As people around the world increasingly disturb natural habitats and convert them to agricultural and urban areas, the way that local communities interact with the animal species around them also changes. These processes can potentially drive greater contact between people and animals carrying viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens that can also infect people (e.g. Ebola, Plague, Monkey malaria , SARS-COV-2).
Recent findings have shown that the large-scale and ongoing degradation of natural landscapes causes an increase in the number of host species that people can come into contact with and, in some instances, there is evidence that the number of disease cases increases as biodiversity is lost. Here, we examine the latest research in this area and show that there is a strong need to carefully manage future landscape change across the world, to protect biodiversity, and by doing so potentially limit human exposure to dangerous pathogens.
Speakers:
- Dr David Redding, Zoological Society of London and University College London: "How habitat loss impacts human disease risk"
- Dr Rory Gibb, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: "The effects of land use change on zoonotic host diversity"
- Dr Christina Faust, Pennsylvania State University: "Land-use change and disease outbreaks"
- Dr Kimberly Fornace, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: "Zoonotic malaria and deforestation"
Resources
- To find out more about the speakers and their talk topics:
Download your Agenda and Abstracts Booklet here
Catch up on the event below or visit: https://youtu.be/RylBrMX7DNQ.
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Science and Conservation Event Details:
- This interactive online event was livestreamed to our YouTube channel, which can be found here: zsl.org/IoZYouTube, alongside recordings of all our previous online events.
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- Each event will comprise of 3-4 presentations from experts in the topic, similar to our previous event series.
- Thank you to everyone who submitted a question - we encourage you to watch our events live so you can take part!
- There was no charge for this event, and no need to register in advance to watch the livestream.
- This event was facilitated and coordinated by Charlotte Coales, Tendai Pottinger and Eleanor Darbey.
ZSL Wild Science Podcast
We will be creating a fascinating podcast episode featuring some of the speakers from this event, so keep an ear out in the following months! Listen to previous episodes from our award winning ZSL Wild Science podcast episodes produced by Dr Monika Bohm and Eleanor Darbey here.
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