In recent years, species and ecosystems have been threatened by many anthropogenic factors manifested in local and global declines of populations and species. Although we consider conservation medicine an emerging field, the concept is the result of the long evolution of transdisciplinary thinking within the health and ecological sciences and the better understanding of the complexity within these various fields of knowledge. Conservation medicine was born from the cross fertilization of ideas generated by this new transdisciplinary design. It examines the links among changes in climate, habitat quality, and land use; emergence and re-emergence of infectious agents, parasites and environmental contaminants; and maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem functions as they sustain the health of plant and animal communities including humans. During the past ten years, new tools and institutional initiatives for assessing and monitoring ecological health concerns have emerged: landscape epidemiology, disease ecological modeling and web-based analytics. New types of integrated ecological health assessment are being deployed; these efforts incorporate environmental indicator studies with specific biomedical diagnostic tools. Other innovations include the development of non-invasive physiological and behavioral monitoring techniques; the adaptation of modern molecular biological and biomedical techniques; the design of population level disease monitoring strategies; the creation of ecosystem-based health and sentinel species surveillance approaches; and the adaptation of health monitoring systems for appropriate developing country situations. New Directions of Conservation Medicine: Applied Cases of Ecological Health addresses these issues with relevant case studies and detailed applied examples. New Directions of Conservation Medicine challenges the notion that human health is an isolated concern removed from the bounds of ecology and species interactions. Human health, animal health, and ecosystem health are moving closer together and at some point, it will be inconceivable that there was ever a clear division.

New Directions of Conservation Medicine: Applied Cases of Ecological Health covers topics from emerging diseases and toxicants to the EcoHealth/One Health explosion. It challenges the notion that human health is an isolated concern removed from the bounds of ecology and species interactions.

Conservation medicine is an emerging discipline, focussing on the intersection of ecosystem health, animal health, and human health. Work in the biomedical and veterinary sciences is now being folded into conservation biology; to explore the connections between animal and human health; trace the environmental sources of pathogens and pollutants; develop an understanding of the ecological causes of changes in human and animal health; and understand the consequences of diseases to populations and ecological communities. Conservation Medicine defines this new discipline. It examines ecological health issues from various standpoints, including the emergence and resurgence of infectious disease agents; the increasing impacts of toxic chemicals and hazardous substances; and the health implications of habitat fragmentation and degradation and loss of biodiversity. It will provide a framework to examine the connections between the health of the planet and the health of all species and challenge practitioners and students in the health sciences and natural sciences to think about new, collaborative ways to address ecological health concerns.

This edited volume examines the complex entanglements of human, animal, and environmental health. It assembles leading scholars from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and medicine to explore existing One Health approaches and to envision a mode of health that is both more-than-human and also more sensitive to, and explicit about, colonial and neocolonial legacies—urging the decolonization of One Health. While acknowledging the importance of One Health, the volume at the same time critically examines its roots, highlighting the structural biases and power dynamics still at play in this global health regime. The volume is distinctive in its geographic breadth. It travels from Inuit sled dogs in the Arctic to rock hyraxes in Jerusalem, from black-faced spoonbills in Taiwan to street dogs in India, from spittle-bugs on Mallorca’s almond trees to jellyfish management at sea, and from rabies in sub-Saharan Africa to massive culling practices in South Korea. Together, the contributors call for One Health to move toward a more transparent, plural, and just perception of health that takes seriously the role of more-than-humans and of nonscientific knowledges, pointing to ways in which One Health can—and should—be decolonized. This volume will appeal to researchers and practitioners in the medical humanities, posthumanities, environmental humanities, science and technology studies, animal studies, multispecies ethnography, anthrozoology, and critical public health. The Open Access version of chapter 1, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003294085, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Scientific journal from Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust