Workshop

Title of Session: Biodiversity and Health: A New Paradigm Linking Conservation Medicine, Ecosystem Sustainability, and Human Health

Organizer:Dr. Alonso Aguirre, Senior Vice President for Conservation Medicine, Wildlife Trust

Session Goals:
Participants will understand the importance of biodiversity for human, ecological health, and the sustainability of the planet and practical approaches to conservation of biodiversity through the new, transdisciplinary, collaborative field of conservation medicine.

Speakers:
Alonso Aguirre (Wildlife Trust, New York) Moderator
Aaron Bernstein (Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School): Some of the ways that human health depends on biodiversity—an  overview
Connor Kretch (CoHab Initiative, Galway, Ireland): International policy and law in biodiversity and healthAlonso Aguirre (Wildlife Trust) Conservation medicine -a new discipline bridging biodiversity and health
Peter Daszak (Consortium for Conservation Medicine at Wildlife Trust, New York): Emerging infectious diseases: impacts on conservation of biodiversity and health

Conservation Medicine is a new discipline focused on links between animal, human, and ecosystem health. It is a solution-oriented practice designed to achieve ecological health for humans and for the environment.  The need for this new approach evolved from the recognition of a crisis: unprecedented levels of disease emergence, driven by an increasing burden of human-induced environmental changes such as climate change, land use changes leading to a loss of biodiversity and a disruption of ecosystems, the global distribution of toxic substances, and stratospheric ozone depletion.