1. Towards an integrative scientific approach

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced longstanding scientific debates on the complex link between biodiversity and the emergence of infectious diseases (Daszak et al., Reference Daszak, das Neves, Amuasi, Hayman, Kuiken, Roche, Zambrana-Torrelio, Buss, Dundarova, Feferholtz, Foldvari, Igbinosa, Junglen, Liu, Suzan, Uhart, Wannous, Woolaston, Mosig Reidl and Ngo2020; Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Ostfeld and Keesing2015; Keesing et al., Reference Keesing, Belden, Daszak, Dobson, Harvell, Holt, Hudson, Jolles, Jones, Mitchell, Myers, Bogich and Ostfeld2010) as well as the factors driving the risk of disease spillover from wildlife into human populations (Han et al., Reference Han, Kramer and Drake2016). The IPBES workshop on biodiversity and pandemics has reviewed the scientific knowledge on the emergence of zoonotic diseases and concludes that ‘the underlying causes of pandemics are the same global environmental changes that drive biodiversity loss and climate change’ (Daszak et al., Reference Daszak, das Neves, Amuasi, Hayman, Kuiken, Roche, Zambrana-Torrelio, Buss, Dundarova, Feferholtz, Foldvari, Igbinosa, Junglen, Liu, Suzan, Uhart, Wannous, Woolaston, Mosig Reidl and Ngo2020). These factors notably include: accelerated urbanization (Ahmed et al., Reference Ahmed, Dávila, Allen, Haklay, Tacoli and Fèvre2019; Hassell et al., Reference Hassell, Begon, Ward and Fèvre2017), industrial agriculture (Jones et al., Reference Jones, Grace, Kock, Alonso, Rushton, Said, McKeever, Mutua, Young, McDermott and Pfeiffer2013), deforestation and land-use change (Gottdenker et al., Reference Gottdenker, Streicker, Faust and Carroll2014; Tucker Lima et al., Reference Tucker Lima, Vittor, Rifai and Valle2017), increased socio-economic inequality and poverty (Ahmed et al., Reference Ahmed, Dávila, Allen, Haklay, Tacoli and Fèvre2019; Garchitorena et al., Reference Garchitorena, Sokolow, Roche, Ngonghala, Jocque, Lund, Barry, Mordecai, Daily, Jones, Andrews, Bendavid, Luby, LaBeaud, Seetah, Guégan, Bonds and de Leo2017; Grace et al., Reference Grace, Mutua, Ochungo, Kruska, Jones, Brierley, Lapar, Said, Herrero, Phuc, Thao, Akuku and Ogutu2012) and ecotourism and global travel (Cascio et al., Reference Cascio, Bosilkovski, Rodriguez-Morales and Pappas2011). Most importantly, these factors are not restricted to regions and societal sectors but are strongly interdependent on spatial and temporal scales, which marks disease emergence as a ‘wicked problem’ without a straightforward problem definition and no definite solution (Ahmed et al., Reference Ahmed, Dávila, Allen, Haklay, Tacoli and Fèvre2019; Engler et al., Reference Engler, Abson and von Wehrden2020; van Woezik et al., Reference van Woezik, Braakman-Jansen, Kulyk, Siemons and van Gemert-Pijnen2016). Many scholars and practitioners claim that the reduction of infectious disease risk must be addressed in an interdisciplinary manner, not only integrating disease ecology, community ecology, epidemiology, veterinary medicine and agricultural science, but also a broad range of biodiversity and climate research into ‘One Health’ or ‘Ecohealth’ approaches (Daszak et al., Reference Daszak, das Neves, Amuasi, Hayman, Kuiken, Roche, Zambrana-Torrelio, Buss, Dundarova, Feferholtz, Foldvari, Igbinosa, Junglen, Liu, Suzan, Uhart, Wannous, Woolaston, Mosig Reidl and Ngo2020; FAO, OIE, WHO, 2019; Rohr et al., Reference Rohr, Civitello, Halliday, Hudson, Lafferty, Wood and Mordecai2020; Tollefson, Reference Tollefson2020; van Woezik et al., Reference van Woezik, Braakman-Jansen, Kulyk, Siemons and van Gemert-Pijnen2016).

This goes far beyond the challenge of finding science-based and technological solutions to environmental problems. Homo sapiens L. is not only a biological species, but also a social being embedded in communities and societies. Dealing with today's problems requires a thorough investigation of how they are caused by – and how they affect – society. This demands a broad integration of social sciences into biodiversity research. We become increasingly aware that problems of entangled patterns of nature and society are characteristic of the Anthropocene (Jahn et al., Reference Jahn, Hummel and Schramm2016). With humankind becoming a planetary geological force, we are facing the challenge to reconcile the local needs and plural notions of a ‘good life’ with the global dimension of the ecological crisis (Jahn et al., Reference Jahn, Hummel, Drees, Liehr, Lux, Mehring, Stieß, Völker, Winker and Zimmermann2020). Normative discourse and the integration of plural knowledge and practices, rather than authoritative approaches, will be required to achieve necessary social-ecological transformations.

2. Wildlife and livelihoods in the Global South

The COVID-19 pandemic had its origin in human encounters with wild mammals hunted and traded for consumption. The threat to health, livestock production and human well-being emerging from the increasing global market for wildlife pets and products and its legal and illegal supply chains is immense, even without accounting for COVID-19, as has been pointed out by the pandemics and biodiversity expert workshop of IPBES (Daszak et al., Reference Daszak, das Neves, Amuasi, Hayman, Kuiken, Roche, Zambrana-Torrelio, Buss, Dundarova, Feferholtz, Foldvari, Igbinosa, Junglen, Liu, Suzan, Uhart, Wannous, Woolaston, Mosig Reidl and Ngo2020). It is, thus, of great importance that measures are developed to reduce the opportunities for spillover of diseases from wildlife into human hosts. The limitation of global trade and supply chains for wildlife and wildlife products appears to be a valid course of action. However, regulation is not only a matter of legal frameworks and law enforcement. There is a high risk of assuming a Western-biased attitude when discussing the prevention of emergent zoonotic diseases in biodiverse regions, which are mostly located in the Global South (Pagani-Núñez, Reference Pagani-Núñez2020). Generally prescribed attempts on regulation, for example, on wildlife hunting and trading, may push local practices into bypassing the legal frameworks, if the rationale is not conclusive and livelihoods cannot be sustained without exercising the practice in question (Bonwitt et al., Reference Bonwitt, Dawson, Kandeh, Ansumana, Sahr, Brown and Kelly2018; Hinsley et al., Reference Hinsley, Challender, Veríssimo and Sas-Rolfes2020). The need for nutrition and traditional practices are duly acknowledged in the recent discussions around bans on wildlife trade and consumption in China, and subsidy schemes are suggested for phasing out harmful traditional practices of wildlife hunting and trade for medicinal use (Wang et al., Reference Wang, Shao, Luo, Chuai, Xu, Geng and Gao2020). However, beyond a mere mitigation of socio-economic hardship, effectively reducing the risk of emerging zoonoses will require a participatory consideration of the knowledge, cultural beliefs and heritages around food and biodiversity in indigenous and local communities (Matias et al., Reference Matias, Pinto, Ramnath and Jose2020). Future conservation research and policy making must heed the advice of the IPBES pandemics and biodiversity workshop to integrate indigenous engagement and knowledge into pandemic prevention programmes (Daszak et al., Reference Daszak, das Neves, Amuasi, Hayman, Kuiken, Roche, Zambrana-Torrelio, Buss, Dundarova, Feferholtz, Foldvari, Igbinosa, Junglen, Liu, Suzan, Uhart, Wannous, Woolaston, Mosig Reidl and Ngo2020).

3. Factory farming and disease vectors in the Global North

At the same time, we must not ignore the Western/European regional context for zoonotic disease emergence. For instance, game and deer hunting in Europe or North America seems not to be impugned in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Germany, public criticism on practices in industrial livestock production focused on the high infection rates among low-wage subcontractor workers, caused by the neglect of health and safety issues. The amplification of potential zoonotic diseases and antibiotic resistances emerging in factory farms, due to the constant increase of society's demand for low-price meat, are only marginal topics in the current discourse, although these have been longstanding recognized risk factors for emergent infectious diseases (Cascio et al., Reference Cascio, Bosilkovski, Rodriguez-Morales and Pappas2011; Daszak et al., Reference Daszak, das Neves, Amuasi, Hayman, Kuiken, Roche, Zambrana-Torrelio, Buss, Dundarova, Feferholtz, Foldvari, Igbinosa, Junglen, Liu, Suzan, Uhart, Wannous, Woolaston, Mosig Reidl and Ngo2020). This changed marginally, when in October 2020 a mutation of the coronavirus was spreading through Danish mink farms and was considered as a serious threat to the effectiveness of human vaccines against COVID-19 (Halabowski & Rzymski, Reference Halabowski and Rzymski2020; Oude Munnink et al., Reference Oude Munnink, Sikkema, Nieuwenhuijse, Molenaar, Munger, Molenkamp, van der Spek, Tolsma, Rietveld, Brouwer, Bouwmeester-Vincken, Harders, Hakze-van der Honing, Wegdam-Blans, Bouwstra, GeurtsvanKessel, van der Eijk, Velkers, Smit and Koopmans2020). Another neglected health issue related to climate change in the Global North is the shifting distribution range or new establishment of animal vectors for vector-borne diseases, such as ticks or the Asian bush mosquito (Mills et al., Reference Mills, Gage and Khan2010; Reuss et al., Reference Reuss, Kreß, Braun, Magdeburg, Pfenninger, Müller and Mehring2020; van Dijk et al., Reference van Dijk, Carss, Keune, Vikström, Flandroy, Rook, Haahtela, Mehring, Birzle-Harder, Reuss, Müller, Luque and Garcia Rodrigues2019). In central Europe, those become particularly relevant in (peri-)urban environments with their high diversity of ecological niches and high human population densities. Common preventive measures against the spread of the vector species often have harmful consequences for other insect species and entire ecosystems (e.g. the use of insecticides in wetlands of the upper Rhine floodplains to reduce mosquito populations). Instead, maintaining both, ecosystem integrity and human well-being, will require interventions in societal practices as well as the development of environmental-friendly technologies and regulations (Reuss et al., Reference Reuss, Kreß, Braun, Magdeburg, Pfenninger, Müller and Mehring2020; van Dijk et al., Reference van Dijk, Carss, Keune, Vikström, Flandroy, Rook, Haahtela, Mehring, Birzle-Harder, Reuss, Müller, Luque and Garcia Rodrigues2019).

Against the background of these very different regional examples, we notice that in the current discourse, the societal relations to nature with their specific regional and historical contexts are underrepresented, especially when it comes to drafting measures for reducing the risk of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases at a local level. It is important to acknowledge that, given the multitude of relations that societies have established with nature all across the world, there is not one single solution for the prevention of future pandemics. In addition to an interdisciplinary scientific perspective, the scope must be broadened to integrate the practical perspectives and plurality of values, as well as power relations present in communities and societies, in a fundamentally transdisciplinary approach.

4. A social-ecological perspective is essential

In this endeavour, a social-ecological perspective on biodiversity conservation is essential for setting the focus on the societal use of biodiversity as a linchpin for the emergence of zoonotic diseases and may offer opportunities to shape sustainable pathways for the benefit of ecosystems and human well-being. Formalizing the process of local problem framing into social-ecological systems (SES; Figure 1) makes both ecosystem functions as well as societal actors explicit and describes their reciprocal relationships through four mediating dimensions of (a) knowledge, (b) practices, (c) institutions and (d) technologies (Mehring et al., Reference Mehring, Bernard, Hummel, Liehr and Lux2017).

Figure 1. Analytical framework of social-ecological systems (SES) with four dimensions of knowledge, practices, institutions and technologies (modified from Mehring et al., Reference Mehring, Bernard, Hummel, Liehr and Lux2017). The six social-ecological principles for shaping transformations in the Anthropocene ((1) focusing on relations, (2) enabling coexistence, (3) defining and reflecting on limits, (4) dealing with complexity, (5) strengthening resilience, (6) participation of all actors) apply to the re-evaluation and adjustments of the social-ecological structures and processes, to leverage more sustainable options within the four SES dimensions.

In the case of wildlife consumption, an SES approach would cover these four dimensions by (Figure 1): (a) integrating knowledge that has not yet been formally incorporated into scientific frameworks, for example, by identifying local traditional and cultural values apart from a mere instrumental use of nature, and thereby contributing to the decolonization of Western scientific knowledge; (b) highlighting the societal practices around food and medicine that have high symbolic or traditional value for local communities, while identifying harmful practices as well as those that originate from external or systemic pressures and power relations, and particularly, from global trade and consumption patterns that drive the intensity of local practice of land-use and wildlife trade; (c) describing social norms and value systems as well as economic frameworks, legal norms and other manifested societal dependencies that constrain and enable people in their actions and shape local livelihoods; and identifying and exploring ways to transform these formal and informal institutions; (d) directing and refining the use of technologies that play a key role in the regulation of local food production and preventive health care, as well as in supply chains of global trade relations.

To mitigate the risk of new vector-borne diseases due to a range expansion of exotic disease vectors into peri-urban areas, the four dimensions of the approach would be framed as: (a) identifying knowledge gaps and translating scientific knowledge into practices to reduce vector populations that are environmentally friendly and easy to implement into everyday routines by households; (b) investigating the practices that drive a frequent encounter of humans and vector mosquitoes, for example, small water bodies in gardens or communal cemeteries; (c) developing and supporting institutions, for example, at municipalities and in civil society, to establish prevention campaigns and civic education on the drivers and practices causing disease vector range expansion; (d) identifying gaps in technological toolchains and building capacities for monitoring vector populations and pathogens, for example, via high throughput molecular analysis (Reuss et al., Reference Reuss, Kreß, Braun, Magdeburg, Pfenninger, Müller and Mehring2020).

These examples illustrate the specificity of the social-ecological approach to the local situation as well as the broad applicability of the SES concept (Liehr et al., Reference Liehr, Röhrig, Mehring and Kluge2017). The analytical methodology of SES outlined here serves to acquire specific system knowledge to understand the factors and interdependencies that underlie the problem and to gain orientation knowledge on possibilities and constraints for decision-making (Jahn et al., Reference Jahn, Bergmann and Keil2012). In a final step, a cooperative, transdisciplinary process leads to the production of transformation knowledge which provides practical opportunities and pathways to shape transformations of societal relations to nature (Becker, Reference Becker2002).

5. How to shape transformations in the Anthropocene?

Under the premises of the Anthropocene, the conclusion must be that no simple or globally applicable solutions for preventing zoonotic diseases can be found. Consequently, the focus should be on shaping societal relations to nature in a ‘collective, cooperative and experimental activity for a different today’, a continuous process of negotiating the plurality of ideas of a ‘good life’ and the possibilities of living on a finite planet (Jahn et al., Reference Jahn, Hummel, Drees, Liehr, Lux, Mehring, Stieß, Völker, Winker and Zimmermann2020). With the participatory production (and implementation) of transformation knowledge, social-ecological research thus goes beyond a mere system description and analyses of the status quo by facilitating the transformation of the processes and structures and providing orientation in order to steer the local system into a more sustainable trajectory. To guide such transdisciplinary research processes, Jahn et al. (Reference Jahn, Hummel, Drees, Liehr, Lux, Mehring, Stieß, Völker, Winker and Zimmermann2020) have developed six social-ecological principles for shaping transformations in the Anthropocene, which we apply to the challenge of biodiversity conservation as infectious disease prevention (Figure 1): (1) shifting the focus on relations between society and nature – as opposed to a framing of ‘nature as a resource’ – will reveal the benefits and harms that humans pose to nature – and vice versa! Just as relations between human beings have been put to a test in the face of COVID-19, we need to re-examine and readjust how we take responsibility for other species. (2) Enabling coexistence of different social groups, but also human and non-human subjects, is essential to overcome dominance and unequal power relations that drive harmful practices of biodiversity exploitation and displacement of wildlife and people, and to reinforce sustainable societal practices of stewardship and care, based on situated knowledge. (3) Defining and reflecting on limits, in terms of the spatial, temporal, social and ecological scales, will help us to clarify the subtle and multi-level boundaries within which the emergence of diseases takes place and at which opportunities of shaping transformations might be effective; thus, it can help bridge the scales from local, via regional to global disease prevention, for example, by raising awareness for the consequences that resource-intensive lifestyles and consumption patterns will have far beyond the immediate environment. (4) Dealing with complexity of social and natural entanglement requires acceptance of our limited degree of control: zoonotic diseases will continue to emerge, with fundamentally unpredictable impacts, and responsive and curative measures will have to be developed under conditions of uncertainty, lack of knowledge, but also rapidly evolving knowledge. However, preventive measures addressing the social-ecological perspective at a local scale can lower the frequency and hazard of epidemic and pandemic events globally; in contrast, uniform global prescriptions for prevention are likely to lead to unintended side effects on livelihoods, or to shifts in global supply chains that may be harmful in other local contexts. (5) Strengthening resilience of SES requires preserving and restoring high levels of biodiversity and thus, maintaining nature's regenerative processes and potential for pathogen regulation, but also the ability of people to act responsibly as stewards of the local environment while securing their livelihoods and traditional practices; reducing mandatory dependencies in provisioning systems, in supply chains or labour relations will provide alternative actions under the pressure of crises. (6) All these require participation of all actors – residents, businesses, practitioners, policy makers and diverse scientific disciplines – to enable legitimate and transparent intervention strategies that yield a high level of acceptance, but also reflect the plurality of ideas about a ‘good life’ as well as the capabilities to maintain or change rules, habits or traditions.

These six social-ecological principles for shaping transformations aim at creating novel research perspectives for biodiversity conservation and encouraging a transdisciplinary research mode on this topic. As a narrative, they also support integrating zoonotic disease prevention as a goal for conservation policy. We believe that the application of the social-ecological principles in research and decision-making will contribute to the development of a social-ecological biodiversity conservation approach: one that addresses plant, animal and ecosystem health alongside human health by integrating scientific disciplines as well as practical and local knowledge.