Presentation short abstract

What does a One Health workforce in Sub-Saharan African rangelands looks like? What is the on-the-ground work of One Health in rangelands? Who does this work of rangeland One Health? Through what practices and with what knowledge(s)? This presentation begins to examine these questions.

Presentation long abstract

There are ongoing efforts to develop and strengthen a global One Health workforce to address the multiple and overlapping socio-ecological planetary crises. With rangelands accounting for approximately 54% of the Earth’s surface (and 50% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s), they are increasingly central to One Health discourses and attention. Rangelands are looked at as simultaneously threatened by socio-ecological crises, while being positioned as yielding enormous potential for promoting and sustaining One Health and related resiliency from the local to the planetary scale. This paper starts with a fairly basic question; asking what a One Health workforce in Sub-Saharan African rangelands looks like?

While not necessarily a nature-based strategy itself, many nature-based strategies, techniques, and discourses are mobilised to enhance and promote One Health and related animal-human-ecological well-being. This is especially so in rangelands where One Health often focuses on landscape scale restoration, conservation, and resiliency. It also involves a budding array of multidisciplinary and multisectoral taskforces, in addition to individual pastoralists, farmers, and the communities they belong as they become enrolled in promoting rangeland health and resiliency through their agro-pastoral practices. Crucially, One Health is an approach, and increasingly a field of knowledge and practice. It is something that, if it is to have a material effect, must be done. This brings up important questions about what the actual on-the-ground work of One Health in rangelands looks like, who does this work of rangeland One Health, through what practices, and with what knowledge(s). This presentation begins to examine these questions.