Press Conference: Animals for Biodiversity and Health: Launch of new guidance to support national implementation of the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health, UN Convention on Biodiversity - COP 17

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. My name is Jewel Omolo. I'm the World Federation for Animals Environmental Policy Officer. I want to start by thanking the CBD Secretariat, thanking the speakers and everyone who's joining us here and online. So today, WFA is launching the guidance Animals for Biodiversity and Health, which is a practical tool to support in the implementation of the global biodiversity, sorry, the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health through an inclusive One Health approach. At COP16, governments adopted the Global Action Plan under Decision 16/19. It provides a framework for bringing biodiversity and health into national policy. The question now is, What does implementation look like in practice? Our guidance helps answer that question. Its starting point is very simple, actually. The health of people, animals, plants, and ecosystems is interconnected. Biodiversity loss, climate change, zoonotic disease emergence, antimicrobial resistance share many common drivers, and animals sit at the center of them. How wild animals are captured, traded, farmed, and conserved, how we design our landscapes and cities, and how we manage agricultural systems and farm animals shape the risk of pathogen spillover, the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance, pressure on ecosystems, and resilience to climate change. Animals are not only part of biodiversity. They are key drivers of ecosystem health. They sustain the ecological processes on which healthy ecosystems depend, including pollination, seed dispersal, nutrient cycling, carbon cycling, and ecosystem engineering, all of which underpin biodiversity resilience, climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and resilience. And importantly, their health and welfare deserve consideration in their own right. So this guidance brings together practical policy options in three areas: wildlife protection, biodiversity and climate, and farm animal welfare. The guidance itself is a menu of options. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach. So governments can consider relevant measures within their own national context and include them in national biodiversity strategies and action plans, One Health plans, and sectoral policies. So implementation should also respect the rights, knowledge and participation of indigenous peoples and local communities and support farmers and communities where changes are needed. So today we'll hear some complementary perspectives across government implementation, conservation practice and One Health alignment. So I'm very pleased to welcome, starting with Mr. Raphael Joson, who joins us from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty of France. Ms. Adeline Lihombi, who joins us from the Bond Free Foundation, and Ms. Chadiya Wanyu from the World Organization for Animal Health. But just before we go into the panel, I do want to give special thanks to the following organizations for their contributions. The World Organization for Animal Health, of course, the Landscape Alliance, the University College London, and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation. So, Rafael, let's start with you. How can national policy bring biodiversity, health and welfare together in practice using the One Health approach?

Thank you, Jewel, for your kind introduction. Let me congratulate the World Federation for Animals and its partners on the launch of this guidance today, a very practical guidance. And I thank you for inviting the French Ministry of Agriculture, which I represent, to share its views and experience. France supports the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health. And last week, our Minister of Agriculture concluded the national consultation on animal health and welfare. The conviction of our ministry is clear. We must move beyond a narrow animal disease control perspective and implement a One Health approach. For agriculture in France, the risk is no longer theoretical. In recent years, our farms have faced major animal disease crisis, avian influenza, blue tongue, and in 2025, lumpy skin disease. Those diseases have had severe consequences for farmers, livestock sectors, and entire regions in France. culling, depopulation, and stamping out movement and trade restrictions, economic and psychological pressure. Our animal health system has proven robust, but it must evolve. We cannot simply respond crisis after crisis. We must prevent them better and strengthen the resilience of our production systems. I will describe France's path towards One Health as a transformation, step by step, which has clearly accelerated after COVID-19, with many challenges ahead. It started with antimicrobial resistance. Our first ENCOBIO, and I have a slide here, I don't know if you can see it, was launched in 2018. Since 2011, exposure to antibiotics has fallen about 49%. And the charts that you were supposed to see shows very encouraging trends of antimicrobial resistance for some antibiotics. France adopted its first inter-ministerial One Health roadmap in 2016. And since COVID-19, our ministries of agriculture, health, and environment have worked very closely together. Along the way of this transformation, we find several of the guidance's recommendation. As such, reducing antimicrobial use through prevention, including through welfare-based disease prevention, biosecurity, hygiene, vaccination, and good husbandry, but also as such as establishing participatory wildlife health surveillance through our SAGIA network. And we have not reached the end of the road. Our reduction in antibiotic use has now reached a plateau. And you can see on the chart here that for several antibiotics, we still see the resistance quite high with 40%. And we know that the next gains depend now on farming practices, animal welfare, and landscape management, with some very useful recommendations from this guide, like connecting animal health with agroecological practices. Last week, after the national consultation on animal health, stakeholders came to the decision to implement actions in line with two very important recommendations of this guidance. invest in strengthening animal health system and veterinary capacity, and institutionalize One Health governance that include animal welfare expertise and biodiversity climate perspectives. Once more, congratulations on this guidance. It's not just a list of actions, as you said, but clearly a process of transformation that fits with France's challenges. A last message on the recommendation made by the guidance is about sharing experience. France hosted this year the last One Health Summit in April, and we will keep sharing our experiences as we are cooperating with several parties, for instance, in the region, such as Armenia, our host today, together with the French Development Agency, Expertise France, and EU partners. Protecting animals, biodiversity, human health, one shared responsibility. This is our belief, this is our action. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Rafael. And I now turn to you, Adeline, where we're moving from national policy now to wildlife health and conservation practice. So my question for you is, how can attention to individual animals' health and welfare strengthen conservation interventions and contribute to the disease prevention?

Thank you, Jewel. Conservation often focuses on populations, species, ecosystems, but their success also depends on the individual animals within them. Their physical health, behavior, and the ability to cope with their surroundings can influence conservation outcomes. And this connects to a wider point that protecting wildlife and safeguarding the health and well-being of animals, peoples, and ecosystems need to go hand in hand. At the same time, biodiversity loss and disease emergence share common drivers, including habitat degradation and unsustainable wildlife use and trade. So by integrating animal health and welfare into conservation planning from the outset and addressing risks at every stage, so from the removal of animals from the wild and their handling and transport, rehabilitation, breeding, release, we can reduce suffering, improve conservation outcomes, and help prevent disease. So this guidance offers very practical ways to do this. First, governments need stronger safeguards throughout wildlife use and trade. So this means addressing harmful offtake methods, poor transport conditions, and overcrowded and mixed species confinement. alongside stronger welfare standards, sanitation and biosecurity. We also recommend science-based positive lists, particularly for wild animals used as pets and commercial captive wildlife. Positive lists, they specify which species can be kept or traded based on their welfare needs, on the health risk and potential impacts on biodiversity. So only species on the list are permitted. And we also need to be clear that legality alone does not guarantee sustainability, safety or good animal welfare. Governments need to assess the actual risks and act accordingly, including by restricting activities where serious risks cannot be effectively managed. Secondly, we need to get better at preventing problems before they emerge. That means investing in wildlife health and surveillance and bringing environmental, veterinary, animal behavior experts and public health authorities together. And it also means involving people who regularly interact with wildlife, including local communities, indigenous peoples in monitoring and prevention. We should also address the demand side, driving unsustainable wildlife use and to support viable alternatives where particularly harmful activities cannot be sustainably, safely and ethically managed. And those alternatives must be developed with the communities concerned to respect their rights and knowledge. But third, These principles, so assessing risks, preventing avoidable harm, and considering animal welfare, are not only relevant to regulating wildlife use and preventing disease, they are equally important in conservation interventions themselves. And a practical example comes from the Born Free supported Zambia Primate Project, which is now part of Game Rangers International. which rescues, rehabilitates and releases monkeys and baboons affected by the illegal wildlife trade in Zambia. Rehabilitation takes around a year and it requires attention to much more than just the physical health and nutrition of the primates. They are socially complex animals, so their welfare also depends on social integration and understanding the hierarchies within their groups. So before release, the animals are screened for infectious diseases, assessed by veterinarians, and acclimatized to their new surroundings. And the project also monitors the impacts of release on both the rehabilitated animals and the wildlife already living in the receiving habitat. The project has released more than 800 primates with reported survival rates of 85 to 100% at a year post-release. So this shows why successful releases require more than suitable habitat, animal welfare, veterinary care and careful monitoring are essential to support the supporting survival and protecting existing wildlife. Now, what does this mean for governments? They can incorporate welfare into conservation plans and wildlife management protocols, strengthen regulation and monitoring of wildlife trade, invest in veterinary capacity, and include animal welfare expertise in national One Health mechanisms. And this guidance complements the ongoing biodiversity and health agenda here at COP17. as well as the wider effort to implement the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health. While monitoring tools can help countries identify the gaps and track progress, ultimately implementation depends on effective policies, adequate resources, and action on the ground. So we hope this guidance will complement other efforts to translate the Global Action Plan into action and help parties see animal welfare as a practical lever for achieving its objectives of improving conservation and preventing disease. Thank you, Jill.

Thank you so much, Adeline. And I'm sure you've heard here now that a prevention first approach is what we're also calling for in the guidance. So now I move to our final speaker, Chadia. Let's now turn to implementation of the One Health approach. So why do animal health and welfare matter for the One Health approach? And what does it take to bring that expertise into biodiversity planning, as this is actually one of the principles of the present guidance.

Thank you, Jules. First, congratulations on the launching of this important guidance and inviting us to contribute to it. The One Health approach recognizes that the health of the people, animals, plants and the ecosystem are closely interconnected. Animal health is central to the One Health approach. As you know, many emerging infectious diseases originate in animals, but at the same time, healthy animal populations are essential to achieve resilient food systems, livelihoods, and healthy ecosystems. Also, animal welfare is an important part of this picture. The conditions in which animals are kept, transported, traded, or managed can affect their health, their susceptibility to disease, and the risk associated with contact between animals and people. That's why protecting animal health and ensuring their welfare is not separate from biodiversity conservation and public health goals. They are part of the solution, as the guidance recommends. Now, one of the most important messages of One Health is that we need to prevent the risk at the source. rather than relying on responding to the crisis once they have been. This means that we need to understand and manage the interface between wildlife, domestic animals, the people, and the shared environment, including wildlife use and trade, livestock production, and landscape use under increasing pressure. Practical measures make a difference. As Raphael has highlighted, this includes good animal husbandry, biosecurity, effective vet services, responsible use of antimicrobials, and the safe use and trade of wildlife. We also need to consider looking beyond individual sectors and addressing the underlying drivers of risk, including habitat degradations and the change in land use. That's why investing in preventions protect animals, reduce the risk to the people, and support biodiversity at the same time. But to do this, no single ministry or organization can deliver these outcomes alone. Veterinary services, public health authorities, agricultural institutions, and conservation and environmental agencies can bring essential expertise. At the global level, WOAH works with our sister organization, FAO, UNEP and WHO, through the quadripartite collaboration on One Health to support countries in translating the One Health approach into practical actions. From WOAH side, we contribute our international standards on animal health and welfare, We support our member to strengthen their veterinary services to prevent, detect, and respond to the health crisis at the interface. Wildlife is also a very important component of our work because understanding this interface is essential for prevention. At the country level, this requires more than coordination. It means that we have to share information between the sectors. We need to conduct joint risk assessment, agreeing on responsibilities, and ensuring the necessary expertise and resources are available. This is how we move One Health from a shared ambition to implementations. Now, the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, or NBSAPs, provide this important opportunity for us to put these connections into practice. alongside the existing national One Health and relevant sectoral plans. Yet, when we examine these plans, we see that animal health, animal welfare, and wildlife health are not always sufficiently integrated into the biodiversity planning. That's why we need to bring veterinarians, animal welfare specialists, and wildlife experts to help government assess the risk design appropriate conservation and wildlife management interventions, and monitor their effects on individual animals, populations, and ecosystems. This expertise should be brought in from the beginning, when we start setting the priorities and planning, and then designing the interventions and implementing them. The new guidance that the WFA and Born Free has launched is particularly valuable because it translates the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health into practical policy options that countries can adapt to their circumstances. So for WHOA, this means that we have to recognize the contribution of vet services and ensuring that animal health, welfare, and wildlife health are integrated into relevant biodiversity and One Health policies. When we plan together, we can prevent the risk area, we can protect our biodiversity more effectively, and we can deliver better outcomes for all. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Shadia. And really, thank you to all our speakers here. And you've had a sampling of what is in the guidance and the type of policy measures that we are recommending. And the central message really and the key takeaway from this guidance is that implementation of biodiversity and health commitments needs to consider animals, their ecological roles, their health, and their welfare. And therefore, protecting animal health and welfare is part of delivering biodiversity conservation, prevention of health risks, and resilient ecosystems and food systems. So now I do want to open it up to the room for any questions to the panel. So please, if you do have a question, raise your hand and just identify yourself, your outlet, your organization.

Hi, thank you so much to the speakers. My name is Jamine Kaur, and I work on Population Matters. I wanted to, I have two questions. One is the One Health approach, it's a broad definition, and it can mean many things to many, many people. So one is, is there best practice in terms of monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning? Because if we don't have clear baselines or an understanding, it's very difficult then to prove impact. That's my first point. And my second point is, there was a previous framework, population health environment. And to your point about underlining drivers, population has become such a taboo that no one wants to talk about it. But yet we know that population growth and consumption are the strongest drivers of CO2 emissions. And so my question is, and because we're seeing now rising inequality, gender injustice, we're seeing a lot of people, individuals overachieving their fertility preferences, and that's also impacting habitat loss, encroachment. But again, there's an elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about that. So how do we ensure that the P doesn't get dropped out, but based on human rights approaches within the One Health system, because it's not being talked about. And if we don't speak about something, then we can't address it either.

Thank you so much. Just in case there's another question so we can take them all just because we are running out of time. Yeah, so we'll take that question and then we can answer.

Thank you. My name is Meryl from the Synergie Animale. My question is, I guess, about the role of factory farming. In 2020, UNEP released a report that highlighted the risk that factory farming poses for zoonotic diseases, which in turn has huge impact on wildlife as well. So what can we do to reduce the risk that factory farming poses to One Health as a concept?

Thank you so much. So we'll probably start off with your question about the risk of factory farming. The guidance, so bringing it back to the guidance that we've launched here today, the guidance does recommend policy measures of moving to higher welfare systems. And of course, then with a lot of government processes, we also recommend a phased transition because again, you have to look at the fact that you've got countries at different stages from developed to developing countries. So higher welfare systems, phased transitions, and working in tandem with farmers and agricultural producers to ensure that we're moving towards systems that reduce harm to animals and therefore, of course, contributes to biodiversity conservation. And then to your question also about monitoring. the guidance also talks basically provide so we do provide policy measures but then we also provide indicators of progress because of course if you're trying to implement these things there must be a way of tracking there must be a way for us to know what's working what isn't so there's various indicators that are provided within the guidance so it is launched today so I would welcome you to come just look through the guidance but we do also have an event today later on at the NGO hub where we will go through all the indicators, the policy measures, the challenges that the guidance provides. But maybe I also want to pass it over to Chadia, who can answer a bit better. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you so much for the question about the One Health. It's indeed very broad to encompass all these elements for animals, human and environment. To track what we are doing, we have developed the joint plan of action together. the four quadripartite organization, and then supporting countries to implement them through implementation guide with five-step approach, starting from the situation analysis to understand what do we have at the country level. And this will give us the baseline that you ask for, including tracking the governance mechanism that exists, the legislations, that countries have to support the One Health implementations. And we are trying to document the lessons learned from this through our communities of practice. And everybody is welcome. Please join us in those community of practice and share your experience. And we have a dedicated website to share those case studies, and we will be very happy to make it available to you after this call. Thank you.

I would be very interested to make a comment on your question. Yes, One Health is very broad, and this is why the guidance provided by such organizations, by WFA or by UWA, is very important for the governments, but also for every stakeholders involved in the field. This is how actually we are building our standards, how our instruments, our policies. And I have two aspects that I would like to share. First of all, it's about the open governance, open governance that we are building together. the instruments, the policy, the standards, the monitoring tools, together with the NGOs, with every stakeholders involved around animal health. And also the governance should be open in terms of topics, including covering biodiversity and climate. This is the approach that this One Health perspective offers to us, guided by guidance from those organizations and we are very pleased that we receive the support from those guidance.

Does that answer? But we would also be happy for you to also join us in the next events. But could we take one more question as we are running out of time? Anyone with any final question? Okay. So I really want to thank you all for coming here today, and I hope that you can engage with the guidance. There should be, yes, the QR code on the screen that would allow you to access the entire guidance and just see how we make these connections across conservation, agriculture, health, and other relevant policies. Thank you so much for coming in today. And one final thing, we do have an event for this guidance this Friday at the Armenian 45 to 5:45 PM, where we will go through the entire guidance and present it to you. And you'll hear more also from the government of Brazil, Bonfils Foundation, WA, and WFA. Thank you.