On the hunt, for deadly viruses.
Yes, we are the bat hunters.
Their aim is to prevent the next catastrophe.
Bats carry a lot of viruses that could trigger pandemics.
Pandemics, of which we humans are the cause.
Because of our destruction of the environment,
humans are moving ever closer to wild animals.
We can cut down half the rainforest and there'll still be enough left.
People who are campaigning to protect the rain forest ?
?and for biodiversity?
?are helping to prevent new pandemics.
How can we humans destroy a living forest, hundreds of years old,
with a chain saw?
We are in the Brazilian Amazon region with a group of virus hunters.
They are tracking down invisible killer pathogens in the jungle.
Our first trip takes us deep into the hinterland of São Paulo state.
It’s the region of sugar cane plantations.
Trucks pass us by, carrying the sweet harvest.
In the dusk we spot a ring-tailed coati.
We are out with biologist Cristiano Carvalho and his team.
In the few remaining strips of the Atlantic rain forest,
he is looking for the hiding places of bats.
He thinks he has located some in these water pipes,
where he heard the sound of wings flapping inside.
Indeed, there is a colony of bats.
Dozens of them are living here in the cracks and crevices of the pipes.
I’m specialised in seeking out bat hideaways in regions like this,
close to agricultural land.
Mostly I find them in trees, or like here, in water pipes.
The bat expert’s work begins shortly before dusk.
He spans a net over the entrance and the bat hunt is on.
We are working with these animals
to find out how far the various viruses have spread.
It is part of our scientific work
to find out which bats are carrying which viruses.
Now — in times of the coronavirus —
everyone needs to wear protective clothing
to prevent a transmission of the virus.
Chiroptera — the scientific name for bats —
have been Cristiano’s passion for 26 years.
He wants to lure them from the back of the pipe into the net.
It’s amazing how quickly he succeeds.
Cristiano has to painstakingly untangle the animal from the net.
For him, it’s a routine procedure after his many bat hunts.
He hands over the bats he has caught to virologist Angelica Campos,
who neatly hangs them up in fabric sacks.
It’s only since this year that people worldwide
have been noticing that bats carry numerous viruses
which can be transmitted to humans and trigger pandemics.
That’s why researchers are now looking more closely and precisely
to find out which viruses are being carried in each individual animal.
They need thick gloves to do the job. The bats are not afraid to bite.
Angelica takes samples out of the throats
and digestive tracts of the bats,
places where the coronavirus likes to settle.
We’ve been expecting a coronavirus pandemic for years,
but hoping that we would be wrong.
They keep finding new previously unknown viruses
in the faeces of the bats.
With our work we want to prevent another pandemic from breaking out.
We are hunting for new, dangerous types of virus
or trying at least to limit them.
According to estimates,
there are more than 300,000 unknown pathogens in the world’s jungles —
mostly hidden in the bodies of mammals such as bats or rodents.
As long as the rain forest stays intact,
the viruses and bacteria pose no threat to humans.
When humans and their livestock get too close to wild animals,
the viruses can be transmitted to cattle, pigs, or humans,
and become deadly.
The virus hunters want to find out
which pathogens are a threat to humans.
The bat samples have to be kept frozen at -80°C
on their way to the laboratory to keep the virus code intact.
It's important to get as many samples from the bats as possible,
so we can identify the many types of virus circulating in the population.
Bats are more interesting for researchers than other mammals,
as they carry an unusually high number of viruses.
We can think of bats as a kind of virus storage.
The pathogens stay in their bodies, far away from us humans.
Pandemics arise when humans encroach on the natural territory of the bats
and upset the balance of nature where the viruses exist.
The researchers show us what they mean
on the way to their São Paulo laboratory with their freezer box.
Due to the sugar cane monoculture here the hanta virus has spread rapidly.
It is transmitted by rat droppings.
The hanta virus is not dangerous for the rodents.
But for humans, every second case of infection leads to death.
According to researchers, the hanta virus started spreading rapidly
after the jungle was cleared for the monoculutre.
In the 1970s,
Brazil began building roads through the impenetrable Amazon rain forest.
With their Trans-Amazonian Highway,
the military dictatorship laid the foundation
for the massive deforestation we see today.
Agriculture has bestowed prosperity upon many regions,
at the cost of the rain forest.
More and more railway lines and highways cut through the Amazon.
Every year fires ravage more swathes of the rain forest.
They are usually started by farmers
wanting to increase the size of their fields.
We are on the Trans-Amazonian Highway on our way to an indigenous reserve.
We see traces of slash and burn farming on all sides.
Now in dry season, smoke lingers over vast stretches of the countryside.
President Jair Bolsonaro won 60% of the votes
in this region of the Brazilian state of Pará.
In his election campaign, he promised to free up
the reserves of the indigenous peoples for deforestation
and to support the many local cattle breeders.
When we reach the reserve, we see an illegal settlement.
The collection of huts is called ‘Vila Renascer’, ‘the place of rebirth’.
It looks like a piece of the wild west, and indeed it is.
Vila Renascer stands on a piece of indigenous land
protected by the constitution.
This fact was confirmed by civil servants,
who also told us that they're powerless against illegal squatters.
They're not allowed to give interviews but one person agrees to speak to us:
Antoneta Araujo, a cook from an entirely different region
who moved to Vila Renascer a year ago.
Our restaurant will do well. This place is growing.
Are there many workers here?
Yes.
Many Brazilians come from far away and stake out a piece of land to work on.
I think it must be worthwhile.
Antoneta and her husband Berto are frustrated.
Neither of them has ever learned to read and write,
and they do not understand why the state sees them as illegal squatters.
We have no nurse here who could take care of us.
She is not allowed to come here, because our settlement is illegal.
The politicians come here to get our votes
but so far no one has helped us to get a legal title as landowners.
Berto shows us his building site next door,
where a new, larger restaurant is planned.
They have just laid the foundation for the floor tiles.
Antoneta is hoping for good business, in spite of everything.
The authorities say this is indigenous territory.
But the old people say there have never been any indigenous people here.
Still, the state won’t give us this land.
Are they right?
I’m not sure. We hope that we can soon be the legal owners of this land.
Then we can work here with a clear conscience.
You don’t see yourselves as illegal?
We persevere.
Buildings are going up everywhere.
The craft workers are just putting up walls for an Evangelical free church.
It is the sixth in the settlement.
In just two years, the settlement has grown to around 2,000 people.
For years,
the squatters’ spokesman has been fighting for legalization in court.
In his view, the indigenous reserve is too big.
He demands that it be reduced in size.
Traditionally, the indigenous people have never lived on this land.
That’s why we demand that the reports justifying the reserve
should be checked again.
We just want everything to be done truthfully.
The squatters’ lawyers
have managed to get the status of the reserve re-evaluated.
You have to understand
that the people living here in the Amazon want to survive.
That has to be possible on this land.
That's also how Joca Costa sees it. He runs the corner shop in Vila Renascer.
He too is hoping that the size of the reserve will be cut.
If they legalise our place then everything will be fine.
There is so much wealth in this earth, raw materials.
Which ones?
A lot of gold and more.
So, we’re hanging in there to see what happens.
Shortly afterwards, Leandro Aires arrives.
He lives near the gold mines
and complains about the latest raid by the state controllers.
I have no idea whether the raid was legal or not.
They came to my house and set it on fire. Then they left again.
I couldn’t do anything.
He is talking about an operation by Brazilian environmental police
against the illegal gold diggers in the reserve.
Not only are the criminals destroying the rain forest
and poisoning the ground with mercury,
but they're also bringing the new coronavirus to the indigenous region.
Brazilian environmental police destroyed excavators and pumps.
On videos taken on mobile phones, gold diggers complained about the raid.
The government and the environment minister promised us
that we could look for gold in the indigenous areas.
That’s why we expect our work as gold diggers to be legalized.
But we’re going to carry on until then.
Thanks to the gold diggers, shop owner Joca is doing well in his business.
But if it were up to him, it would be doing even better.
The best thing the government could do
is to legalise our area and improve the roads, so I can do more business.
That would be great.
A jeep has stopped outside.
From the load in the back it’s obvious what this man is planning.
After picking up some groceries,
he drives directly into the reserve with his workers.
The group clearly has an eye on rain forest timber.
The fact is, by destroying the rain forest of the indigenous people,
the squatters - without realizing it - are increasing the risk of a pandemic.
Brazil’s indigenous people
are fighting against the economic exploitation of the rain forest.
Their instincts tell them
that economic progress also brings disadvantages.
We are not just demanding better healthcare in the pandemic,
but to close this road too,
because we are demonstrating against the planned railway tracks.
Mostly, protests like this have no effect
since an intact rainforest as a buffer zone against dangerous viruses
cannot be exploited for economic gain.
German Alvarado thinks differently.
Ever since he can remember,
he has lived in and from the Amazon rain forest.
German knows every plant and the significance of each one.
This liana vine which grows out of the ground contains drinking water.
For German,
every plant and every living creature in the jungle has its own purpose.
Such as the milky resin of a palm tree, which can help to heal wounds.
The forest is like a pharmacy.
We can find everything here — water, medicine and remedies.
Simply everything.
For German, the intact forest has become his livelihood.
For 10 years,
he’s been operating a lodge on the edge of the conservation area.
At the moment, most of his huts are empty.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought sustainable tourism to a standstill.
The lodge was always fully booked and is particularly popular
with tourists from Europe who want to vacation in the jungle.
Now German and his wife are worried about their livelihood.
They have ploughed all of their savings into their business.
Grilled Amazon river fish like tambaqui
are the speciality of German and his wife.
But their lodge was closed for 6 months,
and business is still sluggish.
I think that in a few months, tourists will come again from Europe.
Everything depends on the vaccine.
Until it exists, no-one will be able to travel with confidence.
Still, they don’t want to give up.
The first guests since the reopening have just appeared.
A couple from Sao Paulo.
This region has so far been spared from raging fires
or gold diggers ripping the ground open.
Luckily,
our regional government takes care of protected areas such as ours here,
so there’s not as much deforestation.
But other Amazon regions have been destroyed.
The deforestation will have negative consequences for us humans one day.
Virologists on the university campus of São Paulo
are researching these consequences.
For years they’ve been warning of a ticking time bomb,
in the form of wild animals encountering humans more often
due to the sweeping fires and deforestation.
After every fire, more animals graze at the edges of the rain forest.
That’s where the viruses can be transmitted to cattle,
and the viruses adapt to their new host.
Later we humans can catch them. This worries me deeply.
Researchers had also warned of an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
But those in power ignored the signs sent by scientists.
Unfortunately, none of the studies were taken seriously —
they had shown new coronaviruses in bats since 2013.
Also, our warnings that these coronaviruses
could mutate and be transmitted to humans
did not lead to the necessary measures being taken.
Their analysis of bat faeces and entrails shows nothing this time.
They find the rabies virus, but this time there are no novel coronaviruses
or other dangerous pathogens.
It is basic research, which only costs a little money.
But still, funding was recently cut.
It’s extremely difficult to get funding for our kind of research.
Now, during the pandemic, it has been a little easier.
But as soon as the virus crisis is over,
our financial worries will return.
I’m not very optimistic.
The bat hunters will continue their search, in spite of adversity.
Even if it’s frustrating in Brazil at the moment.
I’m disappointed that our government hardly ever listens to the scientists.
They are always arguing with the researchers.
All we can do is to fight back
and try to keep hold of the objectives of our research.
For the virus hunters, it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
In the Amazon metropolis of Manaus,
researchers are trying to get viruses under control using pragmatic means.
Joaquim Cortés is preparing fly traps in the state-run Institute Fiocruz.
Insecticide is placed around the edges of a bucket.
It’s a new method they have been trying for 3 years.
When the mosquitoes lay their larva in the bucket, the poison sticks to them
and the mosquitoes spread the insecticide to many other places.
It’s a simple principle, which is now used everywhere in Manaus.
Cortés and his team drive out to the neighbourhoods on the edge of the city
where the mosquitos are a particular nuisance.
They carry dengue fever, which is rife here at the moment.
There is a monthly check of private households.
The researchers have placed their prepared buckets there,
as in this kitchen in the back yard.
The old buckets have to be replaced.
The mosquitoes love dark places, like under tables or in corners.
It doesn’t take long for the new trap to be ready for action
against the virus-carrying mosquitoes.
What’s special about this
is that the mosquitoes themselves spread the poison from these pots
to other places that we can’t even reach.
Shortly afterwards they perform a test with a mosquito vacuum.
There are no mosquitoes found in the cracks and crevices,
so the traps obviously work.
The residents confirm this,
they notice that there are fewer mosquitoes than before.
I was always afraid of these diseases - malaria, dengue or yellow fever.
Until now there are many neighbours who don’t take care,
they don’t clear up puddles of water, so the mosquitoes reproduce there,
and we all suffer from it.
Mosquitoes spreading viruses is still a problem in Manaus,
due to the many open sewers and cesspits.
Then there is the rapid expansion of the city.
Slums are developing where once there was rain forest.
People are coming ever closer to the viruses hidden in the wilderness.
The development seems irreversible,
and is fuelled by the flourishing industry of Manaus.
The researchers from the Fiocruz Institute are alarmed.
Wherever the settlements encroach on the wilderness,
the risk increases that a new virus could be transmitted to humans.
The whole structure of the economy has to change.
We have to explain to everyone that
the rain forest is more useful to us if we don’t cut it down.
All of the researchers we meet share this view,
as do the biologists and vets at the refuge station for wild animals
in Manaus.
Animals discovered during raids or which show mysterious diseases
are kept in these cages.
Biologist Alessandra Navas is feeding a young female jaguar
before she inspects the most recent arrivals with her colleagues.
This undernourished pied tamarin monkey
was recently brought to the refuge.
The vets anaesthetise it so they can examine it.
The tamarin is pretty groggy already, but it’s still hanging on!
It’s time for the examination. Wounds are visible on its feet.
The researchers seem worried.
It seems to be something contagious.
But we can only say for sure after the examination
whether the monkey is suffering from a virus, bacteria or a fungal infection.
A sample of the skin and fur is taken, then saliva.
The illness seems pretty complex.
We don’t know exactly why the animal has lost so much weight.
It could be bacteria attacking the immune system.
Or a new virus which is circulating in this region.
To be on the safe side,
this monkey’s samples will be sent to a special virology lab
to compare them with other different types of virus from around the world.
As a virus hunter, one thing you need is patience.
Most of the novel viruses we find do not cause illness
and haven’t been transmitted to humans.
But they could mutate any time.
Especially if we carry on as we are doing now, say the researchers.
The Amazon region is disappearing.
This is bound to have consequences for global health.
In the medium and long-term
we will experience new diseases being transmitted from animals to humans.
The next pandemic could come from the Amazon region, scientists warn.
It is simply a question of time.
The only thing that could prevent it, is a radical change in our lifestyle.
But this is currently not foreseeable.
I’m worried about the way we treat the forest.
The trees all support life and they are ancient.
How can people destroy them, within minutes, with a chainsaw?
The destruction may well be releasing viruses
which would otherwise never reach humans.
The researchers have never heard of pandemics spreading inside the jungle.