Earth Day 2020 by Marsel van Oosten
Today is Earth Day, an annual event celebrated around the world to demonstrate support for environmental protection. Nature and the environment are faced with enormous challenges from loss of biodiversity, pollution, degradation of our ecosystems, and climate change. The past years everything seems to have been about climate change. But we should not forget that the natural world faces a multitude of other problems that have little or nothing to do with climate change. Scientists have taken 142 viruses known to have been transmitted from animals to humans over many years, and matched them to the IUCN’s red list of threatened species. The study found that the spillover risk was highest from threatened and endangered wild animals whose populations had declined largely due to hunting, the wildlife trade and loss of habitat. This black snub-nosed monkey is just one of many endangered species, threatened by habitat-loss. Human encroachment into biodiverse areas increases the risk of spillover of novel infectious diseases by enabling new contacts between humans and wildlife. We need to be really attentive to how we interact with wildlife and the activities that bring humans and wildlife together. More than 200 of the world’s wildlife groups have written to the World Health Organization (WHO) calling on it to recommend a permanent ban on all live wildlife markets and the use of wildlife in traditional medicine. I would say that is a good start. Marsel | squiver.com
Marsel van Oosten: Photos
500px: 500px Link