What can Indigenous People Teach the World About One Health?

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When COVID-19 started spreading around the world, many groups of indigenous people knew just what to do. They retreated into the forests they knew so well, an isolation practice that had helped their forebears survive countless other outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics.

But their survival skills didn’t stop there. Away from modern methods of food production, they turned to their knowledge of local, traditional foods to stay comfortable and healthy.

Dr. Carol Zavaleta-Cortijo, a public health researcher at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, studies indigenous groups such as the Shawi people in the Amazonian region of Peru and the Irula and Kurumba communities in Tamil Nadu, India. During the pandemic, she found that these groups made good use of their skills and knowledge that had been passed down orally over generations to get through the pandemic. She says these skills will help them survive the effects of climate change and other disasters as well.

Many indigenous communities applied the One Health approach – acknowledging the interconnectedness of the health of the environment, animals, and humans – in their way of life before the term was coined. In this episode of One World, One Health, Dr. Zavaleta-Cortijo chats with host Maggie Fox about what she’s learned from these indigenous groups, and what all of us can learn from them about resilience and protecting our planet.