One might be forgiven for thinking that the global lockdown measures keeping us all at home can only have been good for the environment. But in the world’s tropical forest regions, it’s another story. There has been an uptick in deforestation and illegal logging during lockdowns, as well as increases in poaching, animal trafficking and illegal mining worldwide. This has been reported by environmental agencies and activists from Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, Kenya, Cambodia, Venezuela, Madagascar, Ecuador, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Contrary to all environmental prescriptions, this illegal deforestation and mining has intensified at a time when indigenous communities are being invaded by the pandemic. The Brazilian government has reduced its efforts to halt forest degradation amid the Covid-19 pandemic, opening the doors to increased deforestation, wildcat mining and land grabbing. As a result, deforestation in 2020 increased 51% through March compared to the first quarter of 2019, according to INPE.
Carlos Nobre, Climate scientist at the University of Sao Paulo, has observed, “the Amazon has the highest quantity of microorganisms in the world. We are disturbing the system all the time, with urban populations getting closer, deforestation, and the trade of wild animals.” In this dystopian scenario, the Amazonian communities are, today, in greater danger than the forest itself. It is no accident that the five cities with the highest rates of lethality from Covid-19 are located in the Amazon region (Tabatinga, Manacapuru, Autazes, Coari, and Iranduba) — and they are precisely those with the highest practices of imbalance between humans and the environment.
When this fragile equilibrium between the environment and society is broken, it causes the appearance of new diseases. Rapid deforestation in the Amazon rainforest could open up a pandora’s box of new viruses and bacteria against which humans will have no defense.