The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the link between the health of nature and that of humans. Science shows that protection of forests, and the people and biodiversity within them, is key to disease prevention.
In 2001, a study by the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine indicated that 75 per cent of all infectious diseases emerging in the last 50 years came from wildlife. These are known as zoonoses, and include HIV, H5N1 bird flu, hantavirus, and most recently, COVID-19.
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