This chapter provides an overview of the history and core principles of One Health: a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach that aims to achieve optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnections between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. It explores One Health’s role in ape conservation, in the context of the challenges of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.
To highlight the diverse applications of One Health in supporting ape conservation, the chapter presents case studies on various themes: community health, ecosystem health methods, capacity building, land use, internal health, translational medicine, and ecosystem conservation.
Key findings include:
- The complex challenges of improving ape conservation must be contextualized within global sustainability goals. One Health is a mechanism for success here.
- The One Health approach to solving health issues converges with those of related fields, including ecosystem health, conservation medicine, and planetary health.
- One Health principles and approaches have a clear role to play in multiple facets of ape health, welfare, and conservation, as evidenced by an expanding set of case studies in areas as diverse as ecology, disaster preparedness, public health, community development, tertiary education, veterinary science, microbiology, science communication, land tenure and environmental law, and resource management.