CONSERVATION MEDICINE CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE

We are currently working to create a system of regionally based, interacting, interdisciplinary Conservation Medicine Centers of Excellence (CMCE). Based in universities and research institutes, these centers will incorporate perspectives and expertise from a variety of natural, social and health sciences.

Research activities will range from taxonomy of pathogens and vectors, to identifying the best practices for influencing changes in land use and human behavior to reduce ecosystem and health risks. The Centers will:

• Provide information to local communities about the links between environmental change and public health, highlighting the factors that contribute to specific disease outbreaks;
• Train environment, agriculture, and health science professionals to understand the root causes of disease emergence and combat them at their sources;
• Grant degrees in the new discipline of conservation medicine that links human and animal health with ecosystem health and global environmental change;
• Serve as think-tank institutions that provide technical advice to governments, universities, NGOs and the general public, on ecological health issues as they link to the conservation of biodiversity and protection of species on the brink of extinction;
• Train young scientists to move from research to policy.

Centers have been identified in seven countries with institutions that are members of the Wildlife Trust Alliance. Mexico has taken the lead in developing the first laboratory in the field: the Laboratorio Medicina de Conservacion based at Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN). The following institutional members of the Wildlife Trust Alliance have shown active interest in developing CMCE:

Argentina: Aquamarina
Brazil: Institute for Ecological Research (IPE)
Chile: Fauna Australis
India: Asian Conservation Foundation
Indonesia: PEKA
Mexico: Instituto Politecnico Nacional
Sri Lanka: Centre for Conservation and Research
Venezuela: Provita

Additionally, we are exploring the possibility of forming a CMCE with one of the CCM partners, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Cameroon. Other sites in Africa are being considered.

By creating these think tanks throughout the world, we hope to document universal and particular elements in fashioning solutions to ecological health problems, while also building conservation medicine skills of our members. These universal ecological health problems include:

• Newly settled rural landscapes and deforestation;
• Agricultural systems and chemical pollution;
• Mosaic landscapes, urban to rural, and large ranging species;
• Ecology of emerging diseases;
• Coastal marine conservation and fisheries;
• Sentinel species in conservation practice (e.g., charismatic threatened fauna);
• Biodiversity conservation in the context of rural economic development.

LINKING SCIENCE AND POLICY

The program has provided technical advise on several conservation issues to many international organizations including the Center for Environmental Russian Policy, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Office International Des Epizooties, Diversitas, Smithsonian Institution, Institut für Zoo-und Wildtierforschung (Berlin), Institut Français de la Biodiversité (Paris), PAHO, Smithsonian Institution and UNEP among others. Also we have played a key role by providing technical advise to governments of several countries in the Americas, Southeast Asia and Western Europe. We have briefed the Mexican and US Congress, Administration, and federal agency leaders. 

WORKSHOPS AND TRAININGS

Dr. Aguirre frequently participates in short courses designed to train specialists in field techniques, sample collection and preservation, monitoring, basic diagnostics and health assessment. During the training workshops, participants are trained in field techniques, specimen collection and preservation, monitoring, diagnostics, protocol development and health assessment techniques valuable to assess the long-term the health of these ecosystems. The program serves as the first step in developing a diagnostic network for wildlife diseases

These workshops allow for the development of a model of training, assistance, and technical development, which will serve to support the management of wildlife: a significant action towards their conservation and sustainable use.

Click here for the complete list.