Abstract
The One Health approach recognizes the intrinsic connectivity between the health of humans, animals, and the environment. The Galapagos Islands are ideal for One Health studies due to the physical overlap of humans, domestic animals, and wildlife within a shared, fragile ecosystem. Researchers have long acknowledged the islands as a prime example of the tension between conservation and development, describing the “Galapagos Paradox” as the competing interests between preserving the islands and marketing them for tourism. The Galapagos Paradox implicitly recognizes the connection between human, animal, and environmental health by describing how actions in one sphere (human development) compromise the others (wildlife and environment). As such, much of the research conducted in the Galapagos has been influenced by the One Health paradigm, if not explicitly by name, at least in practice. This chapter will explore examples of One Health research in the Galapagos, with a particular emphasis on using the framework to understand environmental antibiotic resistance in relation to anthropogenic influence.
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Grube, A., Stewart, J. (2022). One Health in the Galapagos Social-Ecological System: Not Just the Absence of Disease. In: Thompson, A.L., Ochoa-Herrera, V., Teran, E. (eds) Water, Food and Human Health in the Galapagos, Ecuador. Social and Ecological Interactions in the Galapagos Islands. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92411-9_9
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