Between zoonoses and deforestation, not so obvious links
The hypothesis of a link between deforestation and the emergence of zoonoses was very successful during the Covid-19 pandemic. Popularized by the media, it was widely covered by politicians.
This idea resurfaces regularly with epidemics, yet scientific evidence to support it is still lacking. The evocation of a direct link between zoonoses and deforestation is indeed strongly nourished by semantic shifts, amalgams, an overestimation in relation to other more determining causes, even fantasies about the relations between humans and the environment. nature.
This is certainly not to suggest that deforestation would have no impact on our health, or to minimize the disastrous consequences of deforestation, especially when the International Day of Forests has just passed , on March 21. It is however legitimate to try to understand how a scientifically unproven hypothesis could be so quickly relayed, and to take stock of the current state of research on the subject.
