WE MAY never know for certain how the SARS-CoV-2 virus jumped from another animal to a human before upending our world. Getting a convincing answer will take some time, judging by the first results from a World Health Organization investigation into the origins of the new coronavirus. The WHO team conference last month, ruling out a lab origin, but calling for more research into the possibility that it was carried via frozen food.
Most virologists regard that as unlikely. The most plausible route seems to be that the virus originated in a bat, as the closely related SARS-CoV-1 virus, which causes SARS, did two decades ago, and spread from there to people via an unidentified species.
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In a sense, the details don鈥檛 matter. We know enough to say that, even though these deadly pathogens originate in nature, they aren鈥檛 a problem created by nature. Unbridled human consumption driving ecosystem destruction, the degradation of habitats changing the balance of species and the way we bring species unnaturally close to one another in the wildlife trade all increase the risk of 鈥渮oonotic鈥� diseases that jump from species to species.
鈥淲e know enough to say that these deadly pathogens aren鈥檛 a problem created by nature鈥�
The staggering economic cost of the covid-19 pandemic 鈥� a hit to global output estimated by the International Monetary Fund at $28 trillion 鈥� should be reason enough to convince even the hardest-nosed market acolyte that cleaning up our act is a matter of economic self-interest: not a cost, but an essential investment to safeguard our future.
The pandemic is just one reason among many. The scary pace of biodiversity loss is already hurting economies as we pay more for, or no longer receive, ecosystem services that nature once provided for free, from clean air and water to fertile soils. Tackling the climate crisis, too, will be almost impossible without preserving and restoring nature. Reforestation alone could absorb about 14 per cent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions.
We don鈥檛 have all the answers yet, but we don鈥檛 need them to know when it is prudent to act.
