Study exposes troubling factor linked to rising pandemic risk: 'Severe consequences'

A new study into the effects of biodiversity loss and human activity on global pathogens has experts sounding the alarm. 

Neil Vora, senior director of One Health at Conservation International, told Mongabay that "humanity's broken relationship with nature is driving global changes that have severe consequences for our own health."

What's happening?

The study, published in the journal Nature Reviews Biodiversity, found a link between declining biodiversity and increased risk of pandemics. 

"We know that biodiversity loss is increasing. We know that the climate is getting warmer and harder to predict, and that these things are all happening at the same time," Daniel Becker, assistant professor of biology at the University of Oklahoma and one of the study's authors, told Mongabay. "So we've … entered what we call this polycrisis."

Why is the link between biodiversity loss and pandemics important?

Drier hot seasons and wetter rainy seasons are the perfect conditions for another global pandemic, the researchers said. 

"Above all, climate change affects the distribution, the abundance, and the spread of vectors," Dr Tim Endy told the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. 

Worsening heat conditions could force bats, mosquitoes, and rats out of their locales, spreading diseases like Lassa fever or the Nipah virus to populations without natural immunity over a much wider area. The problems are also apparent closer to home. 

Lyme disease, an acute concern in the northeast, may be exacerbated by habitat and biodiversity loss. Opossums, which feed on the ticks that carry the disease, are one of the best natural defenses against it. Woodland loss makes them less abundant and also reduces red foxes, which hunt the carriers of the ticks. 

What's being done about the polycrisis?

The study's authors first called for further research and education to form effective strategies to combat the risk, such as avoiding unhelpful practices like mass culling of local wildlife. Additionally, the authors suggested more international cooperation to stem habitat destruction and biodiversity loss.

The World Health Organization has been working to create a binding international pandemic agreement. International cooperation can and has worked in the past; take the success of the Montreal Protocol, for example. 

The United States' withdrawal from the WHO in January may complicate those efforts, though the country's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could still apply its own protections. Either way, individuals can take action locally to help protect the environment against some of these domino effects as well.  

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