HOST: World Bank

COVID-19 has brought new attention to the interdependence of landscape, human and animal health. While the pandemic’s zoonotic origins clearly evidence the risks that ecosystem degradation and human encroachment into wildlife habitats pose to global health, its aftershocks have starkly exposed the lack of resilience in our current social and economic systems. Healthy landscapes are critical for healthy societies and economies, providing essential ecosystem services such as water, fertile soil, and erosion prevention. In many places, they also provide the basis for nature-based tourism (NBT), which generates crucial income for conservation and protected area management, and livelihoods for local communities.

In this session, panelists examine the drivers of zoonotic spillover, the actions that can be taken to prevent, manage and respond to future pandemics, and how a One Health approach that frames human, animal and landscape health through an integrated lens can mitigate risk. The session also explores the tools needed bring back NBT as countries and communities look to rebound from COVID-19, why restoration is integral to human health, and how approaches to landscape management around the world are evolving to encompass health considerations.