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Georgina Mace (London, 1953) looks out into the post-pandemic world with renewed hope for a new starting point in man's relationship with nature. From her vantage point at University College London, the prestigious zoologist - awarded last year with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Ecology - warns that the world must also prepare for the severe consequences of the loss of biodiversity and climate change.

The British scientist was the architect of the Red List of threatened species and has dedicated her last years of research to the concept of "ecosystem services": Everything that nature provides us and that we never dared to evaluate.

Is there a relationship between biodiversity loss and human health? The variety of life on Earth is crucial to our physical and mental health. Biodiversity contributes a lot to us directly and indirectly. We depend on it for the food and water that nourishes us, to regulate the climate and protect us from all kinds of risks. We are part of nature and our well-being depends on a healthy relationship with it. If we destroy it, we lose its benefits. Disruption of nature can have predictable and unpredictable consequences for us. Can we say then that the pandemic is a product of our bad relationship with nature? Covid-19 is a very serious incident with an immediate cost of loss of life and with possible consequences for the physical and mental health of many people in the future. But there are many other kinds of consequence of that "broken" relationship. For example, the destruction of tropical forests in South America and Southeast Asia may contribute to climate change and affect billions of people in the coming decades. Soil degradation due to poor agricultural practices or declining populations of insects essential for pollination also allow the emergence of new pests and pathogens. The Covid-19 has hit us because of its scale and urgency, but there are many other consequences of our bad relationship with nature that are accumulating and will cause us problems in the future. The word resilience has spread by word of mouth since it hit the coronavirus What can we learn from nature's capacity? All natural systems do indeed have the ability to resist damage and recover in sometimes unexpected ways. We need to learn how to stimulate resilience in nature. I think there are limits to adaptability and recovery, but we still don't know them well. The most sensible approach is to preserve and restore what we have. We need to "reset" our relationship with nature to ensure a better future for humans and for the rest of life on Earth. Today, 60% of diseases are zoonotic. What can be done to reverse that trend? Infectious diseases appear to be emerging at an increasing rate, and indeed most are caused by pathogens leaping from animals. There are numerous causes behind all of this. Among the most important are the change in land use. Deforestation, agriculture and intensive livestock farming cause the loss of biodiversity, and put people in contact with wildlife. Livestock can serve as an "intermediate host" for the transmission of pathogens to people. So limiting those interactions is important. The urbanized and interconnected world in which we live also causes these diseases to spread rapidly. Global trade has a long-distance impact and can move pathogens around the world. A final factor is the increase in population, with people living in increasingly dense cities, and in contact with animals that can transmit old and new diseases. All the steps in this chain are important. "Loss of biodiversity" is perhaps too abstract a concept for most people. Shouldn't we be talking directly about "mass extinction"? Yes, the term probably sounds too technical, and it underestimates the scope of the problem. "Mass extinction" refers in particular to the loss of species, when the current problems are the disruption and "simplification" of nature. I think we should emphasize how important the relationship with nature is, because our health and well-being depend on it. And I speak at all levels, from personal experiences like a simple walk in the park to the local relationship with ecosystems to ensure the supply of food and energy. And finally on a national and global scale, where climate disruption and natural risks can translate into the emergence of new diseases. Do you consider the "Red List" of threatened species to be your greatest scientific contribution? Are we before the definitive scale of life on Earth? Yes, I am proud that it serves as a scientific measure of the status of biodiversity, and I believe it covers that important dimension related to extinction. But it is just one tool, and we need others to measure the different aspects of biodiversity that affect people. One of the first victims of the pandemic was precisely the Biodiversity Summit (COP15) in Kuming. A few weeks later the Climate Summit (COO26) was also suspended. Is there not a risk that the environment will come to the fore in the face of the health emergency? I am very hopeful that the momentum will not be lost, and I think there are many people working to make it so. We have an opportunity to put pressure on governments and corporations to invest in a post-pandemic green recovery, supporting the restoration of nature, building low-carbon economies, and investing in adaptation to climate change. There has been excellent work in the preparation of COP15 and COP26 establishing the link between biodiversity and climate change. These are good signs that allow us to believe that the momentum will continue to live. Your research has focused in recent years towards the concept of "ecosystem services". Should we put a price on everything that nature does for us? It is a great idea as a principle: show the economic value to inspire and validate efforts to conserve nature. However, there is a risk of putting "high monetary value" services ahead and relegating others that we know little about or are more difficult to assess. It is something that must be done, but that does not assure us by itself that we can maintain all the benefits that we receive from natural systems.

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