Lessons learned from Covid? UN summit considers plan for healthy planet and people

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The COVID-19 and the Ebola outbreaks brought into stark relief the harm that can occur to humans if we interfere too much with nature by coming into contact with animals carrying unknown pathogens.

At the COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, experts and activists urged world leaders to learn from the estimated seven million lives lost to Covid and thousands more to Ebola. It is up to governments to act and there is no time to lose.

The intergovernmental scientific and policy body on biodiversity IPBES has already warned that “future pandemics will occur more often, spread faster, do more damage to the global economy and kill more people than Covid-19” unless humanity don’t change course.

At the UN summit in Cali, delegates are working on an “action plan on biodiversity and health” proposed for adoption by the 196 member states of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

It includes commitments to limit harmful agriculture and forestry, reduce the use of pesticides, fertilizers and other nature-damaging chemicals, and reduce the use of antibiotics in farm animals.

However, the plan is voluntary and the parties remain deadlocked on several details.

The agreement, WWF wildlife policy manager Colman O’Criodane told AFP, “may be at the expense of watered-down language on some issues, such as intensive farming and the use of antimicrobials” – which affect biotech and agribusiness, both big spinning money.

For Sue Lieberman, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which pushed for the plan’s adoption, “we need to change our relationship with nature if we want to prevent more epidemics and pandemics.”

“When, not if”

So-called zoonotic diseases are spread between animals and humans, as can happen when people enter former virgin forests or transport and trade wild animals for their meat.

Covid-19, for example, is considered by many scientists to have appeared at the wet market in Wuhan, China, where wild animal meat was illegally sold for consumption.

Ebola, an often fatal hemorrhagic fever that has killed about 15,000 people in Africa, it is believed to have a natural host in a bat that can spread the virus to humans directly or through other animals.

“Deforestation, intensive agriculture, trade and exploitation of wildlife are the main drivers of biodiversity loss and zoonotic diseases,” Adeline Lerambert of the NGO Born Free wildlife told AFP.

WWF’s O’Criodain added: “The more people and their livestock enter intact, undisturbed areas of high biodiversity, the more likely they are to encounter new strains of viruses, especially because viruses are constantly mutating.”

The 2020 IPBES report calls for “transformative change in the global approach to tackling infectious diseases”.

“Covid-19 is at least the sixth global health pandemic since the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918, and although it originated from germs carried by animals, like all pandemics, its occurrence was entirely provoked by human activities,” the statement said. him.

The report estimates that around 1.7 million currently “undiscovered” viruses exist in mammals and birds – of which up to 827,000 may have the ability to infect humans.

As measures to prevent the “spread of new diseases”, IPBES advocates expanding the protection of natural areas and reducing the unsustainable exploitation of resources.

Will the COP16 Action Plan be up to the task?

For the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Lieberman, it’s not ideal that the plan is voluntary, meaning “there’s no consequence if a government says, ‘It doesn’t matter, we’ll ignore it.’ It depends on each country.”

But she hopes the fear of a repeat of Covid-19 will still inspire action.

“If nothing is done, if nothing changes, there will be another pandemic. The question is when, not if,” Lieberman warned.