Ensuring forests retain their rich biodiversity and continue contributing to the health and safety of communities everywhere, can help boost recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s the view Ewald Rametsteiner, Forestry Deputy Director at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who points out that deforestation and degradation, is one way that dangerous viruses such as Ebola, have made their way into the human population in recent decades.

In this interview with FAO’s Charlotta Lomas, he explains why the forestry sector is important to building back from the ravages of the coronavirus.