This excerpt is reposted with permissions from BBC Studios Natural History Unit’. Our Planet Earth is a digital initiative from BBC Earth, co-produced with Wellcome, bringing you compelling stories of our changing climate and its direct impacts on both wildlife and human health.
Forests aren’t just the lungs of the world – they’re also its immune system.
The world’s forests are vanishing, due to human activity. As forests are reduced to smaller fragments, their capacity to sustain a diverse range of life diminishes – raising the risk of diseases getting out.
Healthy forests keep diseases locked away, but this damage we’re causing is allowing them to escape. Restoring forests could prevent even more following in their wake.
In an in-depth look at how deforestation might trigger the next pandemic, Dr Paula Prist, a senior research scientist at EcoHealth Alliance, focuses on the connections between forest health and disease, and offers hope that restoration efforts could help in the long-term.
Read the full article, written by James Ashworth, here.