Biodiversity & Health Newsletter - December 2017

1 | Save the date and call for collaboration: Belgian nature – health network event – Antwerp October 4th 2018 2 | ‘Green and blue cities: nature and health in an urban setting’ advice in preparation for the Belgian Superior Health Council  3 | Save the date: Inauguration - Chair Care and the natural living environment – Antwerp March 28th 2018 4 | Creating impact for One Health and Ecohealth: advancements in implementation, evaluation and governance 5 | European expert panel on nature & mental health: two Belgian experts selected  6 | Convention Biological Diversity – World Health Organization collaboration news 7 | The need for European OneHealth/EcoHealth networks 8 | UK vacancy: understanding biodiversity-human wellbeing relationships 9 | "3 questions to" Nicolas Antoine-Moussiaux, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, ULg

 

 

Newsletter - December 2017 Edition


CONTENTS

Events in Belgium
International
International Publications  
Events in Belgium
1 | Save the date and call for collaboration: Belgian nature – health network event – Antwerp October 4th 2018

On October 4th 2018 the project Green Light and the Belgian Community of Practice Biodiversity & Health will organize a big network event in Antwerp. Location: Elisabethzaal next to the Zoo Antwerp. There will be room for lectures, experiments, workshops, walks, networking, a market for projects, initiatives, networks, organizations (research, policy, practice).
 
If you want to collaborate in the organization and/or want to propose activities for the meeting, please contact Hans Keune: hans.keune@inbo.be. Further practical information will follow.

When ? 4 October 2018
Where ? Elisabethzaal next to the Zoo Antwerp

 
2 | ‘Green and blue cities: nature and health in an urban setting’ advice in preparation for the Belgian Superior Health Council 
The Belgian Superior Health Council assesses the relation between nature and health in urban areas in Belgium. In November 2017 a group of experts was initiated to advice the Council about how contact with nature can have a positive effect on human health, but also about how contact with nature sometimes can have a negative effect on human health. At the end of 2018 the ‘Green and blue cities: nature and health in an urban setting’ project aims to deliver advice to Belgian federal and regional authorities. Simultaneously the Council aims to deliver concrete recommendations to stakeholder groups and citizens.

More information about the assessment process here

If you have suggestions, please contact Marleen Van den Brande, scientific collaborator of the Council.
 
3 | Save the date: Inauguration - Chair Care and the natural living environment – Antwerp March 28th 2018
The Department of Primary & Interdisciplinary Care form the University of Antwerp will hold a Chair on Care and the natural living environment for three years, from 2019 onwards. Main aim of the Chair will be to achieve more attention in primary health care for the natural living environment, focusing on research, education and services. The Chair will closely collaborate with the sponsor, the Provence of Antwerp, and welcomes collaboration with interested groups at the University of Antwerp and beyond.

Inauguration: March 28th 2018 from 16.00 – 18.00 (reception included) at Campus Drie Eiken.
Registration obligatory: more news in January 2018.
International

The EU COST funded project Network for Evaluation of One Health (NEOH), the Belgian Community of Practice Biodiversity and Health and the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences (DISTAL) of the University of Bologna are organising the European conference on Creating impact for One Health and Ecohealth: advancements in implementation, evaluation and governance. The aim of the conference is to explore how EcoHealth and One Health approaches are being evaluated and implemented in practice, to learn about changes in institutional and regulatory structures at national and international levels and to discuss how the process of translating science into practice can be promoted further. The conference builds on the 2016 European OneHealth/EcoHealth workshop in Brussels.

We foresee the following themes for the conference:

  • The policy cycle and evaluation of One Health and EcoHealth
  • International and national organisations: Examples of One Health implementation at the institutional level, needs, barriers and success factors
  • Collaboration between science and practice: A continuous process.

More information here. If you wish to host a session or workshop, please contact: maurizio.aragrande@unibo.it or bhaesler@rvc.ac.uk 
or hans.keune@inbo.be

Mention the topic, co-organizers and format of your session (presentations, discussion, dialogue-workshop, focus group, …). Submission deadline January 31st 2018.

Where ? Bologna, Italy
When ? September 10th - 12th 2018
 
5 | European expert panel on nature & mental health: two Belgian experts selected 

Roy Remmen and Hans Keune (both Department of Primary & Interdisciplinary Care form the University of Antwerp) are selected as experts for the EKLIPSE review panel on the effects of peri-urban blue/green spaces on human mental health and mental well-being.

The first expert meeting was held on November 14th 2017 in Paris.

 
6 | Convention Biological Diversity – World Health Organization collaboration news

The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Health Organization (WHO) organized a Regional capacity-building workshop on biodiversity and human health for the WHO Europe region from 23 to 25 October 2017, in Helsinki, Finland. Many European countries were present with representatives from both health ministries and nature or environment ministries.
 
The Twenty-first meeting of the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) was held 11 - 14 December 2017 in Montreal, Canada. Biodiversity and Health was one of the agenda points, including a guide for One Health implementation. In preparation for this meeting, EU experts discussed all agenda points, including the one on biodiversity & health: pg 27 – 30 of the report.

International Publication
7 | The need for European OneHealth/EcoHealth networks

Elaborating from the European One Health/Ecohealth (OH/EH) workshop that took place in fall 2016 and aimed to bring together different communities and explore collaborative potential, the creation of European networks focusing on the development of important OH/EH perspectives was a direct output from discussions at the end of some sessions, in particular:
 
- A network on transdisciplinary One Health education.
- A network integrating inputs from social sciences in One Health/EcoHealth actions and networks.
- A network aiming at translating research findings on the Environment-Microbiome-Health axis into policy making, with a view to make healthy ecosystems a cost-effective disease prevention healthcare strategy.
 
It was also suggested that a European Community of Practice could be initiated in order to support these several concrete networking initiatives, and to help to promote the building of other emerging initiatives.
 
Find the publication here.
International Vacancy 
8 | UK vacancy: understanding biodiversity-human wellbeing relationships

Vacancy for a high-calibre interdisciplinary social scientist to work on a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator funded project entitled ‘Environmental Spaces and the Feel-Good Factor: Relating Subjective Wellbeing to Biodiversity (RELATE)’. The position is full time for three years. The post holder will be based at University of Kent. Further details can be found here

The application deadline is Sunday 21st Jan.
 
9 | "3 questions to" Nicolas Antoine-Moussiaux, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, ULg

1. How is the relation between nature & human health part of your work/activities? 
I am first working from the perspective of livestock and animal health in the Global South. Livestock is one of the many links between nature and human health. Providing food, work, fertiliser and as a means of savings, livestock contribute to livelihoods, food and nutrition security, hence to human health. However, the environmental impact of livestock is also important to consider, as well as the direct risk posed by zoonotic diseases, originating from livestock or wildlife. There is a balance to seek, which I try to understand and promote with a social science approach, analysing the decision-making of stakeholders.
 

2. How important is collaboration between different groups in networks like the Belgian Community of Practice Biodiversity & Health?
These networks are obviously crucial for an interdisciplinary topic like this. Since institutes are most often organised along disciplines, interdisciplinary sciences are most often developed based on such networks. As a matter of fact, I met and kept working with several of my partners through the Belgian Community of Practice Biodiversity & Health
 

3. Where would you like the work on nature - health linkages to be in a few years?
I hope it will grow along interdisciplinary lines, in a way that we cannot imagine at present. Many constraints still apply to the development of such research, some relating to the availability of relevant funding sources but also to the state of mind of researchers, the pressure they are subjected to, and the diversity of cultures and epistemologies across disciplines. An important work would be in fact a reflexive one, to understand where interdisciplinarity is needed and how it can be
 
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“Biodiversity & Health Newsletter” is published whenever the need arises to inform the Belgian and international community on new developments in OneHealth and EcoHealth research, practice and policy-making.

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