We are losing the rainforest
where the great apes live
the rate of about a football field
across the world per second.
So, you know we've lost half of our tropical rainforests,
approximately, i can't remember in how many years.
And all the great apes are endangered,
some of them are you know very endangered indeed
like the West African chimpanzee.
The gorillas are just losing out to the oil palm plantations,
and it's the big companies
coming in logging and mining,
it's the roads that are being made through the forest,
and it's the butchering of them in the African forest
that led to the HIV / AIDS pandemic,
and it's the trafficking of these animals
to wild animal meat markets in Asia
that's led to the SARS epidemic
and now to the COVID-19 pandemic,
and you get this spillover of a virus
or it could be a bacteria
from an animal to a person,
and then when it bonds with something in a cell in a human body
you get a new disease
and that new disease might be contagious
passing from the person who's got this new combination
to another person,
and that's what's happened with COVID-19.
But you know, we we've got to realize it's our disrespect of the environment,
cutting down the forest,
pushing animals in closer contact with each other
providing opportunities for this spillover
of a virus to an animal,
and it can also happen in our intensive farms as well.
I mean we've been relatively lucky,
this was incredibly contagious this pandemic,
but the percentage of people who catch it and die
is relatively low.
But imagine the next one,
and there will be another if we continue to disrespect animals and the environment.
Imagine one with a death rate more comparable to ebola.
That's going to be a total nightmare,
but are we going to learn?
We haven't been listening to the scientists
studying these zoonotic diseases.
And it ties in with climate change,
which is an existential threat.
We'll get through the pandemic,
but climate change, unless we change our behavior,
is going to be the end of life on earth as we know it.
So you know, this for me is why conservation is so important,
and it's why this program i began for young people
'Roots and Shoots'.
Getting young people
to understand the importance of protecting nature
because we're part of the natural world.
Just because we live in the middle of a city
doesn't mean we're not dependent on the natural world
because we are for clean air and clean water
and for food and clothing and all the rest of it.
So is this pandemic going to be a turning point?
or will we go back to business as usual?
Are we going to learn?
We're supposed to be the most intellectual creature that's ever lived.
Are we going to learn?