How deforestation can lead to more infectious diseases

Drought and storms are decimating Germany's forests, causing an estimated €2.5 billion in damage in 2018-2019. Some 160,000 football fields worth of forests will need to be replanted, the government has estimated.

Nigeria moves to end vaccine-preventable diseases.

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April 24 marks Arbor Day: Joggers, hikers and people walking their dogs particularly enjoy forests. In the midst of the coronavirus crisis in Germany, the woods seem to be even more popular than usual.

The world's forests act as shields, keeping humans safe from coronaviruses and other diseases. Their destruction can unleash devastating consequences for global public health.

Medical expert, Ebuta Agbor discusses the use of face shield without face masks.

Troops declined shooting, school boys were used as human shields - Military

At first glance, the round black pellets could easily be mistaken for animal dung. But these hardy little balls contain acacia seeds that are helping regrow Kenya's depleted forests. In a tranche of razed forest bordering the Masai Mara wildlife reserve, a team of rangers scatter generous handfuls of "seedballs" around the bald clearing to give nature a fighting chance to regenerate.

Warming sea temperatures, pollution and dynamite fishing are causing Adriatic marine forests to disappear, a worrying trend which prompted Albanian experts to join a Mediterranean programme to restore them with 'good algaes'.

Democratic Republic of Congo's environment minister said on Thursday (October 28) the country intends to ban all log exports and implement other measures to lessen threats to its carbon-absorbing tropical rainforest, a major bulwark against climate change. Home to a majority of the world's second-largest rainforest, Congo is under pressure to improve forest management and curb a high deforestation rate that has doubled in the last decade, according to U.N. figures. Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba announced the suspension of log exports to reporters in the capital Kinshasa, but did not say when it would come into effect.

Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, is home to immense cedars and firs, some of them 800 years old. It's here that an environmental battle is raging between the logging industry and defenders of the Fairy Creek forest. The fight over logging has gone all the way to British Columbia's Supreme Court and is resonating within Canadian society, with police accused of excessive force towards the environmental protesters. Our correspondents François Rihouay, Joanne Profeta and Laura McQuillan report.

An initiative in Germany is planting trees to help increase biodiversity in urban areas and simply make people happier. The idea originally came from Japan but has been adapted to local needs using native tree species.