The United States is in the process of adding most of the wowrld to it’s list of countries on its no-go list. Per Reuters, “The U.S. State Department said on Monday it will boost its “Do Not Travel” guidance to about 80% of countries worldwide, citing “unprecedented risk to travelers” from the COVID-19 pandemic. The State Department already listed 34 out of about 200 countries as “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” including places like Chad, Kosovo, Kenya, Brazil, Argentina, Haiti, Mozambique, Russia and Tanzania.” Hitting 80% means that roughly 130 nations would need to be included. That’s a lot of countries. https://reut.rs/3n3UZqd

A recent paper suggests that only 19% of the Earth’s land is still “wild.” It also goes on to say that in the past, human settlement was still able to maintain the biodiversity of where they lived due to their practices. According to an article in Science, “The paper ‘debunks an important myth’ in conservation circles, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology aerospace engineer Danielle Wood, who studies technology and international development but was not involved with the new work. By offering a long-term look at humans’ impact on the planet, the study reveals that it’s not people per se that send biodiversity on a downward spiral, but it’s instead the overexploitation of resources, she explains. If their practices are sustainable, “humans don’t have to be removed,” to save the world’s species.” https://bit.ly/32z66OF

When conservationists relocate animals, they never take into account the microbes that go along for the ride. A policy persepective published in Conservation Letters discusses “the scientific rationale for moving species from one place to another, the likelihood that such efforts may also be transporting pathogens, and the factors that dictate whether these microbes become established once released into a new system.“ The Scientist interviewed one of the scientists involved with the policy perspective. You can read the full article here. https://bit.ly/3gppNQZ

Thanks for reading. Let’s be careful out there.