One Health cannot be so with a discount on the environment. According to the One Health High-level Expert Panel, One Health can be understood as a multidisciplinary approach to tackling health issues by considering the human, animal, and environmental aspects. This signifies the entirety of health as the wellness of humans, animals and the environment.
It is widely accepted in the One Health field that the environment is an inseparable part of the health of humans and animals. From a blog shared by Very Well Health, we learn that environmental health is vital in protecting us from naturally occurring biological, physical, and chemical factors that directly impact our health as humans and animals.
It turns out frequently from various sources that the current state of the planet –our common environment, is rapidly deteriorating. Examples where the environment is gravely worn out are brought out by World Atlas which points at the poor management of the planet’s non-renewable resources like soil, land, and water as affecting it most. Largely, human activity is to blame!
Overpopulation, rapid economic growth, over consumption, and pollution continuously place a heavy burden on the ideal health of the environment. An ideal state of environmental well-being is only that which supports life on earth -including that of animals and humans. However, life-threatening occurrences in the environment have been occurring more frequently, and intensely in recent times, than they used to in the past. No wonder we encounter food shortages, extreme weather events, suffer emerging, and reemerging disease outbreaks. So, these kinds of events prevent elements in the One Health triad to ably thrive. This is why environmental issues are of much concern to the global community that reflect on SDG 13 -Climate Action, SDG 14 -Life below Water, and SDG 15 -Life on Land.
These global concerns greatly inform our programming as an organisation. Our advocacy and community-based activities as an organisation on environment and conservation issues are some of the steps we have taken to contribute to the well-being of humans, animals, and the environment in general. Within our Environmental Health, and Conservation and Biodiversity operational areas, we have worked, and continue to work on correcting our exploitative human activities on the environment. Like always, we reach out to communities to address key health issues. Soon, on 29th July 2023, we are going to Araromi Beach in Ondo State for a Clean-up exercise.
In this activity, we shall involve 10 students from each of the 3 secondary schools we have been to, in Ondo State i.e. Ilaje High School, Fortune Gate Schools, and Achievers City Model Group of Schools. All these schools have been enabled to be with fully functional Sea Turtle Clubs together with their coordinators.
In conclusion, the crucial role of the environment to bring about optimal well-being of humans, and animals should not be an issue of contestation. As humans, we have such a big role to play in limiting our exhaustive activities that negatively impact the environment, nourishing it, and revitalizing it for our own good, the good of our environment, and that of animals.
