The dangers of global wildlife trafficking have made global headlines. From an obscure wildlife wet market in Wuhan China, a frightening message jumped from the wild and right into a global pandemic crisis: COVID-19, a new zoonotic virus highly contagious to humans.My guest Dr. Peter Li specializes in Northeast Asian security, U.S.-China relations; China’s environmental governance and animal welfare politics of the People’s Republic of China. Dr Li’s decades of work highlight the direct relationship between income, social status and the importance of meat consumption to the Chinese consumer. China has become the world’s largest animal farming nation- from captive bred wildlife farms to large scale breeding of pork, beef and chicken. The message is clear: burgeoning human populations intersecting with wildlife in novel ways requires globally enforced environmental and wildlife protection laws. Nature has secrets, and we are not prepared to lift the lid on her zoonotic pandora’s box.