NODE 3
New dynamics
of consumption
from soil protection to the revision of the concept of globalization
from soil protection to the revision of the concept of globalization
and measures to protect sensitive ecosystems
Are pandemic of Covid 19 and land use related? Of course they are, even if at first reading it might seem like a theoretical approach only. It is not.
Although the birth and diffusion of Covid 19 are both part of a multifactorial process that will be better investigated in the future, the most plausible theory regards an episode of zoonosis, therefore the passage of the virus – through some mutations – from an animal to man. Scientists speculate this because a similar process has involved the emergence of other dangerous viruses for humans such as HIV, Ebola, the avian flu of a few years ago and, in the past, many other pathologies.
Since the world began, the cohabitation between animal species and human beings has always produced zoonotic episodes. From contact with cattle smallpox was born, such as rubella and mumps. In the case of Covid 19, the hypothesis that the source animal is a certain type of Asian bat and that the virus has migrated to humans through some other animals (pangolins, pigs, etc.) seems to be accepted. The question that interests us, however, is another.
How did man and bat come into contact, given that the former mainly resides in populated areas while the latter in the remote depths of some tropical forests? The key to the answer lies in the concept of deforestation and soil consumption.
In recent decades we have witnessed a progressive deforestation of wild areas, in an ever more marked way. The demand for new territory – to be used for cultivation or breeding, above all – has become more and more insistent and men have deforested ever larger areas of the planet, forcing the population of animals living in those areas to mass, migrate, modify their lifestyle and their eating styles.
When spaces are limited – let’s look at our cities for example – it is easier for episodes of promiscuity to happen: in the context of this forced coexistence between different species, it is possible that a spillover, or a jump of species, has occurred.
What we see today only as a health problem is instead a statistical game. The greater the cohabitation between species, the more easily spillovers occur. And when a virus, which comes from an animal with an immune system suitable to contain it, migrates to another living being, in most cases dangerous and epidemic contaminations occur.
We all know the history of Wuhan’s wet market, the possible geographic origin of the virus. Despite this, we are unaware that wild and domestic animal species coexisted in that market, all destined for slaughter.
This market represents in some way the end point of a process of forced cohabitation of species that can produce mysterious and dramatic results.
Not to mention the areas reserved for animal breeding. The most frequent destinations in deforested areas are breeding and forage production for animals. The process of transforming forests into agricultural land is a fundamental step, which will also concern the second step of this analysis: meat consumption. In fact, it is the growing demand for meat and derivatives that imposes the conversion of forests into land suitable for slaughtering livestock.
But land use has another fundamental motivation: the demand for natural resources. Whether it is precious wood, metals extracted in the subsoil, minerals or other, deforestation is a cheap process to satisfy the exorbitant demands of an increasingly deaf and incapable of perceiving the consequences of one’s work.
Coltan, a mineral extracted in sub-Saharan Africa, is the typical example of this indiscriminate exploitation process that produces pollution, civil wars and feeds organized crime. The disinterest, and indeed the predatory attitude, of the western part of the world towards the natural universe finds in this pandemic only its latest revelation.
Speaking of causes and responsibilities towards the birth of Covid 19, our first, natural answer consists in pointing the finger towards the epicenter of the contagion: that is China. But a little intellectual honesty is enough to understand that China is only part of the problem, it is certainly not the cause.
China, like all world nations, shows little or no attention to the problem of the systematic violation of nature and its balances. But for whom does China produce goods? Who are the “customers” of your products? No need to answer.
The western part of the world’s inability to hold itself accountable for the events it has contributed to, together with the deep state’s tenacious desire to obscure any connection between consumption and pandemic, seems to have absolved all of us also from the duty to deepen and understand. Yet it is so: this pandemic finds its root cause in the so-called “human factor”. And, in this case, it directly depends on the consumption of soil and meat.
However, the extractive and dilapidatory attitude of today’s exploitation system cannot contemplate moderation. As long as something exists, recites the mantra of the industry of the new millennium, it is our right to use it, modify it, privatize it and distribute it following the rules that the market (or ourselves) have determined.
This assumption is not true, and indeed it is a clear invention created for the use and consumption of a certain business.
This epidemic also forced us to put a reflection on the concept of reproduction of resources at the center of public discourse. The soil, and its indiscriminate consumption, requires us to reason on the fact that it is not enough to reduce deforested areas, spaces removed from nature and human impact.
Instead, a plan is needed to repopulate forests, expand them, increase the number of trees and physical places where wild species can thrive freely.
The possible solutions for this situation are many and we will explore them also in the next chapter. But they certainly pass through the creation of iron laws, national but above all international, for the conservation of virgin territories to be kept uncontaminated and far from human influence.
But above all the drafting of an extraordinary moratorium for the control of world forests.
These territories will have to be considered like extra-national and extra-territorial spaces: a planetary resource that cannot be colonized and cannot be used. The nations, on whose territories these forests gravitate, will have to be compensated proportionally to the space transferred (for example with debt reductions, incentives or other economic measures) while an international consortium of countries will have to take care of their maintenance.
The statistical game between invasion of the forest territories and zoonotic episodes forces one to think that pandemics will be more and more frequent if there is no radical intervention on the causes of their birth.
In the event of a growing risk of spillover, the protection of the territory and wild habitats are not one of the measures to be addressed but THE most urgent provision of the Agenda of the Future.
The creation of a control system for the world’s forests, the suspension of the sovereignty of individual countries in the territorial context and the purchase of forests by the international community is the true essential priority.
Collective socio-political analysis project on Covid 19. Post Coronavirus scenarios: opportunities and dead ends. What can we learn from the Covid 19 epidemic.
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Texts updated on May 4, 2020.
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Soil consumption
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