Louise Sallé 5:17 p.m., May 22, 2022

On the occasion of World Biodiversity Day, an educational documentary demonstrates how the disappearance of species and the degradation of ecosystems promotes the emergence of infectious diseases, potentially dangerous for humans, such as Covid-19. 

On the occasion of World Biodiversity Day, an educational documentary demonstrates how the disappearance of species and the degradation of ecosystems promotes the emergence of infectious diseases, potentially dangerous for humans, such as Covid-19. 

The film is released this Sunday on the small screen (8:45 p.m. on Ushuaïa TV then Monday evening on FranceTV La1ère), and in a number of independent cinemas listed on the site.

It is led by actress Juliette Binoche who meets virologists, parasitologists, ecologists around the world there, explaining to her that we are entering an era of "epidemics of pandemics". 

“The more we deforest, the more we lose biodiversity”

The current rate of species extinction is 100 to 1000 times higher than the natural rate of extinction.

And this is catastrophic for human health.

Scientists are clear: we will have many pandemics in the years to come because species are no longer there to protect us against viruses.

Latest proof: monkeypox, which has already infected dozens of people in the United Kingdom.

An edifying documentary is coming out this evening on the small screen to explain this ecological and health upheaval, entitled La Fabrique des Pandémies (directed by Marie-Monique Robin).

In this documentary shot in the midst of Covid, virologists and ecologists from around the world are interviewed by Juliette Binoche.

They study in tropical areas, deforested and modified by man like Serge Morand, parasitologist: "The more we deforest, the more we lose biodiversity, the more epidemics we have: it is the factory of pandemics", affirms t -he."Scientists have been sounding the alarm for several decades and are all saying the same thing".

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“Scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades and are all saying the same thing”

 Throughout the film, the scientists explain, whatever the country where they practice, that the viruses, which are born in the wild zones, do not remain there any more.

These micro-organisms were, before, picked up by animals which thus broke the chains of contamination without developing diseases (like certain species of bats for example).

But these species having disappeared, the viruses now escape from their original environment and end up infecting humans. 

 "I was impressed to see all these scientists, very many, who have been sounding the alarm for several decades and all saying the same thing", confides the director of the documentary Marie-Monique Robin, at the microphone of Europe 1. 

The loss of biodiversity in the tropics worries

"They have shown, with their work, that pandemics emerge because of the destruction of biodiversity, especially in tropical areas where there is great biodiversity and therefore a lot of pathogens potentially dangerous to humans, which there are a lot of animals and a lot of external microorganisms," she points out.

“If we continue to destroy these ecosystems, we are going to enter, and we may have already entered, an era of epidemic pandemics… And it was not just Covid-19 that proved this these days. last years".

Ebola, AIDS, zika… All these zoonoses, of animal origin, have arisen due to the erosion of biodiversity.