AN ENVIRONMENTAL WAKE-UP CALL
Environmental mismanagement means increased pandemic risk
A conversation between AXA Chairs Franck Courchamp & Dirk Schmeller
Dirk Schmeller
If there is one lesson to take from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that our relationship to Nature is essential. We are seeing more pathogen spill-over events into the human population in the last decades. Since the 1970s, we have doubled the world’s population, cut down forests, destroyed landscapes. Pathogens are very natural components of these landscapes. Because we have reduced the space available for wildlife, we are coming into contact with animals carrying these pathogens more frequently.
Franck Courchamp
Despite being little known by the public, invasions by exotic species are a major driver of biodiversity loss (as well as health and economic issues for humans). Historically, we’ve seen ecosystems invaded by pathogens – diseases that affect crops or fruit, for example. We now have an added complication, and that is species that are not themselves pathogens, but that carry and spread diseases. Take the example of the tiger mosquito. It can carry more than thirty different viruses. Many of these are lethal to humans, such as yellow fever, Dengue and Zika. The tiger mosquito has now colonized more than half the departments in mainland France.
“If there is one lesson to take from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that our relationship to Nature is essential.”
- Dirk Schmeller
D.S.
We are modifying ecosystems on the entire planet. In doing so, we are opening the doors to new pathogens. These days, we are more aware of climate change, but less so of biodiversity loss. What we need to realize is that climate change is a stress factor for animals, for ecosystems and for humans, and it is driving a lot of the changes we are seeing in Nature. It’s the sheer scale we are witnessing today that makes the difference. There has always been consumption of bushmeat, for example, but we are now consuming much more of it. This unprecedented scale of change causes the loss to biodiversity, and the spill-over of pathogens into the human population.
F.C.
Much of the current crisis points to the mismanagement of the environment – and the deregulation of international trade in species. When species are transported into new regions through trade, there are direct and indirect impacts– not only in terms of health, but also, as we are discovering, in economic costs. Industrial-scale farming is also at fault. It is directly related to pandemics, as domestic animals are put in large numbers within the reach of wild animals displaced from their natural habitats. That encourages the exchange of pathogens from one species to another. China has announced a ban on eating wildlife, which is a major step forward. We should look at laws that prevent the transportation of wildlife – and better regulation of deforestation, mining and large-scale livestock farming. There are definite lessons to be learnt.
“When species are transported into new regions through trade, there are direct and indirect impacts– not only in terms of health, but also, as we are discovering, in economic costs.”
- Franck Courchamp
D.S.
Compared with climate change and biodiversity loss, the current crisis is relatively minor. We need to understand what Nature provides us with. If we don’t realize the value of Nature, we shall have a very high price to pay, particularly in the increasing frequency of zoonoses. In my view, COVID-19 may well prove to be a minor crisis in human history.
Readers also read
- Lessons from malaria: more than test and trace, by Professor Gerry Killeen
- Our healthcare systems are too complicated for users – we need much better coordination, by Professor Pedro Saturno
Professor Franck Courchamp is senior researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), specializing in population dynamics and conservation biology. He has published on subjects such as invasive species, climate change and cooperative breeding. He has won the CNRS’s silver medal and is a member of the European Academy of Science.
Professor Dirk Schmeller is a researcher based at ENSAT at the Institut National Polytechnique in Toulouse. He works notably on wildlife diseases, biodiversity and the social aspects of conservation. Dirk also coordinates the Belmont-Forum P3 project on mountain ecosystems.
