The world loses about 15 billion trees a year to make way for agricultural and commercial activities. While beneficial for economic progress, a growing body of scientific evidence is showing that deforestation and biodiversity loss make pandemics more likely.

Scientists estimate that six out of every ten infectious diseases in humans, and three quarters of the world's emerging diseases, are zoonotic, i.e. passed from animals to humans. When natural habitats and species are destroyed, animals and insects find their way closer to human civilisation, creating conditions for mosquito-borne diseases like dengue and malaria, and zoonotic viruses such as Ebola and COVID-19, to spread. 

The call to protect our forests and reverse the destruction of ecosystems has never been more urgent. To counter this trend, the World Economic Forum (WEF) launched the Trillion Tree challenge with the goal of regenerating the planet through the planting of 1 trillion trees by 2030. Start-ups, too, are contributing to these efforts through the use of artificial intelligence, satellites, drones and data.

Together with endeavours to predict how diseases may move between species and with active surveillance of hotspots for novel diseases, reforestation could provide a stronger protection against the next pandemic.