18.1 Introduction
Many nature conservation and animal protection advocates argue that thirty years of ‘sustainable use’ has failed to deliver meaningful ecological sustainability or improved protections for animals from most avoidable harms.Footnote 1 This observation is informed by the ongoing decimation of natural abundance and vitality in the pursuit of infinite economic growth within a finite system of resources. Instead, the idea of sustainable use and the sustainable development paradigm have legitimised ever more rapacious forms of exploitation of both animals specifically and the environment more generally. It was recognised as long ago as 2001 that, ‘More people are using more resources with more intensity that at any time in human history.’Footnote 2 Lavinge argues that, ‘The only thing we have managed to sustain, it seems, are the economies of developed nations, and – despite all the evidence to the contrary – the idea that “sustainable development” is the solution to the world’s ills. In short, sustainable development … has failed to achieve its objective.’Footnote 3
The One Health policy framework offers an appealing model to policy advocates disillusioned with the sustainable use narrative, because it seeks to expressly align considerations of human, non-human, and environmental health in a single conceptual framework. South Africa has endorsed the One Health Approach, manifesting support for the concept through a National One Health Forum with diverse membership drawn from the national Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), the Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), and supported by research institutions, academia, the veterinary industry, environmental health officials, NGOs, and international organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO). Yet commercial interests continue to expand the exploitation of the environment generally and animals more particularly, often in ways overtly at odds with the ethos of One Health. This is often abetted both in practice and policy by government, with this abetment justified in South Africa by the pressing need for poverty alleviation, which in turn is usually premised on economic growth.
This work will argue that the theoretical appeal of acknowledging the overlapping dependencies that unpin the framework is of itself entirely inadequate to arrest and reverse the destruction of the environment and the institutionalised suffering of animals in practice. It will explore the practical application of One Health in two South African contexts – the commercial ranching of wildlife species and intensive animal agriculture – and examine whether the One Health framework is impacting policy design and implementation in these two contexts. It will close by exploring what might be done to operationalise the philosophy of One Health more fully, and the implications of such progress for the relationship between humans, non-human animals, and the environment.
18.2 Understanding the One Health Policy Framework
The rationale of the One Health framework is not new, with the origins of an integrated approach to human and non-human health sciences dating back to the 1800s.Footnote 4 The idea of ‘one medicine’ reflected the intuitive understanding that better health could best be pursued by understanding both the human- and non-human animal condition. In practice, however, veterinary and human medicine have long been institutionally distinct, perhaps reflecting the anthropocentric bias that underpins much western thought on the relationships between human beings and the rest of nature. More recently, growing concerns with zoonotic disease have re-highlighted the interrelationships between human and animal health, and the greater environment as a whole. The One Health concept has been widely promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the WHO, and the World Organisation of Animal Health (WOAH, known formerly as the OIE) as a tool to address these issues of growing concern.Footnote 5
One Health has many definitions, most of which convey the general idea of converging interests and correspondingly co-operative policy responses across three different spheres of concern: non-human animals, human animals, and the broader environment. Yet few definitions offer any tangible direction as to what form this co-operation should take. This general framing may allow different stakeholders to all embrace common terminology and facilitate dialogue about health concerns at the interface between the three component branches of the concept. Yet, such a broad definition does little to highlight tensions inherent in realising desired outcomes with respect to the interests of humans, good health for animals and a protected environment as a whole. Indeed, as the pressures on animal and environmental health continue to grow under the relentless expansion of human consumption, the concept presents a fresh lens to identify health issues at the human–animal interface (for example, food security and safety, disease management), and perhaps also a deeper look into environmental health (conservation of biodiversity and climate change), but little by way of direction as to how all three issues could be addressed simultaneously.
A further complication arises within our understanding of the term ‘health’ itself. Human health is generally understood as encompassing both physical and mental well-being, but animal health is still largely considered simply as the absence of physical disease.Footnote 6 As the science of animal cognition and subjective experience advances, the mental experiences of animals are becoming better understood, and fulfilment of mental health standards should accordingly be a valid enquiry into the determination of animal health. Giving due regard to the consideration of non-human mental health will have massive implications for industries that currently exploit animals in ways that ignore animals’ own interests so as to satisfy human ends, and especially for those who currently measure animal health merely as the absence of disease. Nicks and Vandeheede argue that until such time that mental wellbeing forms a valid part of the enquiry into animal health, considerations of animal welfare should be included within the determination of factors in assessing animal health.Footnote 7 Arguments for defining animal health in this way, and the importance of broader welfare concerns as an element of animal health, will be returned to in sections on the use of wildlife and farmed animals below.
18.2.1 South Africa’s Endorsement of One Health in Theory
The South African National Department of Health (DOH) established the National One Health Forum (NOHF) in 2014 to detect, respond and prevent zoonoses, to comply with the International Health Regulations with respect to the detection and response to zoonotic events in South Africa through improved sectoral collaboration to secure optimal animal, human and environmental health.Footnote 8 Local participation mirrored the international tripartite arrangements of the WHO, the FAO and the WOAH; membership of the NOHF includes DALRRD, DOH and DFFE, supplemented by research institutions, academia, vet industry, environmental health officials, and NGOs. The expressed purpose of the forum is to pursue optimal health for people, animals, and the environment, with terms of reference addressing the following priority areas: surveillance programs, gaps and challenges, training needs, to ensure safe food supply, communication, outbreak and disaster preparedness, and identify research gaps.
18.2.2 The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment
In May 2016 a zoonoses prioritisation exercise was attended by an expert group and work is underway in 2024 to develop a One Health Framework and Implementation Plan Adoption of One Health by the DFFE. The DFFE formally recognises One Heath as a significant tool in environmental management, claiming it as an integrating unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.Footnote 9 That department has recognised four focus areas for One Health implementation: Chemicals and Waste Management, Biodiversity and Conservation, Fisheries Management, and Air Quality Management.Footnote 10 However, despite this program framework, and although the DFFE recognises increased risk of diseases transmission through climate change, negative impacts to biodiversity through land-use change, over-exploitation, pollution, and invasive species impacts, One Health as a management tool barely warrants a mention in a whole raft of recent conservation policy documents made public by the Department. The 2020 ‘High Level Panel Report of Experts for the Review of Policies, Legislation and Practices on Matters of Elephant, Lion, Leopard and Rhinoceros Management, Breeding, Hunting, Trade and Handling’,Footnote 11 for example, mentions One Health once in 582 pages of wildlife policy analysis (and only in reporting a stakeholder proposal that it be adapted as a management tool).Footnote 12 The ‘White Paper on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s Biodiversity’ does not make a single reference to the concept.Footnote 13 Similarly, the ‘Policy Position on the Conservation And Ecologically Sustainable Use of Elephant, Lion, Leopard and Rhinoceros’, finalised in April 2024, makes no mention of One Health whatsoever.Footnote 14 It is clear that the concept is far from being the ‘significant tool in environmental management’ claimed by the DFFE, much less that it is providing ‘an integrating unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimise health of people, animals and ecosystems’ as asserted by the DFFE.Footnote 15
18.2.3 The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development
The agricultural policy ambitions of DALRRD are set out in the Integrated Growth and Development Policy for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.Footnote 16 The Agricultural Policy Action Plan (APAP) seeks to operationalise the policy framework into concrete steps. There is no mention of One Health in the APAP, probably reflecting a pre-Covid, pre-SARS era when zoonotic diseases were not recognised as significant public health concerns.
The DALRRD Ministerial Representative on the South African Veterinary Council has since recognised that, ‘We have a common goal of optimal health for humans and animals, and to ensure a sustainable environment for our future existence. The One Health approach brings together expertise and resources to achieve this goal.’ However, there is no explanation evident of how this is to be achieved in practice. Notably, DALRRD did not present at the 2024 National One Health Forum Workshop, and there is not a single mention of One Health as an operational tool or performance measure in the DALRRD Annual Performance Plan 2023/24.Footnote 17
18.3 One Health and Sustainable Use in Practice
18.3.1 Sustainable Use as Government Policy
In 2011, the National Planning Commission published the National Development Plan, a comprehensive analysis document that sought to map out a poly-centric policy framework to reduce poverty in South Africa. It recognised nine central socio-economic challenges requiring integrated solutions.Footnote 18 It also recognised that threats to the environment ‘are real and growing’,Footnote 19 and that, ‘[a]lthough climate change is the chief ecological challenge, others closely linked also pose serious risks such as water scarcity, pollution, food production and safety and depleted fishing stocks’.Footnote 20
The Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution sets out a right to a safe environment, protected for benefit of present and future generations,Footnote 21 to be achieved, inter alia, through the fulfilment of positive duties by the state to effect reasonable legislative and other measures directed at the achievement of the specific rights and the general principles of the Constitution. The right to environment in Chapter 2 of the Constitution sets out:
Environment
24. Everyone has the right –
(a) to an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing; and
(b) to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that –
(i) prevent pollution and ecological degradation;
(ii) promote conservation; and
(iii) secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.
Clearly the quest for economic growth as a foundation of poverty alleviation exists in tension with protecting and restoring a degraded environment, and this tension is evident in the wording of Section 24(b)(iii). Yet the government did not formalise a definition of the sustainable use of natural resources until June 2023.Footnote 22 In the interim, South Africa developed a substantial and diverse range of mature and sophisticated businesses that exploit the environment in new ways, most importantly in this context through the increasing domestication and commodification of wildlife. Such exploitation, which now constitutes a material component of the ‘biodiversity economy’ and is recognised as such in the National Biodiversity Framework, is premised on the notion of private ownership of wild animals originally established by the Game Theft Act 105 of 1991.Footnote 23 South Africa’s controversial captive lion breeding industry, with the associated revenue generators of lion cub petting, human interactions with sub-adult animals, canned hunting and lion bone export is an example of this extreme form of private ownership of wild animals. ‘Put and take’ trophy hunting of managed wildlife species, and the ranching of wildlife for sport hunting, trade, and game meat are further examples.
These activities are premised on an extractivist interpretation of sustainable use, which relies on a reading of Section 24(b)(iii) of the Constitution which favours the ‘use of natural resources’ wording over the provisions requiring the promotion of conservation, the protection of the environment for the benefit of future generations, ecologically sustainable use and justifiable economic social and economic development (own emphasis). Such views presuppose that the benefits of income-generating activities which are demonstrably harmful to animals and the environment transcend other considerations in the Bill of Rights, such as genuine conservation,Footnote 24 the right to live free from violence,Footnote 25 and the right to dignity.Footnote 26 Many of the activities which intensify the production and exploitation of wildlife come with other policy risks, and they arguably fail to accord with established court jurisprudence recognising that,
[c]onstitutional values dictate a more caring attitude towards fellow humans, animals and the environment in general, and that the law has recognised that it relates (a)nimal welfare to questions of biodiversity. Animal welfare is connected with the constitutional right to have the “environment protected … through legislative and other means”. This integrative approach correctly links the suffering of individual animals to conservation, and illustrates the extent to which showing respect and concern for individual animals reinforces broader environmental protection efforts. Animal welfare and animal conservation together reflect two intertwined values.Footnote 27
Despite this clear statement of the law by the nation’s highest court which explicitly rejects an instrumental view of wild animals as commodities, government support for sustainable use of ‘faunal resources’ remains resolute.Footnote 28 In 2023, the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment promulgated the Game Meat Strategy of South Africa.Footnote 29 This strategy seeks to, inter alia, ‘unlock the full potential of the natural game meat industry’, with product that is ‘ethically produced with less or no impact on the environment or biodiversity’, and which is ‘safe, traceable and produced within the regulatory framework governing the wildlife sector and food safety protocols’.Footnote 30 This sounds good in practice, but South Africa’s wildlife ranching industry does not materially fulfil the requirements above. The DFFE’s own 2018 ‘Report on Intensive and Selective Game Breeding’ noted that, ‘intensive management and selective breeding of game poses a number of significant risks to biodiversity at the ecosystem and species levels … and may compromise the current and future contribution of the wildlife industry to biodiversity conservation’.Footnote 31 The harms inherent in intensive wildlife production include landscape fragmentation, hazardous chemicals, concentration of desired species, killing and/or removal of conflict species, the disruption of normal predation, biological invasion, pest control resistance, rare wild species removal, deleterious gene expression, reduction of genetic material and associated diversity, outbreeding depression, physiological stress, species domestication, the disruption of natural selection and reduced meat for human consumption.Footnote 32 Given this extensive list of identified harms, it is not surprising that a central recommendation of the ‘Report on Intensive and Selective Game Breeding’ was to phase out intensive wildlife production, a recommendation entirely inconsistent with the sustainable use business model of much of the wildlife ranching industry in South Africa.
Here we see then a practical demonstration that the pursuit of the human leg of the One Health triad, in this illustrative case of the sustainable use doctrine manifesting in the DFFE’s Game Meat Strategy, has very real and apparent detriment to the other two legs. Given that the Game Meat Strategy also proposes self-regulation of the industry, it is apparent that the pursuit of this form of sustainable use can hardly be understood to fulfil the One Health Framework at all. Indeed, this is arguably the case for many elements of the biodiversity economy: the intensification practices on which wildlife ranching, captive breeding, and ‘put-and-take’ trophy hunting depend often pose significant risks not only for animals but also for human and environmental health.
18.3.2 One Health in Practice and Intensive Animal Agriculture
We know now that the intensification of production of wild animal species, in systems that increasingly mirror methods of agricultural production, can lead to practices inconsistent with the sound management of biodiversity.Footnote 33 Habitat fragmentation, intolerance for predators, selective breeding for unnatural traits, and overstocking of preferred species have negative impact on both biodiversity and animal health. The transport of animals, intensive confinement, poor genetics, and inappropriate diet can also escalate disease risk. These issues are not confined to wildlife ranching. They manifest most significantly in the context of intensive animal production for food. Furthermore, the looming public health challenges of zoonotic disease and anti-microbial resistance are most obviously illustrated in the context of intensive animal agriculture. Concentrated animal feeding organisations are now comprehensively recognised as potential reservoirs for both animal and human disease, posing a substantial and immediate risk to public health.Footnote 34 They are also the largest sectoral contributors to both terrestrial and marine pollution,Footnote 35 as well as a significant driver of both biodiversity loss,Footnote 36 as well as climate change.Footnote 37 There are increasing calls for specific preventative interventions to address diseases like Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Indeed the revival of One Health as a relevant policy framework owes much to the challenges posed by these diseases.
Yet, little is being done to address the root causes of these zoonoses. The numbers of animals raised and killed for food globally continues to rise, now at 83.3 billion terrestrial animals per year at the last count.Footnote 38 Most of these animals are raised in intensive confinement facilities. The UN forecasts that demand for meat will continue to rise, and growing calls for transitions to plant-based food systems are yet to yield meaningful change in practice.Footnote 39 The animals used in these systems cannot be understood to enjoy even the narrow definition of health (freedom from disease), much less the broader definition that gives regard to their mental wellbeing. Indeed, these facilities are typically the antitheses of healthy, high-welfare animal husbandry. To the extent it is being applied to this massive and unsustainable industry, the One Health framework is used to motivate not for structural reform (reduction in intensive animal production) but for symptomatic technology solutions (new vaccines to counter disease and new genetics for improved ‘natural’ resistance).Footnote 40 Yet there is no escaping the environmental costs: the pollution impacts and reduction in the food balance by growing feed for animals instead of food for people simply cannot be ignored.
In 2023, the South African animal production sector battled a range of farmed animal diseases including blue tongue, African swine fever, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and African Horse Sickness.Footnote 41 DALRRD has active programs to manage HPAI, yet despite these programs in 2023 the poultry industry lost 8.5 million birds due to disease and or pre-emptive culling.Footnote 42 There has been a prolonged national shortage of vaccines, leading to material animal health issues, further highlighting the vulnerability of this sector to animal disease. Yet, the DALRRD website continues to promote the production of pigs, sheep, goats, and cattle as part of that organisation’s development agenda. The stated aim of the Animal Production directorate is
to make sure that the livestock industry performs at its optimum capacity, with emphasis on providing support to emerging black farmers to be able to participate in the mainstream activities (e.g. marketing, value-add etc.), through introduction of programmes such as the Kaonafatso ya Dikgomo (Cattle Improvement), Provincial Aquaculture, Milk Recording, and Livestock and Poultry support within rural development nodes. Other key programmes include the Goat Productivity Improvement and the Development of Feedlot/Grasslot facilities within the rural development nodesFootnote 43
In 2021 DALRRD proposed further amendments to Meat Safety and Animal Improvement Acts which would have facilitated the intensification of wildlife production. This initiative is entirely contrary to the DFFE policy of reversing the intensification of wildlife ranching. There is no acknowledgement within the agricultural policy framework of the environmental and human health harms implicit in these strategies, much less an effort to align policy within a multi-centric framework such as One Health.
18.4 Critique of One Health Framework in Practice
It is clear that the One Health model has brought a positive impact at a global policy level. In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Program joined the so-called global Tripartite – the FAO of the United Nations, the WHO, and the WOAH – to form the Quadripartite. In the year that followed, the Kunming-Montreal Global Diversity Framework was agreed, and the UN General Assembly resolved that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a basic human right. Inger Andersen, the Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program claims that the One Health Joint Plan of Action and the associated One Health High-level Panel have been instrumental in this progress.Footnote 44
Yet even Ms Andersen recognises that operationalising One Health will be a key challenge. She argues that, ‘We must ensure that the world fully understands and acts on the overarching drivers of health risk, including climate change, land-use change, and environmental degradation’,Footnote 45 noting that the One Health approach must be integrated into national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and must support sustainable food systems transitions. But there is precious little by way of practical steps on how this might be achieved. So although we are seeing movement in terms of global policy, One Health remains a challenging concept to implement in practice at a national level. There are two salient reasons for this, explored in more detail in the South African context.
18.4.1 One Health Not Applied in South Africa’s Policy Framework
Although both the DFFE and to a lesser extent DALRRD profess to embrace the One Health framework in principle, we see in practice that it is not employed in any meaningful way to inform policy. It is virtually invisible in both the wildlife and agricultural policy frameworks. Unless it is actively adopted in the policy frameworks of environmental conservation, agriculture, and health, it is difficult to imagine how it can have any impact whatsoever. One other alternative might offer more prospects for adoption, and that is to embed One Health in the poly-centric policy framework of a ‘just transition’. This will be explained further in the final sections of this chapter.
18.4.2 Anthropocentric Bias in Implementation
The One Health framework aspires to frame a dialogue about balancing different requirements which manifest harm and benefit over different time scales. It seeks to reconcile short-term easily quantifiable commercial benefits to humans (human food supply, for example) with externalised harms to non-humans (animal health, which in the broader sense includes welfare) and negative impacts on the greater environment (eliminating pollution and promoting conservation). It is an attractive idea that these three outcomes can and should be aligned, but at an implementation level, we find they often exist in tension. The pursuit of low-cost food derived from animal sources continues to come at significant cost to animal health and the broader environment. These costs are now so severe, ironically, that they are starting to feed back and impact human health, through poor diet, zoonotic disease, degraded water and air, destruction of biodiversity, and climate change. Far from balancing the needs of the One Health triad, our modern global economy continues to externalise costs onto vulnerable groups, animals and the environment, and the calls for reform find their origins not in a One Health analysis, but principally in anthropocentric concerns about human needs.
18.5 Conclusions
Proper fulfilment of the One Health framework will require not just the symbolic adoption of an ethos of One Health, but a deliberate conscious effort to make significant practical changes to the way political and economic systems currently interact with animals and the broader environment. If the concept is to yield meaningful practical impact, the second and third legs of the One Health triad cannot continue to be subordinated to short-term anthropocentric interests. The underlying assumption of human exceptionalism will have to yield to an eco-centric consciousness which in turn informs new ways of organising human society that give due regard to the protection of animal health (in the broader sense) and the health of the environment. We already know that free-market forces need to be tempered to protect vulnerable groups – women, children, minorities, animals – from the logic of neo-liberal capitalist wealth accumulation, and to sustain the ecological systems on which all life ultimately depends. Giving proper effect to the One Health framework will require a greater deference to our common interests of protecting the environment and all beings that live within it.
In agriculture, a meaningful adoption of One Health would require a transition away from intensive high-volume animal production as a cornerstone of contemporary food systems. To do so we would need radical changes: true-cost accounting food production, and major policy and legislative shifts to recognise externalised costs and restrict relevant industries accordingly. We would need to end subsidies for harmful agricultural and environmental practices and materially support environmentally friendly food production systems. We would need to challenge corporate power in the food systems, addressing the practical immunity of vertically integrated food companies for harms currently externalised with transparent mechanisms addressing direct corporate, shareholder, and director liability for harms caused to animals and the environment.
In the conservation space, we would similarly need to transition management frameworks away from limited protected areas and the sustainable use of natural resources by the wealthy towards an ecosystem approach to health and conservation policy. Such a transition would recognise the public interest in protected ecosystem services and limit the private harvesting of such benefits by giving due regard to animal (in the broader sense) and environmental health. At a minimum, this would require reframing the sustainable use/development narrative to incorporate human and animal health risks and genuine environmental conservation concerns.
The Wild Law Institute has proposed a new conceptual framework of harmonious co-existence to regulate our interactions with nature.Footnote 46 Building from the 2022 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity, and the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, harmonious coexistence seeks to displace the assumption that economic growth will increase social wellbeing with a new narrative that puts ecological sustainability at the centre of governance. Such a framework takes an eco-centric management approach, replacing the human-centric ethos which prevails currently, one which gives due regard to the inter-connectedness, and inter-dependency of all life on earth. As such, it provides a conceptual foundation for frameworks such as One Health and provides clear direction that economic expediency should no longer crowd out valid considerations of animal and ecosystem health.
Implementing changes such as those proposed above will require the unseating of multiple powerful groups with interests vested in the status quo. This seems unlikely without legislative intervention. Current struggles to agree on and implement climate change mitigation strategies, and to restrict only a few of the more egregious harms suffered by animals in food production and wildlife ranching demonstrate the enormity of this challenge.
Murcott has argued that the concept of ‘transformative constitutionalism’ can facilitate a more eco-centric approach to law and policy in South Africa.Footnote 47 She recognises that the environmental right in the South African Constitution imposes a positive duty on the state to take reasonable measures to protect the environment for present and future generations. She argues further that the implementation of the National Environmental Management Act is to be informed by principles that require the avoidance or at least the minimisation of harm to the environment,Footnote 48 and that social justice, ‘is dependent on well-functioning ecological systems’. In other words, the Constitution requires not only fulfilling the specific rights in the Bill of Rights, but more generally, the fulfilment of the social justice outcomes set out in the Preamble requires good environmental health. Protecting the environment therefore becomes a necessary condition of constitutional fulfilment and social justice, not a trade-off to be considered when considering short-term human expediency. By recognising both the immediate and future requirement of a protected environment as an element of social justice, the environmental health leg of the One Health triad is emphasised, and may not be dismissed in subordination to short-term human interests.
Similarly, in South Africa’s response to the climate change crisis, the Presidential Climate Change Commission has adopted a ‘Just Transition’ framework.Footnote 49 Clearly the required transition to a low-carbon economy will adversely affect some people and advantage others. Understood in the narrow sense, the notion of a just transition requires the protection of those persons who lose livelihoods; for example, those in the thermal coal power generation value chain. But in the broader sense, a just transition must also consider those who suffer the impacts of climate change, for whom urgent mitigation is no longer sufficient and urgent assistance in adapting to a new climate reality is a priority. Of course, climate change affects more than just the climate. Biodiversity is materially impacted as well, and climate change can be understood as a major driver undermining ecological sustainability. A just transition therefore requires due regard be given to environmental health as a whole and the health of the animals with whom we share that environment more specifically. Framing the One Health Triad this way mitigates against the subordination of environmental and animal health; it provides a more engaged and nuanced argument that all three elements need to be sustained simultaneously.
Our current reality of inter-related poly-centric socio-ecological crises requires an urgent response from all governance stakeholders. The One Health framework offers a useful tool to re-frame current human exceptionalism, perhaps by replacing narratives of human exceptionalism and sustainable use and development. But to be effective, it will have to be adopted in practice, not just in principle and implemented by skilled and committed stakeholders capable of driving real change within and beyond current economic and governance practices. Even if this is the case, it is unlikely that the One Health Framework alone will yield the type of systemic change required to secure human, environmental, and animal health. It will need to be supported by ‘roadmaps’ or workplans with clear policy outcomes, which expressly and systematically target all practices that undermine human and environmental health if it is to be effective. By linking poor animal and environmental health back to detriment to human health, the One Health framework may be one tool to start this urgent and critical process. Building the model from a framework into a practical transparent model of change could be an important first step.
