Piloting Community Rangeland Health Workers (CRHWs) in Ethiopia: A ground-breaking innovation for One Health application in pastoral areas

Rangelands are the cornerstone of African pastoral and agro-pastoral production systems. Rangelands are not only the resource base for these systems, but also provide a wide range of ecosystem services such as storage of carbon, significant wildlife and plant diversity, and landscape functionality. Maintaining the health of these rangelands is vital for the health of the livestock and people who depend on them. When rangelands health declines through loss of grass cover and topsoil, invasion of alien and non-palatable species or encroachment of bush, both livestock and people suffer. In turn, the health of the rangelands is integrally linked to the actions of livestock and humans, with grazing, hoof impact, spread of seeds of invasive species, and use of management tools such as fire or planned grazing all having an impact on rangelands health.

In response to this, the CGIAR Research Initiative on Livestock and Climate working with the HEAL project (One Health for Humans, Environment, Animals and Livelihoods), has been demonstrating how the environment and rangelands health can and should be integrated into One Health interventions in pastoral areas. HEAL is being implemented by Vétérinaires Sans Frontières Suisse (lead), Amref Health Africa and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. As one of few One Health projects incorporating tangible approaches to ecosystem health at the local level, it is ground-breaking in its approach.

HEAL was established in 2019, with funding from the Swiss Development Cooperation. It is a twelve-year project that seeks to establish sustainable, demand-driven and cost-effective service delivery models, in the form of "One Health Units" (OHUs). According to the OHU model, service providers and community-based actors working in human/animal/environmental health work together to provide services in hard-to-reach communities. Community-based actors are key implementors of the OHUs. In Ethiopia, for livestock, there is a well-established system of community-animal health workers (CAHWs) and for humans, there are health extension workers (HEWs), but for the environment or more specifically rangelands, there is no equivalent.

In response to this, ILRI is testing out the innovative concept of community rangeland health workers (CRHWs). Following a review of current practice and lessons learned from HEWs and CAHWs, and consultations with experts including researchers, government and community members, it was agreed that CRHWs would be supported, at least initially, to provide information and raise awareness on invasive species and noxious plants and establish a community rangeland health monitoring system. To instill opportunities for the CRHWs to be self-supporting, nurseries for growing and selling grass and tree seedlings are being established.

Community rangeland health workers can play a key role in raising awareness and providing technical support on rangeland health as part of local One Health implementation. Photo by Kristen Tam/ILRI.

The selection criteria for CRHWs, their roles, institutionalisation, resources needed, potential income sources, regulations, legal and political considerations and alignment with a nation-wide pastoral extension are proving to be important points of consideration. Collaborative design between scientists, NGOs, government and communities from the beginning has been important for science-based decision-making, ongoing capacity building and increasing the likelihood of uptake by government and communities.

Community rangeland monitoring is important for maintain rangelands health and measuring impact of One Health interventions. Photo bu Kristen Tam/ILRI.

Story by Fiona Flintan and Abule Ero.

Photo: In the Osobey-Globo rangeland unit in the Filtu Woreda of Ethiopia, supported by the PRM project, a pastoralist waters his camels from the pond during the short dry season. Photo by Mohammed Said/ILRI.

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