Is Corona the price we pay for deforestation?

Translated from Dutch. View the original post here

The cause of corona? That was something with a bat, you'll say. But that's not the whole story: one of the main causes of the increase in infectious diseases that pass from animal to human is deforestation.

Between all the disturbing #coronavirus posts appeared a “funny” post on social media. In the Chinese province of Yunan, two elephants were lying on their side with their buttocks against each other in a vegetable field. According to the accompanying text, the animals were sleeping away. They had entered a village with a group of fourteen elephants in search of food and drank thirty litres of corn wine. Big fun.

But is it that funny? Indian media reports almost every week about not so fortunate encounters between wild animals and humans. A while ago, a video of an elephant who was injured on the rails circulated. The animal was hit by a train and tried to get up in vain. There are also regular reports of villagers killing a tiger because they roamed their village. Or vice versa, a message about an Indian farmer killed by a tiger.

Of all new infectious diseases in the last decade, 75 percent of animals are

Especially in Asia, but also in other parts of the world, such as the Amazon, wildlife habitat is becoming smaller. In other words, people claim more and more space. We are more often in remote areas by building roads in natural areas, by mining, by expanding cities and population growth. As a result, humans are more often in contact with wild animals. This plays a role in the increase in zoonoses: infectious diseases that pass from animal to human.

It has been known for a long time that direct contact with wild animals through bites, stabbing and with excrement can lead to diseases. For example, the HIV epidemic is linked to contact with monkeys (probably because they were eaten) and Ebola was caused by eating bats. But the number of infectious diseases transmitted by animals to humans is increasing; of all the new species that have emerged in the last decade, as many as 75 percent come from animals. So is the coronavirus, which most scientists believe originated in a wild meat market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Because the animals were kept close together in a weakened state, it was a hotbed of viruses that, presumably through meat consumption, could pass to humans.
Elitist occupation

The Wuhan market has now closed down and China has banned trade and consumption of wild animals for the time being, but for many experts this is not enough. For example, tiger expert Valmik Thapar stressed in the Indian newspaper The Hindustan Times how important it is to protect wildlife in India. Something that doesn't happen enough. He expressed his frustration about the laxity of the government. For example, Indian Prime Minister Modi is chairman of the National Board of Wildlife, but in recent years no such meeting has taken place. Also, the expert appealed to business. 'Our businessmen must realise that it is not an elitist occupation to protect wildlife and their habitat. Stop destroying nature. Otherwise, we pay a high price,” he writes.

Another group also showed up. On March 13, leaders of the International Alliance of Original Peoples in New York rang the bell. 'The coronavirus confirms what we have been stressing for thousands of years', said Levi Sucre Romero of the BRi from Costa Rica according to news agency IPS. 'If we do not protect nature and especially biodiversity, we will face more of these kinds of pandemics. ' For this reason, the leaders stressed the importance of the fight against deforestation and criticized agricultural multinationals that cut down jungle for large-scale livestock farming and soya and oil palm plantations. The United Nations also endorses the link between an increase in infectious diseases and deforestation for monoculture, in a 2016 report. Part of the solution: strengthening the rights of native residents, says David Ganz of the Centre of Peoples and Forests in Bangkok, opposite news agency Reuters.Under these conditions, a quarter of all animals and plants will die out within a few decades

#YoorsCoronaPositiveChallenge