This week it was revealed in the media that the origin of the coronavirus is a zoonotic disease, probably from bats. But what is causing this is that small-scale tourism to their barely accessible habitats or is wood logging the culprit?
The origin of the coronavirus is therefore a zoonotic and probably originated from bats. From wild animals living in totally inaccessible isolated forests the size of Western Europe, where viruses with great diversity and unprecedentedness are preserved as trapped treasures.
It is in Southeast Asia that these forests have been largely lost to large-scale deforestation due to logging and palm oil plantations. Vast forests transformed into green deserts. The same thing happened in Africa, in the mighty Congo basin with its beautiful ancient bush.
Truck-strong access roads
With the construction of access roads to transport the wood , mainly illegally cut – to large cities and ports, the forests are opened up. Truck-strong access roads that make it possible to travel very deep into the jungle at a rapid pace. This is an opportunity that timber logging companies are using to supply their workers and which poachers and hunters are grateful to use to get the caught game to the markets in the cities at lightning speed. Wild animals that have never been in contact with humans are freely poached and eaten. It is the eating of these animals that causes diseases.
My idea is to stop logging wood and stop the construction of roads to these areas. It is not the small-scale tourism that we offer that has caused this pandemic, it is the logging companies that have uncovered the forests.
You must be with us
Would you like to see the splendor and glory of these untempered forests with your own eyes, listen to first-hand tales of pygmy, spot the pycathartes – one of the planet’s rarest birds – and observe gorillas and primal utans in their natural environment? Then you must be with us. We know the guides and work with accommodations dedicated to protecting these last places on earth. Where the world can’t find you…
