While the world continues to grapple with the devastating consequences of coronavirus, leading conservationist organisation WWF has called for urgent global action to address the key drivers which will cause future zoonotic disease outbreaks. In a new report ‘COVID 19: urgent call to protect people and nature’, WWF says that the environmental factors driving the emergence of zoonotic diseases are: the trade and consumption of high-risk wildlife, land-use change leading to deforestation and conversion, expansion of agriculture and unsustainable intensification and animal production. Numerous warnings from scientists and thought leaders, such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), have been made about the risk of a global pandemic.

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