Title : The island nation as system and scale to examine the One Health concept: The case of Mauritius
Abstract:
Small oceanic islands are among the last landmasses to be colonised by humans. Their fragile habitats and ecosystems, unprepared for anthropogenic pressures such as land cover changes and invasion by exotic species, have experienced catastrophic declines while growing human populations increasingly relied on imported environmental goods, including for their very subsistence. This paper approaches the concept of One Health from the island perspective, taking the case of Mauritius as a country which continues to pursue economic growth at the expense of Nature, where environmental destruction has gone as far as to promote the legal culling of a native and endangered keystone animal species. We propose an integration of the mostly reinforcing dynamics affecting ecosystems and human health as determinants of subjective wellbeing, showing socio-ecological patterns that include the historical and current political ecology and its resulting equity aspects. The globally relevant lessons learned, i.e., emerging and potential balancing mechanisms, are then proposed for steering socioecological systems towards One Health and wellbeing
