Проект OneHealth: партнеры обсудили управление природными территориями

One Health Project: Partners Discussed the Management of Protected Areas

At the end of August, experts from the PF «СAMP Alatoo,” the national partner of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Kyrgyzstan, took part in a coordination meeting of the project “One Health in Nature Conservation – Increasing Landscape Resilience to Zoonotic Diseases through Consolidation of Conservation Systems in Central Asia.”

The event was held at the Institute of Zoology of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty) and was organized by the IUCN Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (IUCN ECARO).

The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen coordination among partners from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, review the current progress in project implementation, and agree on priorities for the next phase.

Effective management of protected areas using tools such as the Green List IBEX, aimed at improving their condition and resilience, became the central theme of the discussions.

The One Health concept brings together nature conservation, veterinary science, and medicine. Its integration into the management of national parks, nature reserves, and protected areas helps to prevent the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases, protecting the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.

To implement this approach, active and systematic monitoring of wildlife and infectious disease levels is essential. Participants agreed on the need for unified protocols and harmonized approaches to ensure data comparability across the region, and outlined practical mechanisms for data collection and analysis.

The project team also gained practical field experience during a visit to a hunting area, where they observed the installation of traps for rodents, the process of collecting samples, and their storage and transfer to laboratories. According to scientists, rodents are potential carriers of diseases in biodiversity-rich areas, which is why monitoring starts with this group.

The project “One Health in Nature Conservation – Increasing Landscape Resilience to Zoonotic Diseases through Consolidation of Conservation Systems in Central Asia” is supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).