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A widespread loss of pollinating animals in recent decades is a fundamental deterioration in nature. This loss will ultimately lead to a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”.

From a Wuhan, China, “wet market” where freshly butchered meat and live wild animals are sold for food and medicine, the virus likely was transmitted in late 2019 via wildlife to humans.

Out of this horror comes hope. In the backwash of the pandemic’s first wave, we see the shingled ruins of the old economy, and the chance to construct a new one.

Pandemics such as coronavirus are the result of humanity’s destruction of nature, according to leaders at the UN, WHO and WWF International, and the world has been ignoring this stark reality for decades.

Matt Wolf’s documentary Spaceship Earth, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival – and released digitally worldwide last Friday – charts the determination of a group of countercultural visionaries who used art and community to foster a connection with nature.

The vast illegal wildlife trade and humanity’s excessive intrusion into nature is to blame for the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading US scientist who says “this is not nature’s revenge, we did it to ourselves”.

People should "give nature space" when lockdown restrictions ease, the Department of Conservation says...DOC ecologist Bruce McKinlay said New Zealanders should be aware of wildlife possibly in places they might not have encountered it before.

The environmental changes wrought by the coronavirus were first visible from space. Then, as the disease and the lockdown spread, they could be sensed in the sky above our heads, the air in our lungs and even the ground beneath our feet.

Intriguing things sometimes happen in places deserted by people. Plants creep back, animals return and, slowly, birdsong fills the air.The coronavirus pandemic means public spaces the world over have been temporarily abandoned. Major roads are all but empty and public squares are eerily quiet.