In 1972 World Environment Day was first celebrated to mark the start of the UN Conference on the Human Environment. The initial idea for the conference was to focus on human interaction with the environment. Almost 50 years later, the need to reconsider our relationship with nature is more pressing than ever.
Both the cause and solution to our current crisis can be found in our relationship with nature.
COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on global health. The impacts of the pandemic, however, have not just been limited to the virus itself. The flow-on effects to the economy, education, child protection and mental health, to name just a few, have been extreme. As World Vision has documented in its Aftershocks series, in many places these secondary impacts are likely to outweigh the primary health one.
The recovery from the pandemic will take many years. This is particularly true for the world’s least developed countries, even those fortunate enough to escape the full force of the virus. In many of these countries, poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and climate change create additional vulnerabilities, while households and governments lack the resources and safety nets to minimise economic and social impacts.
As COVID-19 strains social systems and depletes resources, communities will become more vulnerable to future shocks, including disasters and climate change. The impact of a major disaster in the aftermath of this pandemic could be catastrophic, entrenching already vulnerable people in cycles of poverty they are unable to escape. There is no time out for disasters. For communities recently hit by cyclones in the Pacific and sub-continent, COVID-19 will make the recovery longer and harder.
To reduce the risk of millions of people sliding back into poverty, global COVID-19 recovery efforts need to not only focus on short-term needs, but also address the underlying drivers of risk and vulnerability, including poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and climate change.
These issues are well known, although in times of crisis it is important that we keep reminding ourselves.
What is less well known is the link between environmental degradation and infectious diseases. Sixty per cent of all emerging infectious diseases are . That is, they jump from animals to humans. HIV, Ebola, SARS and swine flu are all examples. As humans encroach further into the natural environment this is only increasing. A found that “nearly one in three outbreaks of new and emerging disease[s] is linked to land-use change like deforestation”. A 2017 study of Ebola in west and central Africa also found that . While the exact origins of COVID-19 are officially being investigated, it is clear we need to restore the balance of the natural environment to reduce the risk we move into a Pandemic Age.
Recovery programs that combine sustainable economic development with environmental restoration, offer a pathway out of the current crisis.
For more than 20 years World Vision has implemented Farmer Managed Natural Restoration programs across Africa and Asia. These programs work with communities to restore degraded natural environments through regenerative agricultural practices. These practices re-establish ecological processes, improve land productivity and create sustainable and resilient livelihoods for local communities. Experience has also shown that these programs strengthen local biodiversity, improve community nutrition and health outcomes and reduce disaster risk including to drought, landslides and flooding. The restored native forests also act as carbon sinks, helping to mitigate climate change.
Fires burn off logged virgin rainforest, spewing clouds of white smoke across peat swamp tracts cleared to plant oil palm trees in Indonesia. Source: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
It is vital we provide greater support to programs that help regreen the globe, reduce disaster risk and strengthen livelihoods for vulnerable communities. This will not only support the economic recovery of the world’s least developed countries but may also prevent future zoonotic diseases from emerging.
Developed countries, including Australia, also have a responsibility to ensure their economic recovery from COVID-19 does not come at the expense of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
As significant as the COVID-19 crisis has been, climate change still represents the greatest threat to global health. Victoria’s chief health officer, Dr Brett Sutton, charged with leading the state’s response to COVID-19, has recently described climate change as an . Unmitigated climate change will increase the frequency and severity of disasters, accelerate eco-system and biodiversity loss, disrupt livelihoods and increase global food insecurity.
As we respond to and recover from COVID-19, we need to ensure we don’t step out of one crisis straight into the next.
A Green Recovery which creates clean jobs, accelerates our transition to net zero emissions and re-greens the globe can tackle both COVID-19 and climate crisis together.
It may even prevent the next pandemic.
Evan Davies is the Senior Policy Advisor for Climate Action at World Vision Australia. He has worked in humanitarian assistance, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation for over a decade, for Oxfam, Plan International and the Victorian Government - in Australia, Nepal, Cambodia, Solomon Islands and Serbia.
