Innovative Aloe vera ventures: Community Rangeland Health Workers paving the way for healthy people and healthy rangelands

The One Health approach connects the health of humans, animals, and the environment. By fostering collaboration across sectors and disciplines, it aims to improve community health, ecosystem resilience, and overall well-being. Building on this principle, the One Health for Humans, Environment, Animals, and Livelihoods (HEAL) project promotes a participatory, context-specific One Health Unit (OHU) service-delivery model. Implemented jointly by Vétérinaires Sans Frontières Suisse, Amref Health Africa, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the project currently operates in pastoral areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, which share similar climatic, cultural, and livelihood contexts.

Through the One Health Unit model, the HEAL project delivers integrated human, animal, and environmental/rangeland health services at the community level. In Ethiopia, rangeland health represents a central focus of the HEAL project’s environmental pillar, implemented by ILRI.

Rangelands are vital to Ethiopia’s pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods, supporting livestock production, biodiversity conservation, and a range of ecosystem services. However, these rangelands face increasing pressure from recurrent droughts, climatic variability, the spread of invasive plant species, rangeland degradation, weakening traditional management systems, and rising land-use conflicts. These challenges threaten both pastoral livelihoods and national food security. Shortage of skilled community-level rangeland management actors to effectively oversee rangeland health and restoration has further compounded the situation. Whereas there are human and animal health extensionists and community workers, there has been no well-functioning rangeland health extension system or community rangeland health workers.

To address this gap and strengthen the environmental component of the HEAL project, twelve Community Rangeland Health Workers (CRHWs) were selected from Somali and Oromia, trained, and integrated into existing OHUs. These CRHWs work alongside human health extension workers and community-based animal health workers to provide coordinated services at the community level. The 12 trained CRHWs educate and raise awareness about rangeland health, particularly control of invasive species, monitoring rangeland condition, supporting rehabilitation of degraded areas, and promoting sustainable use of rangeland resources. Additionally, the CRHWs started demonstrating rangeland resource-focused livelihood income generation, such as honey production, tree seedling, and aloe vera planting.

On 4 November 2025, the project team conducted visits to Silala Kebele, one of HEAL project sites, it has established CRHWs. The team met Mr. Malicha Guyo, a pastoralist living in Silala Kebele in Miyo Woreda, Borana Zone. During his work, Mr. Malicha observed the exploitation of wild aloe vera plants for syrup production, sold for 250 birr per liter (1.72 USD). He fears that if this continues, aloe vera will disappear from the area. Although aloe vera grows naturally in Borana and the local community have used it for medicinal purposes, fencing, and skincare, community members reported that presently, people are collecting the plants in excess and processing the syrup for sale around Moyale.

Recognizing this challenge, Mr. Malicha purchased and planted aloe vera plants rather than harvesting wild plants. He hopes that a cooperative can resume processing aloe vera into soap, as it had stopped production following the closure of an NGO-supported project. Following ILRI training for the CRHWs on invasive species and better rangeland management, he cleared an area where the invasive plant Parthenium had taken over and instead planted aloe vera next to his bee hives, as he found that the bees enjoyed the aloe vera flowers and were more productive.

ILRI will train Mr. Malicha and others in improving honey production, as well as scope out opportunities to revitalize the aloe vera cooperative. Such links between people, rangelands, and animals are the core of the One Health approach.

Acknowledgement
The HEAL project is a “One Health” initiative for Humans, Environment, Animals and Livelihoods in pastoralist and agro-pastoralist areas of East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia). Its goal is to improve the well-being and resilience of vulnerable communities by providing integrated human and animal health services, promoting sustainable natural resource management, and building local capacity through coordinated action across different sectors. This project is funded by the Swiss Development Cooperation and implemented by Vétérinaires sans Frontières Suisse, Amref Health Africa, and ILRI. Additional support is provided by the Ballmer Foundation and the CGIAR Science Program on Multifunctional Landscapes. The Program thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.