In July 2020, Animal People attended the annual United Nations High Level Political Forum as a member of the Animal Issues Thematic Cluster. As part of this event, Animal People Executive Director Wolf Gordon Clifton conducted a series of interviews with experts on various aspects of animal protection and sustainability. We will be releasing recordings of those interviews here on Animal People Forum.
In the video below, Wolf Gordon Clifton interviews Dr. Chris Walzer, Executive Director of Health for Wildlife Conservation Society and professor at Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine. They discuss the relationship between the wildlife trade and the transmission of zoonotic diseases, including COVID-19. Other topics covered include how governments have addressed the wildlife trade in their pandemic responses, whether tightened restrictions on legal wildlife trade are necessary to curb zoonotic disease transmission, and how bans on wildlife trade might effect people’s livelihoods.
Featured image: bushmeat for sale at a market in Cameroon. Image credit Jasmine Halki, CC BY-SA 2.0.
