National | PANORAMA

East Europe

Aristocrats on the Steppe: Restoring a Homeland for Hungarian Meadow Vipers

Mina

Adabag

North America

Burying the Hatchet: Moving from Discord to Harmony in American Burying Beetle Conservation

Mina

Adabag

East and South Africa

Moving Parts: Putting the Pieces Together to Conserve Wattled Cranes

Mina

Adabag

Caribbean

Planting a seed: How Conserving an Orchid Helped Protect Governor Laffan’s Ferns

Mina

Adabag

Caribbean

Planting a seed: How Conserving an Orchid Helped Protect Governor Laffan’s Ferns

Mina

Adabag

North and Central Asia

Developing and Implementing the National Framework on Access to and Benefit Sharing of Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge

Andrea

Egan

Improve the construction of the access and benefit-sharing system for biogenetic resources

Promote the implementation of benefit-sharing policy

Conduct a baseline survey on biological genetic resources and related traditional knowledge

Protect biogenetic resources and related traditional knowledge

Promote benefit-sharing between enterprises and local communities/residents

Holding activities to build capability and improve awareness

Collaborative and Comprehensive Training

WAB-Net brings together stakeholders from diverse sectors and backgrounds to participate in uniquely detailed and thorough capacity-building and hands-on trainings. Field teams consisting of ecologists, government officials representing health and environmental ministries, and students and academic faculty are trained to carry out research while keeping themselves and the bats safe. A bat ecologist will spend several weeks each year in the field teaching the team how to capture, handle, sample, and release bats with biosafety considerations woven throughout each step.

A bat ecologist familiar with the unique aspects of the taxonomic group and biosafety practices works in collaboration with regional project partners to design standardized field protocols and subsequently implements the field trainings in each country. This uniquely hands-on approach to training field teams ensures the standardization of field protocols across cultures and disciplines in the region.

WAB-Net serves as the central coordination point for these trainings across the Western Asia region. There is a wide diversity of stakeholders participating, including in their backgrounds and areas of expertise. WAB-Net facilitators learn from the individuals they’re training, creating more culturally relevant lessons. By bringing lessons from one country to another, WAB-Net can enable conversations and collaboration over areas of shared interest, furthering partnerships that would have otherwise been politically difficult to build.

One Health Proactive Approach

WAB-Net takes a One Health approach in conducting collaborative research and training programs in West Asia, bringing regional expertise that are otherwise siloed in sectors of human, animal, and environmental health. Samples taken from bats across the region are screened for known and novel coronaviruses; human behaviors that could present a spillover risk are identified. WAB-Net serves as the unifying point of virology, bat ecology, and public health initiatives in the region. By coordinating conversations between experts in diverse fields of study, opportunities for novel research questions, more comprehensive agendas, and better-informed policy recommendations are created and implemented.

EcoHealth Alliance, with experts on global One Health research and policy, serves as WAB-Net’s facilitators and instills a One Health lens on all of its work. Previous experience with bringing together experts from diverse fields and finding commonalities across topics enables them to effectively carry out multi-disciplinary endeavors in a politically volatile region.

As demonstrated by the COVID-19 global crisis, mitigation efforts after a spillover event occurs often are more costly to both public health and the global economies. A proactive approach to pandemic prevention is made possible through WAB-Net’s work of monitoring both potentially zoonotic viruses in bat populations and human behavior. WAB-Net’s focus on both research objectives and training efforts enhances biosafety throughout all steps of the research process. The collaborative nature of the One Health approach creates more comprehensive and effective recommendations for public health, conservation efforts, and disease management.