The Covid-19 question: How do we prevent future pandemics?
by Jeremy Hance on 9 March 2021
The EndPandemics alliance brings together various groups working to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks by ending the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature, and transforming agriculture.
Its founders say wildlife markets, such as the one in Wuhan from where COVID-19 is believed to have originated, are ticking time bombs where animal-borne viruses can enter the human population.
Also helping drive humans and wildlife into closer contact is deforestation, including for agriculture such as oil palm; a bat found near an oil palm plantation in Guinea is believed to have sparked the worst outbreak yet of Ebola.
The country’s Environment Ministry is defending the January 29 auction as a conservation strategy, but conservations say the move is based on false population statistics, disputed claims of human-elephant conflict and puts 3% of Namibia’s last elephants up for sale
Namibian elephants in Etosha. Conservationists estimate that between 73 to 84 percent of the government’s quoted elephant population figure consists of ‘trans-boundary’ elephants, those moving between Namibia, Angola Zambia and Botswana. They put the resident elephant population in Namibia at 5,688. They are worried that with 170 heading to the auction block, Namibia is losing 3 percent of its elephant population.
Courtesy: Stephan Scholvin
The country’s Environment Ministry is defending the January 29 auction as a conservation strategy, but conservationits say the move is based on false population statistics, disputed claims of human-elephant conflict and puts 3% of Namibia’s last elephants up for sale
Namibian elephants in Etosha. Conservationists estimate that between 73 to 84 percent of the government’s quoted elephant population figure consists of ‘trans-boundary’ elephants, those moving between Namibia, Angola Zambia and Botswana. They put the resident elephant population in Namibia at 5,688. They are worried that with 170 heading to the auction block, Namibia is losing 3 percent of its elephant population. Courtesy: Stephan Scholvin
Namibia is selling the wild elephants, despite the outcry. Photo supplied
The Namibian government will put 170 wild elephants up for sale today, 29 January, justified by false population statistics and disputed claims of human-elephant conflict. More than 100,000 people have signed a petition condemning the action… writes
Don Pinnock, Daily Maverick.
See petition here.
The Namibian government says it has too many elephants and that the 170 are problem-causing animals. According to professional guide and conservationist Stephan Scholvin, about 90 are to be captured on former indigenous San ancestral lands which have been seized and distributed to political elites. They sold logging rights in the area to the Chinese, who have “completely decimated” the endangered African rosewoods.