'The Amazon is a huge reservoir of viruses,' warned Brazilian ecologist David Lapola.
The next pandemic could come from the Amazon rainforest, warns Brazilian ecologist David Lapola, who says human encroachment on animals' habitats -- a likely culprit in the coronavirus outbreak -- is soaring there because of rampant deforestation.
Lapola, 38, who studies how human activity will reshape the future ecosystems of tropical forests, says the same processes are in play in the Amazon."We'd better not try our luck."Last year, in far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's first year in office, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged 85 percent, to more than 10,000 square kilometers -- an area nearly the size of Lebanon.
"When you create ecological disequilibrium... that's when a virus can jump" from animals to humans, he said.Similar patterns can be seen with HIV, Ebola and dengue fever --"all viruses that emerged or spread on a huge scale because of ecological imbalances," he said.
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