Disrespect for animals caused COVID-19 pandemic
— primatologist
April 11, 2020
PARIS, France — World-renowned British primatologist Jane
Goodall says the coronavirus pandemic was caused by humanity's disregard for
nature and disrespect for animals.
Goodall, who is best known for trail-blazing research in Africa
that revealed the true nature of chimpanzees, pleaded for the world to learn
from past mistakes to prevent future disasters.
During a conference call ahead of the release of the new
National Geographic documentary "Jane Goodall: The Hope", the
82-year-old also said everyone can make a difference.
How do you view this
pandemic?
Goodall: It is our disregard for nature and our disrespect of
the animals we should share the planet with that has caused this pandemic, that
was predicted long ago.
Because as we destroy, let's say the forest, the different
species of animals in the forest are forced into a proximity and therefore
diseases are being passed from one animal to another, and that second animal is
then most likely to infect humans as it is forced into closer contact with
humans.
It's also the animals who are hunted for food, sold in markets
in Africa or in the meat market for wild animals in Asia, especially China, and
our intensive farms where we cruelly crowd together billions of animals around
the world. These are the conditions that create an opportunity for the viruses
to jump from animals across the species barrier to humans.
What can we do about
these animal markets?
It's really good that China closed down the live wild animal
markets, in a temporary ban which we hope will be made permanent, and other
Asian countries will follow suit.
But in Africa it will be very difficult to stop the selling of
bush meat because so many people rely on that for their livelihoods.
It will need a lot of careful thought on how it should be done,
you can't just stop somebody doing something when they have absolutely no money
to support themselves or their families, but at least this pandemic should have
taught us the kind of things to do to prevent another one.
What can we hope for?
We have to realise we are part of the natural world, we depend
on it, and as we destroy it we are actually stealing the future from our
children.
Hopefully, because of this unprecedented response, the lockdowns
that are going on around the world, more people will wake up and eventually
they can start thinking about ways they can live their lives differently.
Everyone can make an impact every single day.
If you think about the consequences of the little choices you
make: what you eat, where it came from, did it cause cruelty to animals, is it
made from intensive farming -- which mostly it is -- is it cheap because of
child slave labour, did it harm the environment in its production, where did it
come from, how many miles did it travel, did you think that perhaps you could
walk and not take your car.
(Also consider) ways that you could perhaps help alleviate
poverty because when people are poor they can't make these ethical choices.
They just have to do whatever they can to survive -- they can't question what
they buy, they must buy the cheapest, and they are going to cut down the last
tree because they are desperate to find land on which they can grow more food.
So what we can do in our individual lives does depend a little
bit on who we are, but we all can make a difference, everybody can.
.
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