Research shows there is a growing body of evidence that green spaces improve human health, mood and longevity and the term ‘blue health” is now being advocated to describe the connection with water and the positive psychological impact on human health.

Good quality, resilient, biodiverse greenspaces have served humanity for millennia, and yet increasingly, we have not given these greenspaces the respect they deserve as we become more urbanised and detached.

Australia has an unenviable track record of mammal extinctions; we’ve introduced a myriad of predators and competitive grazers, scarred the landscape, introduced toxins and continue to remove habitat. We see climate change pushing the boundaries of mammal physiology, fires devastating huge tracks of land and the nature within, and bleaching of our coral reefs while harmful algal blooms menace our marine diversity

How can we push back at all this doom, gloom and blooms? How can we improve our greenspaces and ‘blue spaces’ and improve the biodiversity within and yet still feed ourselves? Is there a role for veterinarians? You bet!!

The webinar will take you on a journey from anguish to hope, attempting to envision what role veterinarians can contribute to healthy greenspaces now and into the future. We will include some definitions and the essential need to broaden veterinary education to include wildlife, biodiversity and ecosystem health and one health, the benefits of regenerative farming and the need for more post graduate opportunities.

We will examine how veterinarian can become more involved in supporting healthy greenspace and their biodiversity, from vets in practice, to vets working in policy, to specialised wildlife vets and One health practitioners.

We will investigate the need for vets in practice to successfully triage and manage sick and injured wildlife especially for apex predators such as raptors and act for disease surveillance. We will touch on how vets can work sustainably, reducing their environmental foot print and they can champion conservation programs they support in clinics through educational posters and website links. We will even show how one practice can investigate the health of greenspaces by interrogating the health of free-ranging wildlife as part of their day-to-day work
We will explore the role of vets in specialist wildlife hospitals and sanctuaries and other roles such as wildlife pathologists, emergency management vets and their role in translocation and rewilding programs, including disease risk analysis.

In essence, what we need is Vets for Healthy Greenspaces!!