New roadmap urges One Health to embed Indigenous knowledge
Bottom line
A new Frontiers in Veterinary Science article argues that One Health needs to do more than acknowledge Indigenous and Local Knowledge, or ILK. It lays out a practical roadmap for bringing ILK into One Health research, governance, education, and implementation, with an emphasis on equity, co-creation, and shared decision-making. The paper, led by Julie Garnier and colleagues, frames this as a response to overlapping pressures including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, health inequities, and the limits of top-down health systems. It also points to case examples where ILK contributed across human, animal, and ecosystem health, including endemic breed stewardship, disease resilience, medicinal plant use, water conservation, and intergenerational knowledge transfer. (frontiersin.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the paper adds to a broader shift in One Health from theory to implementation. Global One Health bodies, including the WHO-hosted One Health High-Level Expert Panel and the Quadripartite partners, are increasingly emphasizing knowledge exchange, governance, and country-level implementation, including Indigenous and community knowledges. That matters because published reviews suggest local communities and Indigenous groups are still underrepresented in real-world One Health programs, despite being central to surveillance, prevention, and trust-building at the community level. For veterinarians working in public health, food systems, wildlife interfaces, or rural practice, the roadmap reinforces that better outcomes may depend as much on how partnerships are built as on the technical intervention itself. (who.int)
What to watch: Expect this conversation to move from principles to implementation, especially as global One Health groups continue developing governance and implementation tools through 2026. (who.int)
A newly published Frontiers in Veterinary Science paper is pushing One Health toward a more explicit reckoning with Indigenous and Local Knowledge. In “Embedding indigenous and local knowledges with one health: a roadmap for convergence and synergies,” Julie Garnier and co-authors argue that ILK should be treated as a core part of One Health practice, not an optional add-on, if the field is going to respond credibly to climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and persistent health inequities. (frontiersin.org)
That argument lands at a moment when One Health is broadening beyond its earlier emphasis on cross-sector coordination alone. The WHO says the One Health High-Level Expert Panel serves as the scientific and strategic advisory group to the Quadripartite partnership of FAO, UNEP, WHO, and WOAH, and recent updates show those organizations are actively building tools around implementation, governance, and barriers to uptake. FAO has also said the Quadripartite is promoting Indigenous and community knowledges as part of stronger evidence and decision-making systems. (who.int)
The new paper’s central claim is that convergence between ILK and One Health is both overdue and practical. Frontiers’ summary says the roadmap focuses on transdisciplinary collaboration, governance reform, transformative learning, and knowledge co-production. The article also highlights examples of ILK contributions across One Health domains, from community-based breeding of endemic animals and disease resistance to sustainable medicinal plant use, water conservation, forest regeneration, and ecosystem stewardship. In other words, the authors are not just making a philosophical case; they’re trying to show that local knowledge systems already shape animal, human, and environmental health outcomes in ways formal institutions often overlook. (frontiersin.org)
That framing is consistent with a wider literature now questioning how inclusive One Health really is in practice. A 2025 Cambridge University Press piece on respectful use of Indigenous knowledge systems in One Health says many Indigenous communities have long understood the inseparability of human, animal, and ecosystem health, while noting that relatively few One Health initiatives have meaningfully recognized or worked with those systems. A recent scoping review of One Health implementation similarly found that local communities and Indigenous groups were involved in only a small minority of mapped programs, even as the authors described them as essential to contextualization, sustainability, and grassroots delivery. (cambridge.org)
There’s also a growing editorial and policy current behind this. A January 27, 2026, Nature Sustainability editorial tied One Health more directly to sustainability goals, while a separate 2026 commentary argued that partnership is possible only if the One Health community clearly recognizes Indigenous rights and Indigenous knowledge systems. Taken together, those publications suggest the Garnier paper is part of a larger push to redefine what counts as expertise in One Health, and who gets to shape interventions before, during, and after implementation. (nature.com)
Why it matters: For veterinarians, this is more than a language shift. In surveillance, outbreak response, herd health, wildlife health, and climate-linked disease planning, the paper points toward a model where community knowledge is treated as operational intelligence, not just local context. That could affect how veterinary teams design sentinel systems, approach risk communication, build compliance, and work with pastoral, Indigenous, or remote communities. It also aligns with a parallel Frontiers review on zoonotic spillover in Africa, which argues that cultural practices, wildlife trade, climate change, and migration interact in ways that demand more integrated, locally grounded surveillance design. (frontiersin.org)
The harder question is whether institutions will change fast enough to match the rhetoric. Reviews of One Health implementation still describe a field led mainly by governments and academic institutions, with weaker reporting on monitoring, evaluation, and community participation. So while the new roadmap offers a useful framework, its practical value for veterinary professionals will depend on whether funders, regulators, universities, and cross-sector health programs start building ILK into training, governance, and program design from the outset, rather than inviting communities in after decisions are already made. That is an inference based on the implementation gaps identified in the review literature and the governance direction signaled by global One Health bodies. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
What to watch: Watch for whether this roadmap is cited in future One Health guidance, training, and implementation frameworks, especially as the Quadripartite and OHHLEP continue releasing governance and implementation materials through late 2026. (who.int)