One Health in the Argan Forest

One Health is now becoming increasingly recognized in Morocco with our sister organization One Health Maroc Association which has helped organized a key workshop last year at the Institute Royal of Strategic Studies. As a result, One Health is now recognized as a strategix axis for the country to increase its resilience in the face of multi-dimensional shocks and crises.

We are translating this into action with the planning of future One Health campaigns in villages in the next few months where the One Health gardens were created. This will involve combined rabies vaccination campaigns and human health prevention campaings in remote villages. We need your support to help organize these campaigns which will raise awareness on the linkages between human health, animal health and environmental health and help prevent some zoonotc diseases such as rabies.

Following the success of our first One Health Garden for Aromatic and Medicinal Plant in the argan forest developed with the One Health Maroc association that we co-founded, a second garden has been launched in the cedar forest in Azrou. 

The cedar forest in the atlas has been recognized as a Unesco Biosphere Reservce, since it holds around 75%of the world population of cedar trees. The area also holds important wildlife populations including macaque monkeys. The One Health Garden of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants will enable young generations to discover and learn about the extraordinary biodiversity of this unique ecosystem which symbolizes resistance to climatic change. 

As climate change is now accelerating and intensifying, ensuring the transmission of unique and vital traditional knowledge about biodiversity is critical for the future of young generations.

Links:

• https://www.odysseyconservationtrust.com

Our garden of Aromatic and Medicinal plants , the first of its kind in Morocco, has grown amazingly thanks to the attention and great care of women from the argan oil cooperative. In addition to supplying families with free plants which they use daily for medicine and food, it attracts many visitors and fill local women with great pride. But with Morocco now facing the worst drought ever while food supplies have been largely disrupted by the war in Ukraine, this garden is proving to be an extremely precious supply of plants for vulnerable families. As neighbouring villages would like to see a similar project to develop in their localities, we need your support to provide them with the necessary basic equipment. Now is the time to build resilience  through One Health! 

Morocco is currently facing its worst drought in 30 years as there has been hardly rainfall and water  tables are at their lowest levels. In fact, water levels in dams have never been so low and farmers now have to sell their livestock at loss since there are no grazing pastures. Threatened cosystems like the argan forest are even more crucial to preserve now as they show greater resilience in the face of climate change compared to more cultivated landscapes. 

At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has also greatly impacted argan oil producers who could not export their products and saw a massive decrease in their revenues. More than ever do we need to help women in the argan forest to build resilience against climate change, which can be done through our Aromatic and Medicinal Plants Gardens in villages and running One Health education and preventive campaigns. We need your help for maintaining the first One Health garden ever developed in Morocco and for re-starting all the One Health campaigns we intiated before Covid.

Rabies is a zoonotic diseases that is entirely preventable through vaccination and we have already conducted rabies vaccination campaigns in the project area. However, cases of rabies can still occur when dogs remain unvaccinated, which happen with feral dogs roam free in the argan forest. The issue of feral dogs is a complex one: they don't belong to anybody specific but still people occasionnaly feed them in villages. In addition, they also find abundant food in large garbage dumps, some of which are spread around the argan forest.

On the occasion of World Rabies Day on September, 28th,  the feral dogs challenge was discussed at a round table organized by One Health Morocco with many stakeholders from various insitutions being present. After lengthy discussions looking at root causes of the problems in an inter-disciplinary manner - the very essence of One Health - it was agreed that a loophole in legislation on dogs' ownership was contributing to the problem of feral dogs. As a result, this issue is going to be examined in more depth in order to fill in legislation gaps and decrease the rabies threat represented by unvaccinated dogs. 

From field actions to policy making, this is One Health in Action in the argan forest and we need your support more than ever.