 Okay, so, Dennis, please, can you tell us a bit about yourself and the Global Rome project and how you became interested in One Health? Well, my story, in terms of One Health, it goes back about 15 years. When I became involved, I led our US Agency for International Development's response to the avian influenza outbreaks of 2005. Avian influenza turned my world upside down in a very positive way because I began to understand through avian influenza that the challenges for the challenge of meeting a threat like avian influenza, it wasn't something you could do simply working through the Ministry of Health and Health Clinics. That, in fact, the complex dynamics involving how a virus that initiated its journey from wild waterfowl into domestic livestock, ducks, chickens, and ultimately made its way to people, it really said something to me, which was if I really wanted to protect the health of people, I couldn't wait for that very first person to get infected because it was clear the rate at which a highly contagious version of avian influenza would spread through a human population, it would outpace our ability to develop a vaccine to develop pharmaceuticals. And if we were really smart, what we really had to do was to reach further upstream back into its native home. That is back into the animal population. And so the avian influenza made me understand that the chapeau for public health was much broader and much more inclusive, reached beyond the Ministry of Health and Human Health issues. It really required that we had to partner with the livestock community, the wildlife community, and even more importantly, the environmental community. It's that combustible interactive dynamic that brings wildlife and livestock and people together. And it's really related to the disruptive effects we're having on the ecosystem that allows that dynamic interaction to occur. That it said to me that if we were going to be successful, we had to reimagine our whole notion of what a effective public health response needed to be like. One health, which was really the emerging paradigm that really said we had to tear down the barriers between the public health community, the animal health community, and the eco health community. We really had to be smart and we had to move with the kind of resilience and elasticity that viruses move through. They don't pay attention to these artificial barriers and we've managed to construct silos and barriers in ways that allows viruses, bacteria, to exploit them to the max. So smart way forward, one health, bringing together the communities of these very important sectors. It's a mutual beneficial relationship after all is said and done. We get it right for viruses, we'll get it right for the ecosystem, we'll get it right for animal health, and we'll get it right for human health. Yeah, really, really important messages I think for the audience here at the Global Landscapes Forum and to start thinking beyond just landscapes and how landscapes connect with humans and livestock and the health of all of these. So can you then, because that's so important for the audience here, could you explain a little bit more why you think it's important, particularly from a landscapes thinking point of view? How can we get the landscape supporters and thinkers here at the Global Landscapes Forum to start thinking about these connections and how to move forward in promoting these connections? Absolutely. Look, one of the biggest challenges we had, if we were going to in effect move from reacting to future viral threats to being proactive to go to the virus before it came to us, we had to understand why it is viruses circulating in wildlife, what triggered them? What were the underlying drivers that propelled the virus that had been for EON circulating in isolation in a wildlife community to make its way to spill over into the human community? And we began doing some deep analytic work to try and understand what were those drivers and what we found was that the single biggest predictor of where we could find the risk of spillover greatest was where we saw land use change most significant, which meant that as we moved our settlements, we moved our agricultural footprints proximal to these wildlife species. Ultimately, it was the wildlife species that had the greatest ability to cohabitate with human populations and our livestock. And those populations really were the risky wildlife species that elevated the probability of a spillover event. And so as we began abutting our farms against forest and jungle domains, we found that bats, rodents, even non-human primates, all carriers of novel potential viral threats to us, they learned how to live with us. And we find time after time after time that the jumping of a virus from a wildlife animal into us is closely associated with these wildlife populations that have learned to live with us. And it's really that disruptive interaction, landscape disruption. So we have these issues, we have these problems. What do you think needs to be done globally then to try and reverse these negative trends of land use change that are such a trigger for pandemics and also for other crises as well? Well, really the very first step is that the professional community, the public health professionals, the veterinarians, wildlife and conservation specialists, the ecosystem specialists, we have to tear down the barriers between us. These silos that we've built around our professions are the greatest impediment to our being able to really better manage the risks and better manage the shared impact that we're having on this planet. We need to begin developing a comprehensive whole of community, if you will, approach that allows us to bring public health professionals, veterinarians, wildlife specialists, conservationists, landscape professionals into a shared understanding that if we don't better one, manage our footprint on this planet. And by footprint, I mean how disruptive we are on land use, how disruptive we are on the ecosystems than all of the associated problems that we're seeing with emerging viral diseases, climate change, all of these are issues that are really putting our entire, not just planet, our species at risk. So if we want to have an impact, first we have to begin forging a much stronger shared community approach towards addressing these future challenges, because quite frankly, as we move further into the 21st century, more and more people, we're going to have close to 12 billion people by the end of this century, which means if we are not more thoughtful, our footprint is going to continue to impact this planet that leads us vulnerable to all of these related threats, new viral diseases, extreme weather events that really put us at risk. So if we want to have a global impact, we need to begin organizing our local efforts in a way that make us one community that is committed to the health of the planet. And by extension, we will find healthy humans, healthy ecosystems, healthy animals. I mean, I completely get what you're saying, but if I think back to how the this current COVID-19 pandemic has been responded to globally, we see such huge gaps in the global response. I mean, even sitting here in Rome and looking at the response of the European Union, it hasn't been, we haven't even been able to be coordinated within Europe. And I just wonder, what can we as scientists, or as landscape supporters, or as community members, what can we do to really help strengthen what really does need to be a global response in the future? Look, I think many of us in this field understood that the issue of a new viral threat, major global epidemic or pandemic, it was not a question of if it was always a question of when. So the emergence of the COVID-19 virus, no surprise, it did not sort of, I think, surprise any of us that it emerged as it did. What did shock me, and I think many of my colleagues, was the absolute failure of the global community to come together as a global community to respond to what is a global threat, not just to health. It's a global threat to our economies and our social well-being. And it's that absolute failure of the global community to act as a global community. It's really most shocking. And I don't think we can divorce that failure of response to what, in fact, has been a very disturbing trend over the last five years. The rise of nationalism, populism, really has fragmented the global networks and the global partnerships that had been the backbone of much of the work that we had done in previous decades from the global health community. When we look at how we responded to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, how we looked at how we responded to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, or even avian influenza, it was a global response that brought together multiple sectors, multiple communities, multiple governments, multiple interests. So we've seen that we can do it. So I think first and foremost, we need to remind ourselves that working as a global community is something that we've demonstrated the ability to do in the past. And we need to recommit ourselves to forging those alliances so that when we are faced with the next threat, and there will be a next threat sooner than later, we need to use this COVID-19 pandemic as a teaching moment. We need to understand the failures that we've had and understand what we need to do. And at the core of that is global leadership and global partnership. But with that said, I also want to say, even in the failure of the political community being able to come together, we have seen the scientific community act as a global community. We've seen their ability to share data, the ability to rush forward in ways that are historic with the development of vaccines for this virus. Now, it's still maybe the vaccines that are developed will or won't be effective. That's still a story to be told. But the process of developing those vaccines has been probably one of the most extraordinary global scientific ventures in the last several decades. And it reflects the kind of open and not perfectly transparent, but certainly the way the scientific community is provided an example for what the global community needs to do. So I would say to the scientists in the audience today, you have led by example. Let's make sure our politicians learn from us. And let's remind ourselves, we do have examples of how we can work together. Let's, you know, recommit ourselves and bring our political brothers and sisters into the shared space that our scientific brothers and sisters have been able to execute so well. Lead by example, we can do it. Let me just end by quoting Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein, you know, reminded us that we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. It's the definition of madness. We collectively, the scientific community as leaders need to remind the world we have to bring a new vision, a new understanding to the problems around us. We need to be challenged by what Albert Einstein said. If we're going to solve the problems of the world, we need a new way of thinking, a new way of partnering, and a new way of understanding our place on this planet. And we need to use that understanding to forge a new alliance. So I wish I were able to participate directly in this meeting. I look forward to a future when this forum will allow us to meet face to face. It's a place of great work. And I'm a major enthusiast for how we can use the energy of a forum like this to make the world a better place. So thank you very much for the opportunity. Well, I think those are excellent messages for us to take forward over the next couple of days in the Global Landscapes Forum. You've given us a strong role here as scientists and conservationists and environmentalists to play. And I think most importantly to find ways to build these alliances. Thank you so much, Dennis. Thank you.