeSciences/ *The 'Research Platform- Production and Conservation in Partnership' (RP-PCP) announces new website – The RP-PCP is a research partnership established in 2007 between the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), National University of Science and Technology (NUST)- Bulawayo, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). The objective of the RP-PCP is to implement "applied research, post-graduate training and expertise on human-nature interactions on the periphery of protected areas and to support the co-existence of agriculture and conservation in Southern Africa." The website presents the RP-PCP's objectives, scientific themes, study sites, projects (involving more than 28 postgraduate students) and publications (more than 30 research articles and 14 book chapters published to date). See http://www.rp-pcp.org or feel free to contact Michel de Garine Wichatitsky degarine@cirad.fr or Alexandre Caron alexandre.caron@cirad.fr for more information.
*Commodity-Based Trade (CBT) Workshop hosted by Public Policy & Governance (PP&G) Platform: CIRAD / Postgraduate School of Agriculture & Rural Development, University of Pretoria, held May 23, 2012 – in Pretoria, South Africa with participants from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and France. The meeting was organized around the concept of CBT as an alternative approach for dealing with animal disease risk in the marketing of animal products originating from foot and mouth disease infected areas in southern Africa. Goals included: 1. Presenting the concept of CBT to an interested and multidisciplinary scientific community from the University; 2. Developing a regional holistic consortium among researchers from different disciplines and institutions around the concept of CBT; and 3. Linking ongoing or potential CBT initiatives (Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa), so that they can learn from each other's experiences. Summarized minutes, and PDFs of most of the PowerPoint presentations
are available at http://web.up.ac.za/default.asp?ipkCategoryID=16009
*Accredited Conservation Medicine Workshop, South Africa, February 19-22, 2013 – The National Zoological Gardens of South Africa (NZG) is offering a four-day introductory, accredited, multidisciplinary workshop that will introduce participants to both the concepts of conservation medicine and its practical application. The relationships between environmental factors, human and animal health are complex, multi-scale and often poorly understood. These relationships are best investigated by multidisciplinary teams that include, for example, veterinarians, physicians, microbiologists, ecologists, biologists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, climatologists and sociologists. The workshop will consist of multidisciplinary practical lecture topics including how various professions can contribute to conservation medicine; biomedical sample collection and handling; legal, ethical, and safety considerations; epidemiology, statistics and data collection; interactive case studies and three practical sessions. Lecturers are experts in their fields and will be drawn from both the NZG and partner institutions. The minimum requirement is a Bachelor's degree. Cost is R6000.00 per person. Please contact Marilise Meyer marilise@nzg.ac.za or +27 12 339 2831 for more information. *Conference on Students as Catalysts for Large Landscape Conservation, March 1, 2013, Waterville, Maine, USA – The Environmental Studies Program at Colby College, in conjunction with partner universities, colleges, and research institutions, is hosting a 1-day conference focusing on students as catalysts for large landscape conservation. The event will provide students, practitioners, and scholars with the opportunity to network with, and learn from, peers and leading experts in the field of large landscape conservation from North America and beyond. One feature of the conference will be a conservation innovation contest for students. Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to submit essays or creative contributions, such as videos. Authors of winning contributions will receive travel reimbursements to attend the conference. One essay will be considered for inclusion in a forthcoming book on large landscape conservation published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and additional essays will be considered for publication in an issue of an international conservation journal. Students who are not awarded travel grants are still encouraged to attend in person or via web conferencing. The organizers are also soliciting student posters for display and presentation at the conference. (These will not be considered as part of the conservation innovation contest for students.) For more information, see http://web.colby.edu/landscapeconservation/. For questions about the conference, please contact: landscapeconservation@colby.edu.
"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. All the best, Steve, Mark & Shirley |