Statement of Ecohealth International on COVID-19

Ecohealth International is an association with regional chapters across Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, established in 2016 (www.ecohealthinternational.org), building on the legacy of the International Association of Ecology and Health (founded in 2006). Ecohealth International in consideration of the individual, organisational, and societal turmoil created by the COVID-19 pandemic, hereby:

• Commends the extraordinary life-saving actions and sacrifice of our front-line healthcare workers and praises the commitment of communities and individuals employing specific public health measures such as non-pharmaceutical interventions.
• Emphasize that emergence and spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19 can only be prevented and controlled by communication, coordination, cooperation and collaboration across multiple sectors and international partners, through whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, to find optimal outcomes for human, animal, and environment health.
• Highlight that humanity’s ability to respond to and prevent future pandemics will benefit from understanding the deep and complex interconnectedness between humans, other species, and the environment, especially in the context of agricultural food systems. This is made possible by viewing humans as constituents within ecosystems whose actions shape the capacities of these natural systems to provide buffers from disease emergence.
• Acknowledge that the source of the causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is still debated. A common hypothesis states that the virus originated at the human-animal interface as have other emerging pathogens. However, if future evidence suggests an alternative explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 (for example a laboratory accident), this will not diminish the importance of integrated approaches to health in global pandemic prevention and preparedness efforts.
• Recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic also highlights the wider social and environmental determinants of health and the cascading impacts of disturbances to natural systems that are fuelled by agriculture and food systems, anthropogenic climate change, growing populations, consumerism, poverty, conflict, and migration.
• Assert that vulnerable populations and places are at high risk of having poor health outcomes and becoming epicentres for the emergence of pathogens with pandemic potential and should therefore be priorities for intervention. This includes Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) whose health, wellbeing, cultures, and livelihoods are intrinsically connected to the health of place, as well as populations with elevated levels of poverty, high prevalence of non-communicable diseases, and/ or degraded natural systems.
• Support efforts to strengthen the surveillance capacity across the human, animal and environmental nexus, including through the participation of IPLCs, for early detection of high-risk pathogens along non-human animal exchange or market chains.
• Support an integrated approach to policy change for prevention of future outbreaks of zoonotic infectious disease or diseases of non-human animal origin, considering restoring and protecting ecosystems, and reducing dependency on industrial agricultural systems.
• Promote respect for nature, and all its constituents including humans, domesticated and wild species, by protecting them from anthropogenic harm.
• Discourage unnecessary contact with wildlife species except where sustainable use is possible and appropriate, especially for communities embedded in natural systems and dependent on natural resources; and support sustainable conservation and stewardship.
• Support policy for managing the condition of the environments in which we live, such as considering restricting the expansion of large-scale extractive uses in intact landscapes, planning infrastructure development to avoid habitat fragmentation, avoiding disruption of natural fire and flood regimes, and restoring damaged ecological systems to sustain future life on earth. This would ensure that climate targets are met and that the planetary carrying capacity is not overstretched, so that future generations can benefit from a liveable planet earth.
• Support preparedness and sustainability by promoting gender equity, diversity, inclusion, and recognition of wider health stakeholders including ecologists, social scientists, and local communities for sustainable health outcomes. Our work is guided by the principles of social and environmental justice. This also opens opportunities to link to the sustainable development goals put forward by the United Nations.
• Emphasize, and stress our desire to collaborate on issues of shared concern in the COVID-19 pandemic, future infectious disease outbreaks, and global health challenges, particularly those relating to the human-animal-environment interface. We are especially interested to contribute upstream thinking about the systems approach to health, highlighting the connectedness of the current challenges, and the need to take action to prevent disease emergence with actions that optimize sustainability of all species and ecosystems.