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.

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

Here’s this episode’s top news:

• National parks in Africa shutter over COVID-19 threat to great apes
• Shell of bioluminescent shrimp not only glows but detects light
• Seychelles extends protection to marine area twice the size of Great Britain

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Follow Mike Gaworecki on Twitter: @mikeg2001

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