India must ensure that by the time World Environment Day 2021 rolls around, significant progress is made in restoring nature to its former glory

Today is World Environment Day (June 5) and it is usually marked by functions organised to raise environmental awareness and encourage action to protect our planet. Last year, as the world celebrated environment day in the usual manner, it could not have imagined that a year later the very same environment which had been degraded for centuries would be regarded with a new-found respect and humility. They could not have foreseen that people would start realising the value of the smallest of pleasures in life, such as taking a walk in the park, meeting friends and family or eating out at a restaurant. All because of COVID-19 and the huge impact it has had on our lives and the global economy.

The pandemic has changed the global outlook on the environment and biodiversity. And as India and the world try to limp back to normalcy, we need to build on this newfound regard for the environment and incorporate it into our post- COVID-19 recovery plans. This must get reflected in the form of creation of healthy cities where nature and people can thrive harmoniously.

This year’s environment day theme is “Time for Nature”, wherein  humanity’s relationship with nature is sought to be reimagined and brought back into focus.

We must realise that nature gives humans the diversity that is needed for survival, provides resources to develop medicines, helps absorb carbon, reduces pollution and, therefore, mitigates climate change. But when the same nature and biodiversity is exploited to a breaking point, the consequences are dark and stark.

The speed of human progress and growth is impressive and unprecedented but sadly detrimental for the environment. In the last 50 years, the human population has doubled, the global economy has quadrupled and international trade has increased by ten times. This warp-speed development is making such demands on nature that it would need 1.6 planets like the Earth to fulfill all human needs.

We need to realise that this spiralling demand on nature and biodiversity is also increasingly exposing human life to hitherto unknown dangers. The emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the fact that when biodiversity is destroyed the natural system that intuitively supports and secures human life is also destroyed.

The more diverse the ecosystem, the more difficult it is for one pathogen to spread rapidly and dominate. A severe loss of biodiversity enables harmful pathogens to cross over from animals to humans. COVID-19 is an unfortunate example of this.

Nature is already sending us a message but humans are unable to decipher the same. This is evident by the fact that the number of zoonotic infectious diseases, or those diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans, are rising rapidly and it is estimated that in future they would comprise 75 per cent of the global disease burden.

Anthropogenic activities such as deforestation, urban expansion, intensification of illegal wildlife trade and thriving wet markets are unwittingly building a highway of diseases between the animal world and the human population and this needs to be stopped immediately.

The ongoing pandemic has taught some very painful lessons to humanity. India, too, has seen a never-before societal awareness regarding the environment. This awareness has ensured a uniform response from all spheres of the society to battle a common enemy. This unity in civil society is priceless and can be utilised for furthering common causes.

 Given the deteriorating state of the environment and biodiversity, India must leverage the new-found awareness levels of the population to secure the interests of nature and ensure that a robust biodiversity is established as a check dam between harmful viruses and the precious health of the population.

India must ensure that by the time World Environment Day 2021 rolls around, significant progress is logged in restoring nature to its former glory. As part of the same, efforts need to be made to ensure that humanity moves closer to nature and learns to put nature first in the order of priority. This will not only ensure that we leave a better world for our children but it will also lend true meaning to the theme of this year’s World Environment Day — Time for Nature.

(The writer is an environmental journalist)