Gabrielle Clark, Final Year Bachelor of Environment and Bachelor of Laws student volunteer for the Centre for Environmental Law, Macquarie University, Australia
Dr Michelle Lim, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Environmental Law, Macquarie University, Australia
Image: Robin Wood Foundation, Designer Surachai Puthikulangkura, and Agency Grabarz & Partner
It has been one year since Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic. During this time there has been a lot of speculation across the globe as to how the virus originated and what can be done to prevent something of this scale occurring again. What we do understand is that the spread of the current pandemic has been accelerated by extensive movement of people and goods around the world. We also know that recent pandemics and other global challenges, such as climate change and unprecedented biodiversity loss, are the direct result of human activity. But how is this all connected?
Telecoupling is a phenomenon that forces us to recognise linkages across sectors as well as the consequences of actions by distant actors which drives biodiversity loss and pandemic risk. ‘Coupling’ refers to social and ecological systems that are so closely intertwined that you cannot distinguish causes and impacts within these systems as social, economic or ecological. The prefix ‘tele’ indicates the long distances across which these systems are interrelated. The current pandemic is a compelling example of how telecoupled global and social-ecological systems have evolved and demonstrates our need to re-examine our relationship with the natural world. Remember that infamous bat that “caused” Covid-19? Turns out there is a bit more to that story.
Zoonotic diseases are infectious diseases which enter the human population from a non-human animal host and are responsible for 60% of infectious diseases in humans. It is not a coincidence that there has been a major increase in zoonotic disease outbreaks over the last 40 years. Habitat destruction and the global wildlife trade, the two main drivers of zoonotic disease, overlap significantly with land use change and exploitation of species, two main drivers of global biodiversity loss. Throughout the pandemic, ‘flatten the curve’ became a common phrase that assisted populations in understanding the need to slow the spread of disease, which resulted in fewer cases and lower mortality rates overall. Unfortunately the biodiversity curve, representing the rapid loss of biodiversity and projected continued decline, has received a lot less attention.
Rather than flatten, it seeks to bend the biodiversity curve upwards towards widespread recovery of nature. Successfully bending the curve towards global biodiversity recovery requires dramatic change in current approaches and a whole transformational shift is needed to address underlying causes such as unsustainable production and consumption, human population growth, trade, technology and governance at multiple scales. It is normal to assume that one method of addressing these underlying causes of unprecedented biodiversity is through the law, but, is the existing law good enough? In one word: No.
An evaluation of the current law surrounding biodiversity reveals that more is needed to recognise the interconnectedness of social, economic and environmental concerns and to directly address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss. The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), while inadvertently limiting the spread of disease through reducing the trade of animals listed in its Appendices, requires more to address the international wildlife trade in a systematic cross-sectoral manner. Similarly, the Convention on Biological Diversity has been characterised by its target-based approach that lacks explicit acknowledgement of the link between the drivers of biodiversity loss and pandemic risk. At the domestic level, the once in a ten-year review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act highlighted that categorising species according to extinction risk only spotlights their rarity which increases interest in trading. It also emphasised the need to tighten definitions around commercial categories and called for greater alignment between domestic permitting requirements and those of CITES.
So, what can be done? Addressing a telecoupled world requires increased creativity within the sciences and novel forms of governance. Global health experts call for anticipatory approaches to manage the processes that shape pandemic risk. Understanding and mapping of telecoupled processes could anticipate multiple possible futures and consider how law should respond. This would also result in early detection and response to viral threats that shape pandemic risk. Engaging in proactive measures that nip ecological decline in the bud would have the same effect as countries that committed to going hard and early in the pandemic. Wearing masks and locking down during the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in reducing the risk of zoonoses entering human populations and limited the spread of disease. Creating more inclusive and integrated responses that aim for collective responsibility to avoid the continued destruction of nature could also reduce biodiversity loss while generating anticipatory responses to disease emergence. Telecoupling demonstrates that innovation is needed across law and governance and requires us to examine legal frameworks in order to confront the interconnected challenges of pandemic risk and unprecedented biodiversity loss.