The baobab’s fruit, seeds and leaves have been used for mil­lennia across Africa for food, oil and bark.

More recently, the powder has found its way in European and American health stores as a super food.

Science has shown that the powder is rich in mi­cronutrients, vitamins and polyphenols—all of which are great for boosting ones’ immunity. The baobab oil is now a sought after product because of its an­ti-aging properties.

And here is the catch: The flowers of the baobab tree are pollinated primar­ily by bats. The very animal suspected of potentially carrying the deadly coro­na virus (still to be scientifically proven). And this is not the only tree that bats depend on but entire forest landscapes where they thrive, feed and breed.

These same bats have recently been subject of intensive research by Kenyan scientists from the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) and Jomo Kenyatta Uni­versity of Science and Technology.

They are exploring the nexus between bat mi­grations, roosting spots and viral diseas­es. Using microchips, they have tracked bats migrating from Kenya to Zambia and further into the Democratic Repub­lic of Congo.

On their way back, the bats made pit stops in parts of Tanzania, Ma­lawi and Uganda before returning to Kenya. And throughout these extensive travels—a mean migratory distance of 860 kilometers—the researchers no­ticed a pattern: Bats were coming closer to humans than ever before.

Many bats have found their way to our settlements, from roosting in Nairobi’s buildings to Mombasa’s trees. They are not moving in because they like us, but because we have destroyed their homes—the forests in which they forage, breed, and raise their young. And there may be a price to pay for this close prox­imity.

For just as the virus that causes Covid-19 is believed to have originated in a bat, these bats, too, are reservoirs of virus, including coronavirus, which fall with their droppings onto the ground.

There is only one reasonable solution to protect human health from poten­tial new infectious transmitted by these bats: Restoration of the forest areas they called home.

In November 2017, Mombasa wit­nessed a strange phenomenon: The lo­cal recreational park, Uhuru Garden, was overtaken by at least 3,000 roost­ing bats. The arrival of these mamma­lian guests did not happen within a sin­gle day but over time.

Deforestation in the forest landscapes such as the Sacred Kaya Forests and others around Mom­basa, Malindi and Kilifi, drove these ani­mals closer to human settlements.

Coincidentally, as the bats made a feast of the fruits in Mombasa’s Uhu­ru Garden, a group of Kenyan and Chi­nese scientists were busy at work try­ing to understand them.

Their paper, published in 2017, raised alarms, doc­umenting the potentially deadly cock­tail of viruses carried by these bats, and their presence. Bats do immense good as they crisscross Africa.

In their search for food, fruit bats pollinate the very foods that find their way to our plates: man­go, banana, guava, cashew and more. As they eat away at the fruits, bats al­so act as seed dispersers for many oth­er plants making vital contribution to forest regeneration.

In addition to fruit, these bats dine insects (although other bat species are more voracious insect eaters).

But as the fear of disease rises, it is easy to lose sight of this good, and blame the bats, rather than our own destruction of their forest homes.

According to conservationists, the cur­rent deforestation rates across Africa are four times the global rates resulting in approximate annual forest loss of about 40,000 square kilometres per year. Sadly, Africa’s problems due to anthropogen­ic degradation are further compounded by climate change.

March 21 was the International Day of Forests under the theme Forests and Bi­odiversity: Too Precious to lose. Amid the rising panic of Covid-19, it passed like a whisper.

Coronavirus gives us another reason to rethink how we should manage our forests sustainably.

In Africa, at least, we now have clear evidence that deforest­ation is closing the “social distance” be­tween bats and people. And that is dan­gerous.

Although some may react to this situation by wanting to eradicate bats, that would be a mistake. As seen above, they play a vital role in pollinating our fruit and controlling insect pests.

Dr Musonda Mumba is the chair of Glob­al Partnership for Forest and Landscape Restoration and Head of UNEP’s Terrestrial Ecosystems Unit.