Scientists worry that the China-Laos Railway is bringing humans into closer contact with the pathogens found in horseshoe bats there. Read more at straitstimes.com.
FEUANG DISTRICT, Laos - Deep through the forests of Laos, China has built a state-of-the-art high-speed railway.
The China-Laos Railway is a project of Beijing’s historic “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative to tie the world to China. Following decades of Chinese-led development in Laos, the railway crosses the border via the Friendship Tunnel, at the edge of China’s Xishuangbanna Prefecture. Some scientists say the rail line is worrisome because development along its once-remote trajectory is accelerating tree loss and bringing humans into closer contact with bats. The train also enables the fast movement of people and goods from rural to populous areas, where viruses can easily multiply and spread. That includes people or goods that may have had contact with live animals in a wildlife trade that has been linked to past outbreaks.
Scientists have yet to find the source of SARS-CoV-2. They know, however, it is in the coronavirus family, which is found in some horseshoe bats and other types common in tropical Asia, including Laos. For this analysis, Reuters reviewed environmental data around 95 bat-related spillovers between 2002 and 2020 and identified areas with similar conditions worldwide.
The China-Laos Railway traverses or comes close to nearly 40 per cent of Laos’ richest bat habitats, according to Dr Alice Hughes, a zoologist at the University of Hong Kong who has studied the rail link. By encroaching upon woodlands and other spaces where bats normally dwell, “you are making their habitat less habitable, you are making resources less available,” Dr Hughes said.
In a 2019 paper, the World Bank analysed possible environmental impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The Laos railway, with a cost of US$6 billion , is just one of an estimated US$1 trillion in projects, including more than 31,000km of railway and 12,000km of roads, that Beijing set out to build in more than 80 countries.
Demand, meanwhile, remains high in China for many wild animals used in traditional medicines and cuisine.Live animal markets in China have been implicated in both coronavirus pandemics. During the 2003 Sars outbreak, scientists found SARS-CoV-1, the virus responsible for that illness, in Himalayan palm civets and evidence of infection in a wild raccoon dog and a ferret-badger at markets in Guangdong Province.
More than 70 per cent of Xishuangbanna’s main rubber producing counties, the Reuters analysis shows, were at high risk for spillover in 2020. Already, scientists have found local bats bearing viruses closely related to those responsible for the 2003 Sars and Ciovid-19 pandemics. In 2004, the two governments signed agreements that laid the groundwork for what became known as “The North Plan”. Under its terms, designed by Chinese authorities from Yunnan and accepted by Laos in 2009, China would help finance agriculture, mining, infrastructure and other projects in Laos. Much of the rubber, livestock, minerals and fruit now produced in northern Laos go toward meeting Chinese demand.
Boten began as a gambling destination. That idea flopped: China cut off electricity to Boten in 2011, seeking to shut down the gaming and related activity after a spate of murders and kidnappings. Since then, new developers have focused on the rail link and its huge potential for cross-border commerce and tourism.But one trade is troubling scientists: wildlife trafficking.
From Boten, passengers travel south through another series of tunnels that burrow beneath the fast-changing topography. Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, called the link a “green railway” in a 2021 story, writing that “the natural environment along the route remains as verdant and lush as it was before the earthmovers arrived”.
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