The implications of climate change for Veterinary Services

Abstract

Climate change affects the entire veterinary domain. Veterinary Services must, therefore, add climate change to their list of responsibilities. Although the goals of preventing disease, maintaining productivity, and sustaining healthy systems will remain, the form and scope of Veterinary Services will need to change. Climate change will have direct and indirect impacts on determinants of animal health in multiple, interacting ways, across a range of scales. Veterinary Services will need to work across the spectrum of health determinants if they intend to both address pre-existing problems expected to worsen with climate change and prepare for unanticipated threats. Animals will feel the impact of climate change through multiple, often interacting, means including changing patterns of infectious diseases, increased exposure to heat, contaminants and extreme weather, changes in access to the natural resources they need for daily living and shifts in animal ecology, sociobiology and population dynamics. To meet expectations for action across the veterinary domain, Veterinary Services need to: a) provide services to mitigate impacts; b) reduce population vulnerability to lessen those impacts; c) enhance population resilience to avoid impacts; and d) address climate change risks at their sources. Health intelligence that combines hazard surveillance with population reconnaissance (to determine vulnerability) will be needed to adaptively allocate resources. Rather than focus on risk management only, programmes will need to include capacity building for healthy, resilient animal populations and animal health systems. Transformative changes are needed to allow Veterinary Services to address the inter-related challenges of sustainable development, climate change, and biodiversity loss. This will require partnerships and governance models that share and integrate knowledge and understanding of changes in global and local socio-ecological systems.