据路透社10月25日报道，“国际生物多样性计划”的科学家们25日在一份声明中表示，人类对生物多样性的破坏——从在亚马孙丛林中修建道路到对非洲边远地区的森林进行乱砍滥伐——已经导致人类面对更多的由野生动植物引起的新疾病的威胁。他们还表示：“生物多样性不仅能使人们发现新的医疗手段，而且还能使人们远离可导致疾病的一些生物体和其他物质。”他们还说，“通过保持生物多样性来预防那些已经初现端倪的疾病，远比事后再研发疫苗更为经济划算”。

    曾经对SARS研究做出贡献的美国科学家彼得·Daszak表示，2003年爆发的这种类似流感的疾病使人类遭受了大约500亿美元的损失，还夺去了大约800人的生命。

    报道说，艾滋病被广泛认为是一种起源于黑猩猩的疾病。2004年，大约有310万人因感染艾滋病而死亡。据联合国估计，单单在2006年一年，对艾滋病的预防、治疗及护理费用大约需要150亿美元左右。

    11月9日至10日，一场关于全球生物多样性的会议将在墨西哥东南部城市瓦哈卡举行。届时，将约有700名生物多样性专家参加。

    “国际生物多样性计划”的专家力劝各国政府制订方针政策来保护生物多样性，其中包括强化贸易、农业以及旅游的规则，以减少野生动物传染给人的疾病，如禽流感。

    美国亚利桑那州立大学的生物多样性专家查尔斯·佩里斯表示：“我们并不是说要把自然界锁上，把钥匙扔掉。”他说，人类在生物多样性地区活动时，应该更加小心谨慎。他说，疾病由野生动物传染给人类的现象在历史上时有发生，但近些年来这一危险却呈现上升趋势，这是由于动植物栖息地受到人口不断增加的影响。专家们表示，保护更为广泛的物种同样也能减轻疾病对人们的影响。

    报道举例说，在美国东部地区，莱姆病（Lyme disease）得以传播的原因之一是该地区诸如狼或野猫等食肉动物越来越少。这些食肉动物的存在曾经很好地抑制了白足鼠的数量，而白足鼠则是莱姆病病原菌的携带者。而在美国其他一些地区，莱姆病其实算不上什么大问题。因为在这些地区，传播这种疾病的扁虱拥有除人类以外的更多攻击目标，如蜥蜴或其他小型哺乳动物等。

    Better protection for the diversity of the planet's creatures and plants could help shield humans from diseases like AIDS, Ebola or bird flu and save billions of dollars in health care costs, researchers said on Tuesday.

    They said human disruptions to biodiversity -- from roads through the Amazon jungle to deforestation in remote parts of Africa -- had made people more exposed to new diseases that originate in wildlife.

    "Biodiversity not only stores the promise of new medical treatments and cures, it buffers humans from organisms and agents that cause disease," scientists from the Diversitas international group said in a statement.

    "Preventing emerging diseases through biodiversity conservation is far more cost effective than developing vaccines to combat them later," it said ahead of a November 9-10 conference of 700 biodiversity experts in Oaxaca, Mexico.

    Peter Daszak, a scientist who helped find links between Asian bats and the SARS virus, said the 2003 outbreak of the flu-like disease cost about $50 billion, largely because it cut travel and trade from Asia. About 800 people died.

    And AIDS, widely believed to have originated in chimpanzees, killed an estimated 3.1 million people in 2004 and the United Nations estimates that $15 billion will be needed for prevention, treatment and care in 2006 alone.

    "Emerging diseases are causing a crisis of public health," Daszak, executive director of the consortium for conservation medicine at the Wildlife Trust, New York, told Reuters.

    Diversitas experts urged governments to work out policies to protect biodiversity, including tougher regulations on trade, agriculture and travel to reduce chances that diseases like avian flu can jump from wildlife to people.

    "We're not saying that we should lock up nature and throw away the key," said Charles Perrings, a biodiversity expert at Arizona State University. But he said humans should be more careful about disrupting areas of rich biodiversity.

    He said diseases had spread from wildlife to humans throughout history but the risks were rising because of the impact of growing human populations on habitats.

    The experts said the preservation of a wider range of species could also ease the impact of disease.

    A factor helping the spread of Lyme disease in the eastern United States, for instance, was the absence of former predators like wolves or wild cats that once kept down numbers of white-footed mice -- a reservoir of the infection.

    Lyme disease was also less of a problem for humans in U.S. states where the ticks that transmit the disease had more potential targets, like lizards or small mammals.

    "The value of services provided by nature and its diversity is under-appreciated until they stop," said Anne Larigauderie, executive director of Paris-based Diversitas, a non-government organization.

    She said China had to employ people in some regions to pollinate apple orchards because the over-use of pesticides had killed off bees. "It maybe takes 10 people to do the work of two beehives," she told Reuters.

    And the Australian gastric brooding frog had once been seen as key for anti-ulcer drugs because it bizarrely incubated its young in its stomach after shutting off digestive acids. It has since become extinct, taking its secrets with it.