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Audio: The links between COVID-19, wildlife trade, and destruction of nature with John Vidal

A Philippine pangolin pup and its mother, a critically endangered species endemic to the Palawan island group. The species is threatened by illegal poaching for the pangolin trade to China and Vietnam where it is regarded as a luxury medicinal delicacy. Pangolins were an early scapegoat for the COVID-19 outbreak, which is believed to have originated in a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but scientists have not determined what species passed the virus on to humans. Photo by Gregg Yan, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

  • On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with acclaimed environmental journalist John Vidal about the coronavirus pandemics’ links to the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature.
  • As the current coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, Vidal penned an article co-published by The Guardian and non-profit media outlet Ensia that looks at how scientists are beginning to understand the ways that environmental destruction makes zoonotic disease epidemics more likely.
  • We speak with Vidal about what we know about the origins of COVID-19, what he’s learned while reporting from disease outbreak epicenters in the past, how the destruction of nature creates the perfect conditions for diseases like COVID-19 to emerge, and what we can do to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks.

On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with acclaimed environmental journalist John Vidal about the coronavirus pandemic’s links to the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature.

Listen here:

 

As the long-time environmental editor of the Guardian, John Vidal has been writing about zoonotic disease outbreaks for years. In 2004, for instance, he visited a small village in northern Gabon that was the site of an Ebola epidemic in the late 1990s as part of an investigation into why diseases kept emerging from biodiversity “hotspots” like the tropical forests and bushmeat markets of Africa and Asia. As the current coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, Vidal penned an article co-published by The Guardian and non-profit media outlet Ensia that looks at how scientists are beginning to understand the ways that environmental destruction makes zoonotic disease epidemics more likely.

We speak with Vidal about what we know about the origins of COVID-19, what he’s learned while reporting from disease outbreak epicenters in the past, how the destruction of nature creates the perfect conditions for diseases like COVID-19 to emerge, and what we can do to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks.

See related podcast episode: How studying an African bat might help us prevent future Ebola outbreaks

Timber extraction in Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett Butler.

Here’s this episode’s top news:

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A Philippine pangolin pup and its mother, a critically endangered species endemic to the Palawan island group. The species is threatened by illegal poaching for the pangolin trade to China and Vietnam where it is regarded as a luxury medicinal delicacy. Pangolins were an early scapegoat for the COVID-19 outbreak, which is believed to have originated in a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but scientists have not determined what species passed the virus on to humans. Photo by Gregg Yan, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Follow Mike Gaworecki on Twitter: @mikeg2001

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