Motion 099

Decades of research into ecosystem health and disease dynamics warned of a global pandemic well-before Covid-19 emerged. Human activities degrade biodiversity, impair ecosystem function and increase the likelihood of zoonotic diseases. This motion, rooted in the Precautionary Principle, suggests that scientific uncertainty should not impede preventative actions. It calls for comprehensive risk assessments of human activities impacting wildlife habitats to inform policies that minimize zoonotic spillovers. Additionally, it reflects Principle 17 of the Rio Declaration by integrating zoonotic disease risk into national and trans-boundary EIAs, which are recognized as customary law. While EIAs are designed to evaluate environmental impacts and encourage responsible decision-making, they often overlook zoonotic threats and lack effective disease monitoring.

The motion’s focus on prevention and risk assessment aligns with the UN’s SDGs. SDG 3 emphasizes improved global health outcomes, including zoonotic disease prevention, while SDG 15 addresses the drivers of zoonotic diseases and their transmission. Given IUCN’s commitment to the SDGs, this motion allows IUCN to adopt a holistic approach supporting broader sustainability and health objectives.

IUCN currently has a limited set of comprehensive advisory documents on zoonotic disease. None of the Good Practice Guidelines publications on Protected and Conserved Areas consider zoonotic disease risk as a significant element in protected area identification or management. Although IUCN is working to share replicable public health solutions through PANORAMA- Solutions for a Healthy Planet, the “One Health Interventions” section remains limited. Given its expertise and ongoing efforts, IUCN is well-positioned to prioritize zoonotic disease in its work.

Despite the One Health approach’s objectives, responsibilities are often siloed, leaving conservation efforts poorly integrated into the broader strategy. For example, the World Health Organization’s recent draft treaty on pandemic preparedness excludes biological conservation from its mitigation measures. Therefore, this motion advocates for strengthened global multidisciplinary cooperation, through collaborating with veterinary and animal agriculture professionals, whose expertise is vital for understanding zoonotic diseases.

The motion encourages IUCN to increase local partnerships to better address the needs of specific regions. In terms of disease monitoring, Central Asia continues to receive considerable attention, however, other regions, such as South America and East Africa, would greatly benefit from similar partnerships. Moreover, the motion’s strategy promotes IUCN’s engagement among indigenous groups and other local communities, which is consistent with WCC 2020 Res. 137 and WCC 2020 Rec. 086. Community engagement is important for mitigating the spread of zoonosis and promoting conservation because it increases awareness and improves preventative practices. The motion calls for IUCN to expand its current educational programs to additional regions and enhance discussions on the risks posed by disease reservoirs. Moreover, continued research is essential to refine these efforts, ensuring they are based on the latest scientific findings and tailored to each community’s needs.

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Reaching all of the Sustainable Development Goals (not only those relating to Climate action, Life below water and Life on land) requires different sectors and actors to work together in an integrated manner by pooling financial resources, knowledge and expertise. Partnerships with health actors can support conservation outcomes in a multitude of ways and this motion seeks to ensure all those possibilities are harnessed.

Ordinarily, biodiversity planning is conducted in isolation from planning for human health and livelihood, even though the effectiveness of integration has been clearly demonstrated. Following on from this, conservation programming and policy is likely to miss opportunities to ensure the full range of relevant human health issues and services are considered. Strengthening partnerships with health actors can respond to this opportunity.

The conservation and human health sectors have many relevant similarities: they are data and science driven. Both are paying increasing attention to cross sectoral partnerships. One Health is one, of many, cross sectoral approaches which can further conservation, health and livelihood outcomes.

One Health is often perceived to relate to infectious diseases, rather than both diseases and broader human health issues with biodiversity relevance. The focus of this motion is to work to ensure that all relevant human health issues and services with biodiversity conservation relevance are recognised, so that when we consider One Health, we focus both on “Disease Health Issues” (i.e. emerging infections, disease control, pandemics and zoonosis) and “Non-Disease Health Issues” (including not limited to those stated in the preamble).

We are aware of other critically important One Health motions, all of which we support. The following motions are distinct and complementary to this motion:

• Aaranyak is the proponent of a motion on the Asian wild pig crisis. This motion relates to one Disease Health Issue: African Swine Fever;

• Center for Environmental Legal Studies is the proponent of a motion on strengthening links between zoonotic risks and conservation efforts (i.e. Disease Health Issues);

• Société Française pour le Droit de l'Environnement is the proponent of a motion on the implementation of One Health from local to global levels. This motion is not directly focussed on either Disease Health Issues or Non-Disease Health Issues but rather the actors other than IUCN; and

• WCS is the proponent of a motion that seeks to promote the profile of One Health within and across IUCN. Additionally, this motion calls for working with the WHO to ratify and implement the recently adopted agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (pandemic prevention, preparedness and response being “Disease Health Issues”).

This motion therefore seeks to ensure biodiversity planning, programming, classifications, best practice, and policy not only recognise Disease Health Issues but also Non-Disease Health Issues in general and when we consider One Health.

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In December 2021, at its second-ever special session, the World Health Assembly (WHA) established an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (or WHO Pandemic Agreement). Member States are currently working towards a deadline of May 2025 for adoption of the agreement, which is during the online discussion of motions. We have drafted this motion assuming that the agreement will be adopted during this year’s WHA (19-27 May 2025), but if that does not happen then we will amend the draft motion accordingly. It should be noted that Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International, and The Born Free Foundation, the proponent and two co-sponsors of this draft motion, respectively, have been actively engaged in the WHO Pandemic Agreement process for the past several years, including attending the negotiations in person, participating as experts, and delivering interventions. Additionally, Fiji, Belgium and Germany are members of the Group of Friends for One Health, an informal group composed of permanent missions in Geneva in which countries have keen interests in advancing and scaling up the One Health approach to reduce and prevent the risk of pandemics at the animal-human-environment interfaces and to contribute to sustainable development.

The current draft legal text (as of December 6, 2024) includes the term “One Health approach” as well as articles on pandemic prevention and surveillance and One Health approach for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response. The definition of “One Health approach” contained in the document is based on the definition published by the One Health High Level Expert Panel and endorsed by the Quadripartite. If/when adopted, this agreement would be the first international, legally binding agreement to explicitly mention the One Health approach and to contain legal obligations on prevention and One Health as they relate to pandemics.

In addition to the WHO Pandemic Agreement process, the One Health approach is increasingly being recognized by intergovernmental organizations, multilateral agreements (e.g., CBD, CITES, CMS, Sendai Framework, United Nations Environment Assembly, UNFCCC, WHA) and in regional and other declarations (ASEAN, G7, G20). Governments, including several IUCN State and government Members, have also developed One Health strategic action plans. Thus, it is of utmost importance that IUCN develop a One Health strategy and more fully engage with these processes.

Finally, we are aware of three related, but significantly different, draft motions under development. “Implementing One Health, from local to global” (submitted by SFDE) seems to be national in scope and the operative paragraphs are directed to actors other than IUCN. “Advancing biodiversity outcomes with health sector partnerships” (submitted by MPT) calls on IUCN to act but is aimed at the health sector, while this draft motion focuses on developing a One Health strategy and multilateral processes. Further, we would like to emphasize that five IUCN State Members from four regions have co-sponsored this draft motion. WCS also consulted on “Strengthening the Linkages Between Zoonotic Risks & Conservation Efforts” (submitted by CEL), which focuses on zoonotic risks, not necessarily One Health.

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Il faut en premier lieu être capable de préserver les aspects essentiels de « Une seule santé » (USS) que sont le bon fonctionnement des écosystèmes (leur intégrité, leur surface, la diversité des espèces qui les composent) et les aspects agricoles et agroalimentaires (alimentation nutritive, microbiotes diversifiés). Le risque doit être appréhendé dans ses trois composantes : le danger, l'exposition, la vulnérabilité. Il faut limiter les dangers, l'exposition aux dangers, et la vulnérabilité des populations humaines, végétales et animales. En effet, les mêmes facteurs anthropiques ont des effets globaux défavorables pour la biodiversité, pour le climat et pour la santé. L’urgence est de lutter contre toutes les atteintes à la biodiversité, et notamment les pollutions chimiques, pour préserver ses effets bénéfiques sur l’ensemble du vivant. Le cadre international de la protection de la biodiversité doit être mis en œuvre en tenant compte de l'approche USS parmi d'autres approches holistiques fondées sur la science, mobilisant de multiples secteurs, disciplines et communautés pour travailler ensemble et visant à équilibrer durablement et à optimiser la santé des personnes, des animaux, des plantes et des écosystèmes, en favorisant un accès équitable aux outils et technologies, y compris les médicaments, les vaccins et autres produits de santé liés à la biodiversité, tout en soulignant la nécessité urgente de réduire les pressions sur la biodiversité et de diminuer la dégradation de l'environnement pour réduire les risques pour la santé, et, le cas échéant, en élaborant des dispositions pratiques en matière d'accès et de partage des avantages. Les fondements juridiques de USS sont connus dans différents domaines du droit et à l’intersection de ces différents domaines : santé, environnement, droits de l’Homme, sécurité alimentaire, migrations, développement, commerce. Le concept prend ancrage en droit international et européen sans pour autant être consacré en tant que tel dans un texte juridique. Le droit à un environnement sain est au cœur de l’approche USS. Par ailleurs, les connexions entre droits de l’Homme et droit de la santé sont nombreuses, les politiques de santé pouvant promouvoir les droits de l’Homme mais également leur porter atteinte. En droit international de l’environnement, si toutes les conventions ne mentionnent pas explicitement la santé, toutes participent à la protection de la santé en luttant contre les atteintes à l’environnement. Cependant il n’existe pas de convention-cadre pour la santé globale. Par ailleurs, l’analyse des textes nationaux faisant référence à USS montre qu’ils sont principalement des documents de faible valeur juridique avec une portée principalement incitative par le biais de plans d’action. Or, seul le développement de capacité d’anticipation et de préparation des crises permettra un traitement efficace de la santé dans toutes ses dimensions. Pour cela, il faut parvenir à mettre en œuvre une nouvelle logique d’action décloisonnée qui tire pleinement partie de la bonne application du droit de l’environnement et peut s’appuyer sur les droits humains et les droits de la nature.
Cette motion permettrait donc de guider les prochaines initiatives des Etats et de tous les membres de l’IUCN.