The clock is ticking on the environment and so is the due date for the next Global Pandemic!

Every year Earth’s population grows, and with that so does our demand for products and resources. As the demand grows larger and larger, biodiversity, ecosystems, and the environment grows smaller and smaller. The drivers of zoonotic diseases (germs that spread between animals and people) are changes in the environment, usually the result of human development or climate change. For example, bat-associated viruses, thought to be the cause of the latest coronavirus, emerged from the loss of bat habitat from deforestation and agricultural expansion. The increased loss of biodiversity through deforestation, the exotic pet trade, overexploitation, and climate change has led to the increased emergence of zoonotic diseases.

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Deforestation

The loss of habitats, the modification of natural environments, and more generally the decline in biodiversity are all factors in the spread of emerging infectious diseases. Deforestation is when large amounts of trees are cleared for lumber or to provide space for farming, mining, and urban development. It is estimated that 18 million acres of forest are chopped down every year and, at this point, 50% of the world's tropical forests have been destroyed. Although deforestation is a problem all over the world, tropical rainforests are especially at risk. our rain forests are a unique environment with a high level of biodiversity, providing a habitat for a huge number of animals; as this habitat is destroyed, many of these species are in turn becoming endangered. large amounts in Asia have been cleared to make more space for palm oil plantations, which are in increasing demand due to the use of palm oil in so many foods and cosmetic products. in Malaysia, this is specifically responsible for the endangerment of orangutans; much of their habitat has been destroyed and it is now far more difficult for them to find food and mates.

Natural ecosystems have a crucial role in supporting and nourishing life, including ourselves. Altering these ecosystems can aid the development and spread of infectious diseases. The destruction and degradation of forests expose humans to new forms of contact with microbes and the wild species that host them. For example, increasing incursions into the forests of West Africa has brought the human population into closer contact with bats that carry the Ebola virus. In Africa, human communities entering what was once intact forests have increased direct and indirect contact with disease reservoirs, leading to an increase in diseases such as yellow fever (transmitted through mosquitoes from infected monkeys) and leishmaniasis. Even HIV adapted to humans from the variant found in apes in the forests of Central Africa, before spreading through human-human transmission. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has caused more than 35 million deaths to date. Logging in tropical forests creates environments conducive to mosquito-borne illnesses, including malaria and dengue. In Malaysian Borneo, for example, deforestation has been linked to increased cases of a new type of malaria. People can work against deforestation by boycotting products that do not contain sustainable palm oil, and by buying recycled paper and card products.

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The Exotic Pet Trade

Every year across the world, many wild exotic animals are captured to be sold illegally as pets. The demand for these usual creatures is high, so much so that poachers can make a lot of money providing live specimens to buyers. Humans have sought exotic pets and unusual animals for centuries, the desire for which has only grown as knowledge of them has increased. Poachers can make large profits by capturing and smuggling different species, usually small birds, snakes, frogs, and fish, which are often at higher risk because they are easier to transport to a location for sale. There are occasional reports of illegal attempts to trade in live Komodo dragons. The most recent attempt was in March 2019, when Indonesian police in the East Java city of Surabaya reported that a criminal network had been caught trying to smuggle 41 young Komodo dragons out of Indonesia. The plan was said to include shipping the animals to several other countries in Southeast Asia through Singapore. It was hoped that the animals could be sold for around $35,000 USD each.

Wildlife trade provides mechanisms for disease transmission at levels that not only cause human disease outbreaks but also threaten livestock, international trade, rural livelihoods, native wildlife populations, and ecosystem health. Worldwide, an estimated 40,000 primates, 4 million birds, 640,000 reptiles, and 350 million tropical fish are traded live each year. International wildlife trade is estimated to be a US $6-billion industry. Translocation of wild animals is associated with the spread of several zoonoses. Rabies was introduced in the mid-Atlantic states in the 1970s when hunting pens were repopulated with raccoons trapped in rabies-endemic zones of the southern United States. In March 1994, psittacosis developed in several customs officers in Antwerp, Belgium (23). A customs officer had been hospitalized with pneumonia 10 days after exposure to parakeets illegally imported by an Indian sailor. a highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 virus from crested hawk eagles smuggled into Europe by air travel has been isolated and characterized. Petting zoos, where children can approach and feed captive wildlife and domestic animals, have been linked to several zoonotic outbreaks, including infections caused by Escherichia coli, salmonellae, and Coxiella burnetii. More than 25 outbreaks of human infectious diseases associated with visitors to animal exhibits were identified during 1990–2000.

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Over-Exploitation

A global pandemic is as good a time as any to reflect on where we as humans went wrong. Human impact on animal populations worldwide is a direct contributor to zoonotic disease spread. Overexploitation is a huge problem for wildlife because as the fishing and hunting industry continues to develop and improve animals and plants are being hunted or farmed faster than they can reproduce which is causing them to become extremely endangered or even go extinct. Hundreds of species of birds are collected for sport, food, or into the caged bird pet-trade were millions of birds are traded internationally each year. Amphibians and reptiles are other examples of breeds that are over-farmed and traded as pets. People have hunted mammal species for food, sport, and for horns and antlers, mammals are also trapped into the pet-trade, zoos, and biomedical research. Today illegal hunting still threatens many species including large mammal such as tigers, rhinos, bears, and primates. Most importantly, are invertebrates, which 75% of all known animal species are, like oysters, scorpions, crabs, and animals like them are being over-harvested for food, pet-trade, and jewelry.

Increased contact through the unregulated wildlife trade and humanity’s overexploitation of the natural world is exposing people too much more dangerous diseases. Around 75% of human diseases identified in recent years originated in wild animals – outbreaks seen in recent years such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Zika have all originated in animals. Cunningham, an expert on animal diseases who has studied viruses in bats for the past 15 years, said that 61 out of 137 bat viruses were capable of also infecting humans. SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been estimated to kill in between one and 3% of cases, but other bat viruses that could become human diseases have fatality rates of 60-100%, he said. That being said, even struggling species threatened by habitat loss or over-exploitation were predicted to host twice as many zoonotic viruses compared to those that were decreasing for other reasons. In short, when humans are around, there appears to be more risk of virus spillover. And, in all likelihood, we've been underestimating the true danger of this happening.

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Climate Change

Climate change may be putting people at risk for more pandemics like COVID-19. Habitat loss due to climate is bringing animals that can transmit disease in contact with humans more often. Earth’s climate has constantly been changing — even long before humans came into the picture. However, scientists have observed unusual changes recently. For example, Earth’s average temperature has been increasing much more quickly than they would expect over the past 150 years. Some parts of the Earth are warming faster than others. But on average, global air temperatures near Earth's surface have gone up about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years. In fact, the past five years have been the warmest five years in centuries. Many people, including scientists, are concerned about this warming. As Earth’s climate continues to warm, the intensity and amount of rainfall during storms such as hurricanes are expected to increase. Droughts and heatwaves are also expected to become more intense as the climate warms. When the whole Earth’s temperature changes by one or two degrees, that change can have big impacts on the health of Earth's plants, animals, and even us.

There is much evidence of associations between climatic conditions and infectious diseases. Malaria is of great public health concern and seems likely to be the vector-borne disease most sensitive to long-term climate change. Malaria varies seasonally in highly endemic areas. The link between malaria and extreme climatic events has long been studied in India, for example. Early last century, the river-irrigated Punjab region experienced periodic malaria epidemics. Excessive monsoon rainfall and high humidity were identified early on as a major influence, enhancing mosquito breeding and survival. Recent analyses have shown that the malaria epidemic risk increases around five-fold in the year after an El Niño event. Dr. Aaron Bernstein is a pediatrician and the interim director of The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard University. He says while we don’t know exactly what caused the first case of the novel coronavirus, we do know a lot of other serious outbreaks have started through closer contact with animals. For example, take the Ebola epidemic in West Africa which coincided with cutting down forests for agriculture. “Likely part of the reason why that happened is that bats that carry Ebola had lost their homes. And so we may be pushing bats into new places by destroying their habitat,” Bernstein says.

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Every year as the population grows, our demand for biodiversity needs to grow with it. Bats, pangolins, and snakes have all been rounded up as potential suspects for the COVID-19 outbreak at some point. But when the smoking gun is finally found, it is likely to have the fingerprints of us - humans - on it. Deforestation, exotic pet trade, overexploitation, and climate change has led to an increased loss of biodiversity and the emergence of zoonotic diseases. With animals needing to find new homes, or being taken from there homes and shipped all over the globe is spread microbes and pathogens to humans that we may never have come in contact with otherwise. These processes are part of a broader change in mindset we all need to make. We need to integrate ecological thinking into everything we do. We need to keep in mind we are part of a human system, but this system is still embedded into a larger natural ecosystem, which impacts us, and which we impact in return.

Work Cited

Cassella, Carly. “Our Exploitation of Wildlife Is Directly Causing More Viruses to Spread to Humans, Study Shows.” ScienceAlert, www.sciencealert.com/human-exploitation-has-directly-increased-the-risk-of-animal-diseases-spilling-over-to-humans.

Chomel, Bruno B, et al. “Wildlife, Exotic Pets, and Emerging Zoonoses.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jan. 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2725831/.

Curseu, Daniela, et al. “Potential Impact of Climate Change on Pandemic Influenza Risk.” Edited by Ibrahim Dincer et al., Global Warming: Engineering Solutions, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 30 Oct. 2009, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7122279/.

Developments, Frontier, editor. “Planet Zoo.” England, Cambridge, 5 Nov. 2019.

Early, Catherine. “COVID-19: a ‘Warning’ to Humans to Stop Overexploitation of Nature.” Yourweather.co.uk | Meteored, Yourweather.co.uk, 16 Apr. 2020, www.yourweather.co.uk/news/science/covid-19-a-warning-to-humans-to-stop-overexploitation-of-nature.html.

Roccisano, Giuliana. “Deforestation: What You Can Do to Combat It at Home.” Forever-Green, 14 May 2020, environmentally.wixsite.com/forevergreen/post/deforestation-what-you-can-do-to-combat-it-at-home.

Roccisano, Giuliana. “Komodo Dragons and the Exotic Pet Trade.” Forever-Green, 30 Apr. 2020, environmentally.wixsite.com/forevergreen/post/komodo-dragons-and-the-exotic-pet-trade.

Roccisano, Giuliana. “The Giant Tortoise and Over-Exploitation.” Forever-Green, 1 May 2020, environmentally.wixsite.com/forevergreen/post/the-giant-tortoise-and-over-exploitation.

Roccisano, Giuliana. “What Is Climate Change Really All about and 10 Ways You Can Make a Difference at Home.” Forever-Green, 14 May 2020, environmentally.wixsite.com/forevergreen/post/what-is-climate-change-really-all-about-and-10-ways-you-can-make-a-difference-at-home.

Thiele, Rebecca. “How Climate Change Increases Our Risk For Pandemics.” WFYI Public Media, WFYI, 24 Mar. 2020, www.wfyi.org/news/articles/how-climate-change-increases-our-risk-for-pandemics.