Deforestation & Ebola

The world has encountered serious deforestation problem. According to FAO, (United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization) estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest is being cut off every year. Having serious deforestation has resulted in many severe problems on Earth, such as the drastic climate change and acceleration of global warming. Recently, a new research has suggested that the foreign industries’ indiscriminating forest development has led the spread of deadly disease Ebola in South Africa.
According to the researchers Ebola is estimated to occur in the forest of a remote village, which used to be thickly wooded with lots of healthy trees. Many species of birds lived there, including the fruit bats. However, as humans cut off the forest and penetrate the forest deeper into the bird’s habitats, the animals moved closer to the area where human lives. Among those animals were the fruit bats infected in Ebola virus. Getting closer to the human’s village, the infected fruit bats easily got contact with humans and spread the avian virus. If there had been a strict regulation on excessive forest development, this fatal disease might not have been powerful as now.
Because of these results, many environment organizations are criticizing the foreign industries not only for exceedingly destroying the forest but for enforcing neocolonial effect on the countries with weak infrastructure. Some of the plantation in South Africa was made without the agreement of local farmers. Despite the positive effects such as getting a job at the foreign industries to the unemployed african people, civilians are outraged at loosing their historic lands and threatened by serious epidemic without any discussions.