Biodiversity Can Prevent Pandemics
If habitat destruction continues without prevention, pandemics will happen more often and will be worse each time. There are 1.7 million unknown diseases living in wildlife now. Most pandemics are caused by a disease that spreads from animals to humans. When humans invade and come in closer contact with wildlife that should remain wild, we are increasing our chances of being exposed to one of these diseases. Wild animals losing their habitats means they have t move to more urban and populated areas. There are some preventative measures being taken.For example, financially incentivizing companies to protect biodiversity.
I believe that deforestation and habitat destruction obviously has many negative effects on humans and the earth. There are countless examples of this. This article shows one example that we can all relate to currently. This is important news that should be shared because ignorance is not an excuse. If people see that it is a larger deal than they think, maybe they will make a change. Also, big business is a huge factor of ecosystem destruction. Pandemics hurt the economy, which hurts big businesses. Deforestation eventually hurts the big businesses.
It is true that most human diseases originated in animals. Such is the case with the swine flu and the plague. By preserving habitas and the environement, people can safely "social distance" from animals- saving both human and animal lives. Biodiversity plays another role in preventing Pandemics as well. The more variety of life that inhabits an ecosystem or habitat, the more species will be able to resist new strings of disease that come along- most likely helping the ecosystem survive and increasing the suriviablity and disease immunity of populations. Perhaps the Corona virus could have been prevented if humans had respected the environment and worked harder to preserve habitats and biodiversity.
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