WHEN the current crisis is over it would be an illusion to believe we can return to our old ways.

What has happened was entirely predictable, the inevitable consequence of unsustainable and dangerous human behaviour.

We had been warned by the experts that a pandemic was only a matter of time.

Previous alerts such as Sars and Ebola were soon forgotten; we congratulated ourselves on our ability to deal with them, falsely comforted that such outbreaks usually began in far off places and could easily be suppressed before they spread across the world.

But now it has happened and we stand in disbelief.

Did we not know in our hearts that long-haul flights and mass tourism carried risks serious enough to threaten human civilisation?

Think of the alien plant species and dangerous insect life which are carried from country to country, some already here in Britain!

Did we not also realise that dangerous human diseases are just as easily transmissible as Elm tree blight?

And even more importantly why, in our desire for cheap package holidays in Africa and South East Asia can we not understand that tourism is often a form of exploitation, preventing sustainable economic development? Should we be surprised then that impoverished villagers in parts of West Africa depend on ‘bush meat’ – the flesh of wild animals – to supplement their diet and thereby come into contact with viruses such as HIV and Ebola which can infect human beings?

And to return to our present predicament, health experts have suggested that the coronavirus probably originated in a Chinese market selling the meat of wild animals for human consumption.

They have pointed out that such markets in China and S.E. Asia have well organised supply lines providing ‘wild meat’ from all over the world.

Wildlife organisations have been campaigning for many years against this trade and also the breeding of wild animals for pets.

Unless Western Governments work with the relevant foreign governments to suppress this, a virus will emerge one day far more deadly than the one now causing chaos to human life across the world.

Peter D. Leeming

Lingmoor Rise

Kendal,