Collaborative Survival: How Protecting Madagascar's Rainforests Might Prevent the Next Pandemic

What do lemurs, lice, and forests have to do with stay-at-home orders, Zoom school, and lockdowns? Potentially, everything.



On Saturday November 7th, I was honored to give an invited presentation at the Anglo-Malagasy Society titled:

"Collaborative Survival: How Protecting Madagascar's Rainforests Might Prevent the Next Pandemic"

You can watch a recording of my presentation on the Anglo-Malagasy Society YouTube channel starting at timestamp 30:50 by clicking here.



One of the benefits of hosting these meetings virtually over Zoom, instead of the typical in-person format in London, is that people all over the world could join. Attendees came from half a dozen countries, including Madagascar, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. The Zoom room quickly filled up to its 100 person capacity, and nobody else could get in! Whoops! Luckily everyone can still watch the recording.

The first 100 attendees of the Anglo-Malagasy Society meeting.

I based my talk on my first season in Madagascar, during the Watson Fellowship, and my second season the following autumn. The paper I refer to, "The Coevolution Effect as a Driver of Spillover," can be found here.

The concept of collaborative survival comes from anthropologist Dr. Anna Tsing, and you can read my writings about it here.

I'll leave it there so I don't give away any spoilers—I hope you enjoy the talk! As always, feel free to leave comments or questions below.