Deforestation Causes Viral Pandemics

One of the world’s most prominent virus-hunters is Peter Piot, who co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976.
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"We are living in the age of pandemics,” he says . . . the fundamental reason is that we failed to live in harmony with nature.”
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destruction of the natural world makes it more likely that new viruses will emerge and spill over into human populations.
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“It doesn’t matter if you are a gorilla or a human, if you have a disturbed forest, you have a shift,” says Fabian Leendertz, head of the Leendertz Lab at the Robert Koch Institute and Nobel’s PhD adviser. “You suddenly have diseases which become very abundant which were not abundant before.
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Developing futuristic broad vaccines and cataloguing every zoonotic virus on the planet are both compelling ideas — but many years away from becoming reality. What else can be done in the meantime? Addressing the environmental destruction at the root of many new diseases is one option, albeit a difficult one. The logging of the Amazon rainforest — another hotspot for disease emergence — is of particular concern right now for ecologists and epidemiologists.
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Researchers on the front lines say it is impossible to separate human health from the health of our natural world.

www.ft.com...

The clear link between deforestation and virus emergence suggests that a major effort to retain intact forest cover would have a large return on investment even if its only benefit was to reduce virus emergence events.

science.sciencemag.org...

Halting and reversing deforestation will reduce disease.

But.

Restricting access to wildlife for food and other uses must consider indigenous peoples and those in remote communities for whom wildlife provides essential protein. In some parts of the world, reliance on migratory wildlife such as caribou and salmon motivates stewardship of large expanses of habitat. Although the right to traditional diets should be upheld, people can nonetheless be at risk from harvesting wildlife. These are food security issues that governments and development agencies should confront. Where needed, they must include education and awareness on animal handling, sanitation, and disease transmission as well as sustainable wildlife management and support to develop village-level alternative foods. Legal hunting and marketing of wildlife that meets basic nutritional requirements sustainably can be regulated to reduce the risk of emerging pandemics. Over time, culturally sensitive measures could ensure indigenous people's access to healthy diets and reduce pandemic risks.

science.sciencemag.org...

'Culturally sensitive measures' will persuade indigenous peoples and other hunters to buy food instead of harvesting meat.

That all sounds so complicated, can't experts create a magic bullet vaccine for us? It would be so much easier.

What causes the most deforestation?

Maybe we just need less people. Less people = less of everything else that is harming the planet.

Deforestation Causes Viral Pandemics

No , no it does not.

a reply to: Kester

Most the viruses that host on mankind are zoonotic. Changing our relationships with animals would help too.

originally posted by: blueman12
What causes the most deforestation?

Maybe we just need less people. Less people = less of everything else that is harming the planet.

Biggest cause of habitat loss is animal agriculture.

originally posted by: blueman12
What causes the most deforestation?

Maybe we just need less people. Less people = less of everything else that is harming the planet.

You first.

a reply to: purplemer

Try slash and burn agriculture in South America which is as much crop farming as livestock and palm oil plantations in Indonesia.

Not to mention that a pasture is a habitat for many animals while monocrop agriculture is not.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: blueman12
What causes the most deforestation?

Maybe we just need less people. Less people = less of everything else that is harming the planet.

You first.

Well, ideally a one-child world policy would be the best.

Otherwise the future is set to have a lot more humans. Which equals more waste and consumption. We either deal with overpopulation now or accept that it will cause alot of problems in the future..

a reply to: ketsuko

Are those crops used to feed livestock?

But yea.. they need better regulations.

a reply to: blueman12

In other words - China-style forced abortions. No thank you.

You do understand that in most first world countries the birth rate is already below replacement levels, right?

a reply to: blueman12

Those crops are used to feed everyone. Slash and burn is subsistence level farming, and palm oil is not for food for anyone.

a reply to: ketsuko

What's your solution then? I don't think earth is suitable for this many people. We already have texas sized garbage dumps in the middle of the ocean.

It's easy to say how draconian a one-child policy would be, but offer no solution to overpopulation issues.

a reply to: blueman12

I already told you the solution - modernize the world. If first world countries are below replacement level in child birth, then modernizing the world will eventually lead to the same elsewhere.

The trick is that it takes *time* and the process is messy because we're talking generational time.

Modernizing doesn't fix it all at once because the cultures have to adapt. In a third world society, parents need to produce lots of children to overcome the conditions of their life because many of those children will die before reaching adulthood. As society changes and technology improves, culture is slower to adapt, but eventually birth rates fall to reflect the new circumstances of children able to live as life from birth to death is far more assured.

In most first world societies, we are now in a state where there are less children than older people. In Japan, this is actually becoming a serious problem for them.

a reply to: Kester

Chinese labs tinkering with "gain of function" research causes the worst pandemics it appears.

a reply to: Kester ... Interesting thread. But it could be made even better if any naysayers give us an example to back up what you are saying. Who knows? You may end up by convincing us of your opposing view.

For the general public, the most recent book on this subject that is also extremely well-referenced is Spillover, by the one and only David Quammen.