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Happy 2021! This new year could not come soon enough. As you read this, it is clear that globally we are at a crossroads and that the inequities we see at home are also reflected across the broader planet. The pandemic has instigated a moment to re-examine our relationship with nature and the planet’s resources. Increasingly, […]
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This year has been indelibly shaped by the COVID pandemic — it literally changed everything. What has become clear as a result is that environmental injustice was exacerbated by the pandemic, and if we don’t repair our relationship with the natural world we are going to face more deadly pandemics in the future. For the […]
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While humans face COVID-19, freshwater mussels could be facing a pandemic of their own. Researchers have found a novel densovirus, dubbed “Mussel-bola,” that may be responsible for killing 80,000 mussels in a 650 foot stretch of the Clinch River in Virginia over only 2 years.
Why This Matters: Mussels serve as a proverbial canary in the coalmine for freshwater ecosystems.
Continue Reading 518 wordsThe COVID-19 pandemic and a series of devastating reports have made clear that our “debt” to nature must be repaid, and yesterday more than 60 world leaders, including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, pledged to conserve more of the natural world. They signed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, promising to address the climate crisis, deforestation, […]
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A new study published in the Journal Science yesterday found that the costs preventing pandemics using three conservation strategies are substantially less than the economic losses and mortality costs of responding to a global zoonotic virus once it occurs.
Why This Matters: As the study’s authors explain, the risks of zoonotic disease are higher than ever as increasingly intimate associations between humans and wildlife disease reservoirs accelerate the potential for viruses to spread globally.
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The World Wildlife Fund – U.S. (WWF- US) commissioned a public opinion survey in Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam in early March and they found that 93% of respondents in the four countries with active illegal wildlife markets support efforts by their governments and health ministries to close all illegal and unregulated markets selling wild animals – Japan was the lone exception.
Why This Matters: As Dr. Fauci says if we do not have enough evidence of the global toll unsustainable practices like this are having on our world, then what will it take?
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