Optimizing Health Across Humans, Animals, Plants, and Ecosystems: How Long Before Benefits Turn Harmful—and Harm Becomes Healing?

Abstract

The One Health framework endorsed by the quadripartite (World Health Organization, World Organisation for Animal Health, Food and Agriculture Organization, and United Nations Environment Program) is defined, in part, as an “integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems,” and it explicitly refers to the health of plants as part of the whole interrelated system to consider. Although the ultimate issue is the planet's habitability for humans, the definition introduces a shift in perspective—human health is no longer the sole priority but must be balanced and optimized alongside the health of animals, plants, and ecosystems. This raises some practical and ethical questions. Drawing on case studies and the framework of the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) on the values of nature, this study explores the implications of a global approach to health, with the ethical and practical questions that it raises.