The US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, where Dr. Chris Walzer is currently Director of Global Health,  and the German Federal Foreign Office held a one-day conference in Berlin in October 2019: “One Planet, One Health, One Future.” The conference addressed how human development and interference with nature are generating threats to humans, livestock, and wildlife. The conference participants issued the Berlin Principles as a call to action.

 

THE BERLIN PRINCIPLES 
 
We urge world leaders, governments, civil society, the global health and conservation communities, academia and scientific institutions, business, finance leaders, and investment holders to:

1) Recognize and take action to: retain the essential health links between humans, wildlife, domesticated animals and plants, and all nature; and ensure the conservation and protection of biodiversity, which interwoven with intact and functional ecosystems provides the critical foundational infrastructure of life, health and well-being on our planet;

2) Take action to develop strong institutions that integrate understanding of human and animal health with the health of the environment and invest in the translation of robust sciencebased knowledge into policy and practice;  

3) Take action to combat the current climate crisis, which is creating new severe threats to human, animal and environmental health, and exacerbating existing challenges;

4) Recognize that decisions regarding land, air, sea, and freshwater use directly impact health and wellbeing of humans, animals and ecosystems and that alterations in ecosystems paired with decreased resilience generate shifts in communicable and non-communicable disease emergence, exacerbation and spread; and take action accordingly to eliminate or mitigate these impacts;

5) Devise adaptive, holistic and forward-looking approaches to the detection, prevention, monitoring, control and mitigation of emerging/resurging diseases and exacerbating communicable and non-communicable diseases, that incorporate the complex interconnections among species, ecosystems, and human society, while accounting fully for harmful economic drivers, and perverse subsidies;  

6) Take action to meaningfully integrate biodiversity conservation perspectives and human health and well-being when developing solutions for communicable and non-communicable disease threats;

7) Increase cross-sectoral investment in the global human, livestock, wildlife, plant and ecosystem health infrastructure and international funding mechanisms for the protection of ecosystems, commensurate with the serious nature of emerging/resurging and exacerbating communicable and non-communicable disease threats to life on our planet;  

8) Enhance capacity for cross-sectoral and trans-disciplinary health surveillance and clear, timely information sharing to improve coordination of responses among governments and NGOs, health, academia and other institutions, industry and other stakeholders;

9) Form participatory, collaborative relationships among governments, NGOs, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities while strengthening the public sector to meet the challenges of global health and biodiversity conservation; and  

10) Invest in educating and raising awareness for global citizenship and holistic planetary health approaches among children and adults in schools, communities, and universities while also influencing policy processes to increase recognition that human health ultimately depends on ecosystem integrity and a healthy planet.