ZOE Project Horizon Europe

Changes in biodiversity associated with ecosystem degradation are increasingly recognized as an important driver for the emergence and spread of infectious diseases in wildlife, domestic animals, and humans. Anthropogenic activities often lead to land use and land cover changes from natural, biodiverse habitats to homogenized and biotically depleted landscapes. These landscapes are characterized by impoverished wild species communities that demonstrate resilience to anthropogenic pressures and tend to favour generalist, synanthropic and commensal hosts and vectors of zoonotic diseases. The ZOE consortium aims at advancing the understanding of the effects of ecosystem degradation in the form of deforestation and associated biodiversity loss on the risk of emergence of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, and at better defining the protective value of forest ecosystem restoration. It fully embraces a holistic, integrated, inter- and transdisciplinary One Health approach to the links between human, animal, and environmental health.