Destroying Biodiversity Causes Pandemics

Wild animals harbour an estimated 40,000 unknown viruses, one-quarter of which have zoonotic potential to jump to humans. Zoonoses have caused nearly every pandemic in history and outbreaks are “mediated by human action in most cases”, according to research conducted in 2012, and the number of outbreaks has quadrupled over the past 50 years. The UN FAO calls much of this increase “directly related to the human quest for more animal-sourced food”. The Atlantic