Environment, animal and public health cannot be treated as separate problems, Bangladesh's Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Abdul Awal Mintoo MP said on Monday, Channel i Online reports. Speaking at the opening session of the global conference on One Health action in agrifood systems at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, he urged that people, animals, plants and ecosystems be considered together in every programme.

At the conference, which runs from 21 to 23 September, the minister said the resilience of agrifood systems depends on the combined health of these interlinked domains. Bangladesh, a densely populated low-lying part of the Ganges delta, is highly exposed to climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, and because people, ecosystems and agrifood systems share the same landscape, pressure in one sector quickly spreads to the others.

For almost two decades Bangladesh has been building structures to make One Health a principle of governance rather than a concept, he said, giving priority to coordination, data sharing and accountability among ministries, to placing the environment and ecosystems at the centre of the One Health framework, and to capacity at district and local level. The formal recognition of the environment sector as a core stakeholder in the national One Health framework is an important step, he added, and the proposed One Health knowledge hub should help countries exchange practical experience.

Calling the conference timely ahead of COP31 in Antalya in November, Abdul Awal Mintoo said Bangladesh would carry the Rome discussions into the COP31 negotiations and work for a more integrated global approach to climate and environmental health, and he stressed turning the talks into concrete programmes, financing and local capacity.

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, Swiss President Guy Parmelin, Tanzanian Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba, Serbian Prime Minister Djuro Macut, Mozambique's health minister Ussene Hilario, Cape Verde's agriculture minister Genevard Ane (as the report names him) and Ireland's agriculture minister Martin Heydon were among the ministers, agency heads and experts at the opening session. A One Health approach that brings farm animal health, antibiotic use and food safety under one framework has direct implications for how Bangladesh regulates its fisheries and livestock sectors.

Source: Channel i Online