Reading summary

One-Health Canada North

March 8th

This weeks reading was focused towards the northern borders of Canada and
was situated within the Sahtu settlement area in the Northwest Territories.
The study begins by recognizing the increasingly detrimental effects of
global warming and climate change and relates it to how increasing human
activities in the polar north have been making an impact on the northern
ecosystems. There are indigenous communities and other community
members that rely heavily on the ecosystem to survive and besides the
economic and societal connections to the ecosystem, the indigenous
communities also have a cultural connection to the environment. This study
was undertaken after concerns were raised by elders and community leaders
about the environment and wanted to train the youth in science and wildlife
research. Something I found interesting was that the background of the
study had stated that effective action was hindered because of a lack of
meaningful two-way communication between the different stakeholders
(wildlife using communities, scientists, government agencies). This was an
issue not only in the Canadian north but around the world where scientists
are not respecting the needs, concerns and input from the local communities
and dont incorporate their knowledge. This reminded me of the core
competencies that we were introduced too in the second and third weeks of
the course and the concept of cultural competencies. I think this core
competency would play a big role here in that the indigenous communities
as not only do they have a cultural connection to the environment, they have
resided in these communities for such a long time. Respecting these
indigenous communities is very important when it comes to collectively
working with them and ensuring they feel included and respected and having
their voice heard and being apart of the process rather than some outsider
researchers that come to conduct research externally and then leave. This
paper describes how this notion of local knowledge is known as local
ecological knowledge (LEK) and was very interesting to see examples given
where LEK has made significant impact in community-based program that
manage and maintain wildlife. This study used an integrated approach as
there was a clear need for wildlife health monitoring where the LEK was
utilized and the local people were meaningfully involved. Initially wildlife
health monitoring consisted of community workshops and classroom visits
but then expanded to incorporating traditional knowledge, community-based
monitoring, undergraduate` and graduate students. The study states that
there is a need for partnerships between academia, government and the
community. This reminded me of one of the core competencies where there
is a need for equitable partnerships. Including the community and making
them feel welcomed is a key component to making an equitable partnership
and this study demonstrate this core competency piece. It seemed from the
paper that the focus was to not only tackle contemporary environmental
issues but also aimed at education and informing the youth that would be
the future hunters, scientists etc. and follows the global health principle of
commitment to the future striving for a more sustainable intervention. The
paper also mentions a couple setbacks that they faced, one of which was to
create a more formal assessment process that would help ensure the needs
of the community were actually being met. As well as that more meaningful
two-way communication needed to take place. The study in the discussion
portion proposes a stool model for collaborations with community-based
projects. The stool model proposes having a champion that keeps everyone
engaged and alongside the ensure of knowledge translation there is also the
goal of long-term success and would require an immense amount of time,
energy and resources. This paper overall was a refreshing read as it brought
some insight to an actual one health initiative being implemented and was
utilizing some of the global health principles and core competencies.