Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, countries around the world have been shrinking or eliminating areas set aside to protect nature — some to drill for fossil fuels , others for urban development . Yet the environmental rollbacks that some governments claim could help humanity recover economically from the coronavirus could put humanity more at risk of future pandemics, writes Rachel Golden Kroner in a recent article in Scientific American . “We know that land use change is the most significant driver of emerging infectious zoonotic diseases , like the virus that caused COVID-19,” explains Golden Kroner, a social scientist at Conservation International. “By opening up protected areas to development…we run the risk of creating the conditions for another pandemic, even while we’re still dealing with the current one.” To track global rollbacks of environmental protections since the onset of COVID-19, Golden Kroner created a database that draws on news articles, government documents and expert field analysis.…