Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, countries around the world have been shrinking or eliminating areas set aside to protect nature — some to drill for fossil fuels , others for urban development .

Yet the environmental rollbacks that some governments claim could help humanity recover economically from the coronavirus could put humanity more at risk of future pandemics, writes Rachel Golden Kroner in a recent article in Scientific American .

“We know that land use change is the most significant driver of emerging infectious zoonotic diseases , like the virus that caused COVID-19,” explains Golden Kroner, a social scientist at Conservation International.…