Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Hawaii
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Human and ecosystem health are inextricably linked, yet strategies to improve both are addressed in siloed ways (Wakwella et al., 2023). For instance, the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector focuses on the provision of services for safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene to improve human health and wellbeing. However, although there is substantial evidence to show that unsafely managed sanitation degrades ecosystems and makes them more vulnerable to climate change (Wear et al., 2023), and that ecosystem loss and degradation negatively impacts human health (Herrera et al., 2017; Wakwella et al., 2023), the sanitation and conservation sectors rarely work in a coordinated and strategic way to achieve their interconnected goals. The Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) Improving Coastal Health working group formed in 2020 to develop resources to help marine conservation and sanitation practitioners work together on integrated conservation and sanitation programs. Informed by the outcomes of a needs assessment launched in 2021 to better understand the challenges and opportunities related to integrated programs, we created this document as a first step towards providing advice on implementing integrated conservation and sanitation programs. The purpose of this guide is: -Create awareness among stakeholders about the impacts of poor sanitation and wastewater pollution on ocean health and the importance of more integrated solutions. -Outline the benefits of an integrated approach for achieving human and ecosystem health goals and simultaneously improving climate resilience. -Provide guidance to the conservation and sanitation sectors on how to work in partnership. The information contained in this guide is primarily aimed at actors who could participate in the sanitation-conservation interface, including practitioners from both sectors, investors, governments, research scientists, and private businesses. We focus on domestic wastewater pollution impacts on tropical coastal marine ecosystems, including mangroves, seagrass, and coral reefs, although we reference other coastal systems when relevant. This resource is also flexible enough for the guidance to be adapted for other coastal and marine environments. Freshwater ecosystems are considered in this guide in their role as transportation of diffuse pollution, but the specific impacts of wastewater pollution on freshwater aquatic life are not included. Other land-based sources of pollution, including from agriculture and development (e.g., agrochemicals, chemical contaminants, sediments) are also outside the scope of this guide, as there are already several resources on addressing these sources of pollution. We hope this is the first of many resources to help guide collaboration and coordination across sectors to achieve human and ecosystem health goals.