{"id":21507,"date":"2020-07-28T22:36:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T22:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=21507"},"modified":"2020-07-31T02:03:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T02:03:41","slug":"video-slowing-deforestation-is-the-key-to-preventing-the-next-pandemic-but-what-does-that-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/video-slowing-deforestation-is-the-key-to-preventing-the-next-pandemic-but-what-does-that-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: Slowing deforestation is the key to preventing the next pandemic \u2013 but what does that cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/les-kaufman-1139652\">Les Kaufman<\/a>, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/boston-university-898\">Boston University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/369\/6502\/379\">journal article<\/a>, a team of biologists, medical scientists, environmental scientists and conservationists proposed a number of measures to reduce the likelihood of future pandemics, many of which originate with wild animals such as bats. They argue that spending billions of dollars per year \u2013 a fraction of the cost of pandemics \u2013 on programs that reduce deforestation would curtail wildlife trade and support the communities that live on the forests\u2019 edge.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Les Kaufman, professor of biology at Boston University and a member of the team, spoke about what causes pandemics, and how we might prevent them.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TH0OCU11aw0?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Boston University professor biology Les Kaufman talks about what causes pandemics, and how much it would cost to reduce their likelihood.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>What was this study trying to find?<\/h2>\n<p>I helped organize a group of researchers from a variety of related disciplines to ask the question: \u201cCan we suppress the emergence of pandemic pathogens like what we\u2019re experiencing now with COVID-19?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The estimated cost of dealing with COVID-19 is that it will wind up in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/today-in-scary-numbers-pandemic-could-cost-global-economy-82-trillion-2020-05-19\">tens of trillions of dollars globally<\/a>. We propose spending about $22 billion to $30 billion a year on programs that will reduce the likelihood of future pandemics emerging from the edges of tropical forests.<\/p>\n<p>What people may not realize is that there are at least two potentially pandemic pathogens coming into the human population every year. And about every one or two decades, one of them actually succeeds in becoming a global pandemic. We forget we are still dealing with HIV. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niaid.nih.gov\/diseases-conditions\/covid-19\">MERS and SARS-1<\/a> never really hugely impacted the United States so we pretend they didn\u2019t happen. But these are things that we\u2019re constantly at risk of.<\/p>\n<h2>What kinds of diseases does this study focus on preventing?<\/h2>\n<p>We have focused on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/topics\/zoonoses\/en\/\">zoonoses<\/a>, which are diseases that come into the human population from animals. The best example is the cluster of diseases caused by a group of viruses called coronaviruses that are harbored by bats in the wild.<\/p>\n<p>For reasons we\u2019re just beginning to understand, bats are able to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/goatsandsoda\/2020\/02\/09\/803543244\/bats-carry-many-viruses-so-why-dont-they-get-sick\">tolerate an unusually high viral load<\/a>. Their relationship with the virus and the function of their immune system is different than ours. Bats are critical pollinators. We want them to leave the forest and come into our crops so that they get pollinated. They\u2019re critical for eating enormous amounts of insect pests. But none of that requires going out and grabbing the bats by hand, or cooking them or keeping them in cages near other animals that we eat or have close to us.<\/p>\n<h2>What kind of practices lead to zoonoses spreading?<\/h2>\n<p>We have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-49679883\">deforesting at an accelerated rate<\/a>, largely to plant crops such as oil palm or in some cases acacia. So tropical forests are leveled and roads are driven into it. Once people have access for one reason, other businesses crop up, among them hunting for bush meat, and the exotic wildlife trade for traditional medicine and pets. So people go into the forest and they catch these animals and they bring them to markets, where lots of live wild and domestic animals are in close proximity to each other. And that\u2019s how the virus gets into us \u2013 either directly from the wildlife, or from livestock that we placed in close proximity to infected wildlife.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of the novel viruses are also coming from wildlife when we destroy their habitats. So they begin to forage in our farms and agricultural areas, at which point they\u2019re exposed to our domestic livestock which can, as in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/animals\/2020\/04\/coronavirus-linked-to-chinese-wet-markets\/\">wet markets<\/a>, serve as a bridge between the wild animal harboring the virus and humans.<\/p>\n<h2>How can governments justify spending billions on pandemic prevention?<\/h2>\n<p>That may sound like a lot of money, but let\u2019s remember, the cost of a single pandemic is in the trillions. So if every pandemic costs us $15 trillion, even if you prorate that over a bunch of years, $30 billion a year is nothing. And that doesn\u2019t even include the cost in human suffering, which matters greatly to us but is not meaningful to represent in dollar terms.<\/p>\n<h2>What should the money be spent on?<\/h2>\n<p>In our paper, we looked at the cost of arresting deforestation, of regulating the trade in wild bushmeat, and reducing incursions into the forest. A lot of side benefits come out of it. We preserve biodiversity, which has lots of benefits down the road. We increase the amount of forest absorbing carbon dioxide, helping with climate change. And we also make available renewable forest products, especially non-timber forest products \u2026 but hopefully not bushmeat, at least beyond local, artisanal needs.<\/p>\n<p>But the key to the whole thing is that people living at the forest edge should have a good life. Should have access to decent livelihoods, good health care, and that their children can be educated. And so we\u2019re beginning to understand that the leading edge of all this is regulating deforestation, and the bushmeat trade, thus reducing contact between people and virus-laden wildlife.<\/p>\n<h2>How do governments deal with the first of the two major causes \u2013 deforestation?<\/h2>\n<p>Deforestation can be slowed down and even reversed in largely intact forests like the Amazon. These areas can be managed to reduce deforestation through governance, through laws and through monitoring from the air and from satellites. And in Brazil, this was <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/in-brazils-rainforests-the-worst-fires-are-likely-still-to-come-122840\">very, very successful<\/a>. Until recently, deforestation in Brazil had come way down. But with the new Bolsonaro administration, a lot of that progress was reversed and lost.<\/p>\n<p>In fragmented forests that are receding rapidly, we need to do a couple of things. We need to help the forest to heal, reconnecting fragments back into a continuum so that the wildlife have a forest to stay in and they\u2019re not wandering all over in our fields.<\/p>\n<p>The other thing we need to do is address the needs of the edge of the forest. The people who live there may not even realize how much damage they\u2019re doing to themselves in an attempt to live and survive day to day. So what do these people need? Health care, education and a way to make a living.<\/p>\n<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/us\/newsletters\/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&amp;utm_medium=inline-link&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter-text&amp;utm_content=deepknowledge\">Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]<\/p>\n<h2>How can the trade in bushmeat be curtailed?<\/h2>\n<p>We should closely regulate all other kinds of trade and wildlife that are potential pathogen vectors. It means patrols against poaching in the forest itself. It means changes in the way the markets work. And it means enforcement of international laws on the sale of threatened and endangered species. Meanwhile, we need to maintain the work of scientists who monitor wildlife and humans for novel viruses, and who seek to understand pathogens so we can nip each potential pandemic in the bud.<\/p>\n<h2>Whose responsibility would this be?<\/h2>\n<p>If we look at the countries that are able to contribute to such a fund, they\u2019re mostly in the so-called developed world. The U.S., Europe, Japan and as a matter of fact, China. Some people say it\u2019s unfair, the U.S. shouldn\u2019t be spending money for other people\u2019s benefit. We\u2019re not spending money for other people\u2019s benefit \u2013 the fact that other people benefit is a bonus. We\u2019re spending money to protect ourselves. And the amount of money we\u2019re talking about is trivial against the cost of not spending it. The more the responsibility is shared, the better.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/143411\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/les-kaufman-1139652\">Les Kaufman<\/a>, Professor of Biology, Boston University, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/boston-university-898\">Boston University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article is republished from <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/video-slowing-deforestation-is-the-key-to-preventing-the-next-pandemic-but-what-does-that-cost-143411\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Les Kaufman, Boston University In a recent journal article, a team of biologists, medical scientists, environmental scientists and conservationists proposed a number of measures to reduce the likelihood of future pandemics, many of which originate with wild animals such as bats. They argue that spending billions of dollars per year \u2013 a fraction of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3410],"tags":[7559,2330,584,7720,6228,4151,8241],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21535,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21507\/revisions\/21535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}