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The risk of pandemics is rising, with five emergent diseases being discovered each year. Over the past 60 years, little has changed: we are still destroying biodiversity habitat at a rate that has led to a 30% upsurge in emerging diseases since 1960, according to the in 2020.

The relationship between the health of the planet and that of people is the focus of the “One Health Approach.” This concept will be explored in a new 10-week Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) starting on 3 April 2023 that will be led by Professor Serge Morand of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre national de recherche scientifique, CNRS). The renowned French ecologist will lay out the concepts, data and methodologies available globally, using concrete examples from sites designated by UNESCO, notably biosphere reserves. 

The MOOC aims to:

• present the scientific concepts linking healthy ecosystems to healthy human communities;
• provide tools and frameworks to enable people to visualize solutions that restore ecosystems and make them more resilient;
• share good practices and innovative solutions from biosphere reserves designated by UNESCO;
• provide communities, policy-makers and stakeholders with the knowledge and methodologies required to create better forms of governance that protect territories against emerging risks.

Available in English, French and Spanish, this MOOC is brought to you by UNESCO’s Earth Network with generous support from the Government of Italy, in partnership with the .

The “One Health Approach” concept was developed by scientists and international organizations to explain the interdependence between human health and that of animals and ecosystems, in general.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), “One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent". The One Health approach highlights ecosystem services that have fundamental influences on human physical and mental health, such as food, clean air, freshwater and disease regulation, among others.

The inextricable link between humans and nature has been receiving more and more attention, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its heavy toll on human well-being. To give but one concrete example, protected areas and policies that reduce the unsustainable exploitation and degradation of high-biodiversity areas may limit contacts between wildlife and humans and prevent the spillover of novel pathogens (IPBES Pandemics Report, 2020).

One of the examples used in the MOOC is from Riding Mountain Biosphere Reserve in Canada.

It is surrounded by an area that has been largely developed for grain cultivation and for raising livestock. In the late 1990s, bovine tuberculosis (TB) was detected in cattle herds, deer and elk in the area. The disease spread because elks feed on shared pastures and feed near bale feeders used by cattle. Bovine tuberculosis can affect both humans and other mammals.

In 2000, the biosphere reserve established a task force to focus on eradicating this disease, with stakeholders representing federal, provincial and local government agencies, cattle producers, landowners, tourism associations, Parks Canada and the regional tribal council. Using their collective experience and knowledge, the task force built consensus in the community about co-constructing an action plan. This action plan included several recommendations to stop the spread of the disease: creating of barrier fences; the introduction of livestock guardian dogs to reduce contact between domestic and wild animals; deer and elk testing; and prescribed fires to regenerate prairie lands.

Bovine TB is no longer actively circulating in the Riding Mountain Biosphere Reserve and is being carefully monitored by the community. These actions are contributing to SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) by reducing the potential incidence of bovine TB.

Dr Serge Morand (CNRS / CIRAD) is one of the pioneers and foremost experts of One Health research and related approaches. He is currently based in Southeast Asia, where his research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of disease transmission with applications in health ecology. He carries out field research in Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. There, he conducted several projects on the impact of global changes, including climate and land use changes, on the links between biodiversity, health and societies in the region, using wildlife-borne diseases as a model. He has authored over 700 scientific papers.

More recently, he has provided scientific advice for the movie The Pandemics Factory, directed by Marie Monique Robin, which was released in 2022.

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