Floriane O'Keeffe, Author at EcoEvo@TCD

This past August, I was lucky enough to visit the Galapagos Islands during my travels through South America. My visit here was quite possibly the highlight of my trip, with plenty to keep me thoroughly engrossed.

Set some 1000 km off the coast of South America, the Galapagos Islands were first stumbled upon by Tomas de Berlanga in 1535 when his ship was blown off course during a voyage between Panama and Peru. It was almost three hundred years later before the first human briefly settled on the islands, in 1807. However, this was due more to necessity than desire, as the settler in question was marooned on the islands. The islands were eventually made famous by Charles Darwin, who visited aboard the HMS Beagle in 1835, and used his observations of the island species as the basis for his “Origin of Species”.

An array of some of the commonly sighted species in the Galapagos: a blue-footed booby rests *in the foreground* with a juvenile marine iguana to its right. Behind it are a Galapagos penguin and a Sally lightfoot crab.

Last week, the Zoology department hosted the first Irish One Health workshop, welcoming speakers and attendees from a range of disciplines. This gathering provided an opportunity to discuss the One Health initiative, which aims to solve world health problems through transdisciplinary collaboration, through a series of short presentations discussing various aspects of global health, and ample time for discussion between attendees, including representatives from the DAFM, EPA, HSE and AFBI.

Our own Dr Peter Stuart, who organised this workshop, gave a fascinating introduction to the concept of One Health, using the example of Hookworm in the American South during the 20^th century as proof that we need to work collaboratively to solve current health issues.

Photo credit: @Horse_Techie Continue reading “Exploring the One Health Initiative in the Irish context”