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We Are Making Ebola Outbreaks Worse by Cutting Down Forests
Epidemiologists explain how human activity helps spread the deadly virus in West Africa.
?By James West and Tim McDonnell
| Mon Jul. 7, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
...
Deforestation
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Human activity is driving bats to find new habitats amongst human populations. More than half of Liberia's forests?home to 40 endangered species, including the western chimpanzee?have been sold off to industrial loggers during President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's post-war government, according to figures released by Global Witness. Logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, and chopping down trees for an increased demand for fire wood are all driving deforestation in Sierra Leone, where total forest cover has now dropped to just 4 percent, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which says if deforestation continues at current levels, Sierra Leone's forests could disappear altogether by 2018.
"We see deforestation or incursion into forests, whether it's through hunting or just alteration of landscape, causing people and wildlife to have more contact," says Epstein.
Mining
...
The 1994 outbreak of Ebola, which killed 31 people, occurred in gold mining camps deep in the rain forest. Mining also appears to be a feature of this latest outbreak: Its epicenter is in the south east of Guinea, close to iron ore reserves, according to Reuters.
Mining "has become a big livelihood activity across the regions, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, as of the last couple of decades," says Leach. And that means more mines in the forest, but also "immense movement: people going seasonally in and out of mines, coming in and out, young people coming from all over the country." Guinea is the world's top exporter of bauxite, the raw material used in aluminum production, according to Reuters.
"That whole sense of movement is something that means that a disease, an outbreak, once established in a place, is very likely not to stay in that place; it tends to move quite quickly," Leach says.
Iron ore mining boomed in Libera last year, for example, after a surge in public and private investment. According to Bloomberg, the nation gets most of its income from mining with several major international players in the market, alongside smaller gold and diamond mines. The international Monetary Fund said mining spurred a 20 percent growth in GDP in Sierra Leone in 2013, after a flood of investment from British companies in iron ore.
War
Conflict is also driving humans into forested areas. Survivors of Sierra Leone's civil war, which ended in the early 2000s, hid and slept in the forest, according to Human Rights Watch. The movements of refugees have had a lasting impact, says Leach. "There is still a lot of cross-border interaction of people through contacts that were established in the post-war period," she says. A 2010 UNEP report on post-war Sierra Leone also says that in the post-war years, people in this region have become increasingly reliant on the forest animals for food, and wood from trees for fuel and building materials.
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Full text:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/we-are-making-ebola-worse
Epidemiologists explain how human activity helps spread the deadly virus in West Africa.
?By James West and Tim McDonnell
| Mon Jul. 7, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
...
Deforestation
...
Human activity is driving bats to find new habitats amongst human populations. More than half of Liberia's forests?home to 40 endangered species, including the western chimpanzee?have been sold off to industrial loggers during President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's post-war government, according to figures released by Global Witness. Logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, and chopping down trees for an increased demand for fire wood are all driving deforestation in Sierra Leone, where total forest cover has now dropped to just 4 percent, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which says if deforestation continues at current levels, Sierra Leone's forests could disappear altogether by 2018.
"We see deforestation or incursion into forests, whether it's through hunting or just alteration of landscape, causing people and wildlife to have more contact," says Epstein.
Mining
...
The 1994 outbreak of Ebola, which killed 31 people, occurred in gold mining camps deep in the rain forest. Mining also appears to be a feature of this latest outbreak: Its epicenter is in the south east of Guinea, close to iron ore reserves, according to Reuters.
Mining "has become a big livelihood activity across the regions, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, as of the last couple of decades," says Leach. And that means more mines in the forest, but also "immense movement: people going seasonally in and out of mines, coming in and out, young people coming from all over the country." Guinea is the world's top exporter of bauxite, the raw material used in aluminum production, according to Reuters.
"That whole sense of movement is something that means that a disease, an outbreak, once established in a place, is very likely not to stay in that place; it tends to move quite quickly," Leach says.
Iron ore mining boomed in Libera last year, for example, after a surge in public and private investment. According to Bloomberg, the nation gets most of its income from mining with several major international players in the market, alongside smaller gold and diamond mines. The international Monetary Fund said mining spurred a 20 percent growth in GDP in Sierra Leone in 2013, after a flood of investment from British companies in iron ore.
War
Conflict is also driving humans into forested areas. Survivors of Sierra Leone's civil war, which ended in the early 2000s, hid and slept in the forest, according to Human Rights Watch. The movements of refugees have had a lasting impact, says Leach. "There is still a lot of cross-border interaction of people through contacts that were established in the post-war period," she says. A 2010 UNEP report on post-war Sierra Leone also says that in the post-war years, people in this region have become increasingly reliant on the forest animals for food, and wood from trees for fuel and building materials.
...
Full text:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/we-are-making-ebola-worse