#disease development

One 2018 report found many links between native vegetation loss and land-use change and the emergence of diseases in Australia. Disease development is a process humans are very much involved in, says Rosemary McFarlane, assistant professor in public health at the University of Canberra and one of the study's co-authors. "We're putting incredible pressure on natural systems; we have vastly more humans and livestock than wildlife, but they're all overlapping as they compete for resources. It's a problem of our own making," she says.