Ebola, SARS, MERS, and now COVID-19: all of these highly contagious viruses have caused a global crisis, and they have been transmitted to humans from wild animals that reside in dense tropical forests.
Most emerging pathogens that infect humans have come from animals, many of which live in the forest habitats that we are burning or slashing to create land for crops.
We are exposed to wildlife when we try to clear forest habitants, making us vulnerable to pathogens that could even kill us. So, the more we clear the forests, the more we are exposed to microbes swapped by animals, increase the risk of new strains.
Deforesting also reduces biodiversity. The species that survive are will host illnesses that could be transmitted to humans, leading to more spillover of animal microbes into people.
So, what do we need to do? Stop deforestation!
Stopping deforestation will reduce our exposure to new pathogens and the spread of a wide range of vicious diseases that come from forest habitats, such as malaria, cholera, Zika, Nipah, HIV, and others.
One recent study found that only a 10 percent increase in deforestation would increase malaria cases by more than 3 percent across the world. Even after years of global outcry, deforestation is still rampant. Since 2016, nearly 30 million hectares of forest have been cut down annually.
Experts advise stopping deforestation to prevent a health crisis. Also, they advise eating less meat, which will lessen the demand for crops and pastures. In addition, eating fewer processed foods will reduce the demand for palm oil, one of the major feedstocks for biofuel.
Some experts recommend producing more food per hectare, which can boost supply without the need to clear more land.
Public health officials and epidemiologists want to study wild habitats and test mammals that are known to carry coronaviruses, such as bats, badgers, rodents, civets, pangolins and monkeys, in order to understand how the pathogens are moving. And then they could test nearby humans.
In September 2019, a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic began in Wuhan, China, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that it would stop funding for PREDICT, a 10-year effort to hunt and understand more than 1,000 pathogens.
USAID said it will launch a new surveillance program and it urged the government to supply enough money to cast a wider and stronger net.
Meanwhile, governments have been called to prohibit the sale of wild animals in the market, where pathogens have been transmitted to humans.
Governments are also advised to crack down on illegal wildlife trade, which could increase the risk of infectious diseases across the world.
Stopping deforestation and preventing pandemics would address the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, such as the “guarantee of healthy lives, zero hunger, gender equality, responsible consumption and production, sustainably managed land, and climate action.”
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a global disaster, with officials reporting more than 3,402,000 confirmed cases and over 239,600 deaths so far. The article originally appeared in Scientific American.
