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Subject: Cargill Partners With Wildlife Conservation Society on Global Animal Health, Food Security
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damienjoly
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12/05/2007 11:52 PM  
**NEWS RELEASE**

CONTACT:      Stephen Sautner 1-718-220-3682; ssautner@wcs.org         
                          John Delaney 1-718-220-3275; jdelaney@wcs.org
                          Mark Klein 1-952-742-6211: mark_klein@cargill.com

Cargill Partners With Wildlife Conservation Society on Global Animal Health, Food Security

NEW YORK (December 4, 2007)—Cargill and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have formed a partnership to support global efforts to examine health links among humans, livestock, and wildlife, and to monitor for avian influenza and other diseases shared between people and animals.   
Cargill is committing $1.5 million for two initiatives spearheaded by WCS: expanding a global surveillance network for avian influenza in Indonesia and Vietnam, and introducing a grants program for animal health projects in Brazil.
 “Food security begins with healthy animals,” said Mike Robach, Vice President of Global Food Safety for Cargill.  “We believe that the health of wildlife and livestock are interconnected, and will require a multi-disciplinary approach in order to develop safe and effective food systems. WCS is a logical partner for Cargill given their experience and science-based approach with integrating animal health and wildlife conservation programs.”
In Brazil, Cargill will fund a new WCS initiative to support innovative projects that examine the health linkages among humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. The projects will be selected after a stringent assessment by a cross-sectoral committee of Brazilian experts.
With support from Cargill, WCS held a ground-breaking ‘One World-One Health’ Symposium in Brazil in October this year.  Brazilian science and policy experts from government, universities and non-profits collaborated with the livestock and poultry sectors of business to address shared issues on animal health and monitoring. The One World-One Health paradigm takes into account the complex ecological interactions among humans, domestic animals, and wildlife, and recognizes the interconnectivity of the well-being of each of these groups (www.OneWorldOneHealth.org).
“The meeting provided a collaborative forum for the participants and helped spark the grants program that will lead to a more integrated system of improving health across the various sectors of the country,” said Dr. William Karesh, Director of the Field Veterinary Program for WCS. “We’re hoping Brazil will take a leadership role in promoting the ‘One World-One Health’ model for other countries to emulate.”
In Vietnam and Indonesia where many serious outbreaks of avian influenza have occurred, the Cargill-WCS partnership will help expand the Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance (GAINS) program. In partnership with local government bodies, Cargill and WCS will train local teams to survey and monitor animals in market trade centers, allowing for the comparison of virulence in pathogens between market and wild bird populations. GAINS is a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder program for the collection and sharing of data on avian influenza to combat and control this and other diseases shared among wildlife, domestic animals and people (www.GAINS.org).

The Wildlife Conservation Society - Since 1895, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has worked to save wildlife and wild lands around the globe. Today WCS has field staff at work in more than 60 countries, protecting many of the last wild places left on our planet. To bring the mission home, the Bronx Zoo based WCS is distinguished as the only global conservation organization that also operates the world's largest system of urban wildlife parks, educating more than 4 million zoo and aquarium visitors each year about the importance of wildlife conservation.
 
Cargill is an international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products and services. With 158,000 employees in 66 countries, the company is committed to using its knowledge and experience to collaborate with customers to help them succeed. For more information, visit http://www.cargill.com.
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