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Virus Puts Focus on Deforestation's Risk to Public Health in ASEAN

VOA News

   Just across the river from downtown Ho Chi Minh City, a tract of land
   is being turned into a bustling financial center. It's still mostly
   dirt and concrete, but less than a decade ago, the tract was dense
   marshland where it was easy to spot goats and pigs.

   Fast urbanization all over Southeast Asia is changing humans'
   relationship to wildlife, and now COVID-19 shows how this process can
   pose a risk to public health, environmentalists say. They argue that,
   while climate-harming deforestation has long been known to be a problem
   for animals, the pandemic highlights more than ever that it can be
   harmful to humans, too.

   Scientists now believe humans contracted the virus from an animal,
   likely passing from a bat to a pangolin, which was then touched by a
   human in China. There are multiple ways COVID-19 is affecting climate
   change debates. In Southeast Asia this includes the destruction of
   forests as humans develop areas for habitation, bringing them into
   places recently inhabited by animals.

   "Evidence shows that deforestation and urbanization increase our risk
   of catching infectious diseases like coronavirus," said SarahElago, a
   congresswoman in the Philippines, where the state is introducing
   tougher laws against wildlife trafficking in the wake of the pandemic.

   She pointed out that Southeast Asia has a particularly high rate of
   deforestation, having lost more than 32 million hectares of trees since
   1990.

   The region's deforestation is coupled with urbanization to accommodate
   its high economic growth. Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous
   nation, is now moving its capital city from Jakarta to the island of
   Borneo, which will inevitably require clearing land. Cambodia has lost
   more forestland per hectare than almost any other nation on the planet,
   according to the NASA Earth Observatory. Singapore became the most
   modern city in the region after converting swampland.

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