When a new coronavirus emerged from nature in 2019, it changed the world. But COVID-19 won’t be the last disease to jump across from the shrinking wild. Just this weekend, it was announced that Australia, is no longer an onlooker, as Canada, the US and European countries scramble to contain monkeypox, a less dangerous relative of the feared smallpox virus we were able to eradicate at great cost.

As we push nature to the fringes, we make the world less safe for both humans and animals. That’s because environmental destruction forces animals carrying viruses closer to us, or us to them. And when an infectious disease like COVID does jump across, it can easily pose a global health threat given our deeply interconnected world, the ease of travel and our dense and growing cities.