OHCRA
One Health Costa Rica Alliance
FOCUSED ON ONE HEALTH AND CONSERVATION
OHCRA is a non-profit association made up of biologists, anthropologists and veterinarians who work in research, education and social action in the ecology of diseases, conservation and related topics. Our intention is to approach health, taking into account the environmental factors and anthropogenic changes that influence the transmission of diseases to humans, as well as domestic and wild animals.
Costa Rica has been declared a country of global interest because it has some of the greatest biological wealth in the world, being a leading country in natural resource conservation. This leadership entails challenges that we must overcome in order to favor the preservation of natural resources. Beginning with an analysis of the current reality of the country, we must anticipate the risks and health needs involving the populations of wild and domestic animals, human beings and the environment that we share.
COSTA RICA
COSTA RICA IS RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE COUNTRIES WITH THE GREATEST BIODIVERSITY WORLDWIDE, FAVORED BY A GREAT VARIETY OF MICROCLIMATES AND LIFE ZONES
Latin America is made up of a great diversity of habitats, making it one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. However, accelerated and poorly planned infrastructure development has led to environmental degradation and deforestation, resulting in interactions between human and wildlife populations and potential zoonotic pandemics. Costa Rica is considered an unique case and has been recognized as a leader in the education and preservation of biodiversity. With only 0.03% of the planet’s surface, it has most of the climatic and topographic diversity found from southern Mexico to the lowlands of Panama. It is considered one of the twenty most biodiverse countries in the world, representing nearly 6 percent of the world’s biodiversity.
Since the 1970s, twenty-seven percent of the country’s land area has been protected, and since the late 1980s, a National Conservation Strategy for Sustainable Development has been established to maintain essential ecological processes, preserve biodiversity, and develop policies for the human population based on the sustainable use of natural resources. Despite these efforts, the forest cover of Costa Rica fell to its lowest point in 1985, to about 25%. However, the reduced deforestation and increased reforestation accelerated in 1995 with the enactment of Environmental Law 7554, which “mandates a ‘balanced and ecologically driven environment’ for all”.
Conservation initiatives by the Costa Rican government have promoted continuous monitoring of natural resources and have collected long-term information on biodiversity. Working hand in hand with the Ministries of Health, Environment, and Agriculture, joint monitoring will lead to developing an early warning system that considers biodiversity loss and the presence of zoonotic diseases. It will identify ecological, environmental, evolutionary, and anthropogenic variables associated with the transmission and persistence of zoonotic infections. In a win-win strategy, monitoring both health and biodiversity simultaneously manages the risk of pandemics. And the inclusion of health in the narrative encourages and reinforces changes that favor biodiversity preservation. By collecting land use data in combination with climatic, spatial, and socioeconomic data, we can identify regions that are more likely to have contact with humans, vectors, livestock, and wildlife. This includes classifying regions and human practices from lower to higher risk to justify restoration programs, buffering, and conservation. In contrast to studies that examine the value of preserving and restoring fragmented habitats from an ecological perspective, we promote the integration of landscape-level ecological factors with human behavioral factors and weigh risks to human health, connecting conservation practices to public health.
Ecological interventions aimed at enhancing these natural barriers from a conservation context not only prevent transmission but also complement traditional prevention approaches such as vaccination, treatment, disinfection, and chemical control, while keeping economic costs at reasonable levels. Promoting scalable solutions that address emergencies holistically will generate data that identifies risk factors and the importance of change. This allows contributors such as air pollution, waste management, and other aspects of environmental health to be considered in health issues, moving beyond an exclusive focus on public health. Thus, biodiversity monitoring, in addition to zoonotic disease vigilance, promotes conservation and allows the identification of needs specific to define geographical areas, lines of research, and monitoring. All critical to the long-term well-being of our shared environment.