Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has of the effect of global nature conservation on the outbreak of pandemics.

My department has not made an independent assessment of the effect of global nature conservation on the outbreak of pandemics. However, as an issue of global concern, we work closely with our international partners to better understand and address the environmental drivers of pandemics and the spread of zoonotic diseases, including by reversing global biodiversity loss, tackling both unsustainable and illegal wildlife trade, and improving standards in food production and food safety around the world.

The UK played a leading role in the 2019 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment Report on biodiversity and ecosystem services which highlighted the link between the destruction of biodiversity and habitats as a factor potentially exacerbating the emergence of infectious diseases in wildlife, domestic animals and people. IPBES subsequently, in October 2020, published a report of an expert workshop on pandemics and biodiversity which further contributes to our evidence base. The UK also enabled the production of the Global Biodiversity Assessment 5, published in September 2020, which reflected on the emergence of Covid-19. We will continue to assess those findings and the findings of other international assessments, to inform our response and to enable a green recovery from the pandemic.

We will continue to actively consider the complex links between infectious diseases and the destruction of natural habitats, adopting a One Health approach to ensure the interdependencies between human, animal, plant and environmental health are given appropriate focus and supporting swift policy interventions where these are shown to be effective in mitigating risk.

IBES Pandemic and Biodiversity report: https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2020-12/IPBES%20Workshop%20on%20Biodiversity%20and%20Pandemics%20Report_0.pdf