Disrupted ecology invites virulent viruses; India must cut dependence on scant natural resources
As a result of rapid industrialization, theever-hungry industrial nations consumed natural resources at an alarming rate. The collateral damage became evident through adverse impacts on environment - air and water pollution of air and water to the global problem of climate change. Today every nation is suffering contamination of ecology due to anthropogenic intervention. Issues like dwindling groundwater or soil erosion apart, the world faces serious consequences of 'development' virulent viruses such as the novel coronavirus SARS-COV-2 for example.
Covid-19 has unleashed unimaginable fury on people's lives and livelihoods. The Scientific Reports (Nature research) Journal said an astounding 20,507,518 life years have been lost worldwide including India due to the pandemic. Statista Data figures show that the world lost over $4 trillion in economic output. These consequences are a direct result of overzealous human activities that have disrupted normal ecological conditions causing rare virus strains to surface. Sixty per cent of the world's ailments stem from animals, of which 72 per cent is from wild animals. Usually referred to as the 'reservoir' species they do not infect humans directly; the infection happens through an 'intermediary animal' or the 'carrier animal' because the virus in the latter undergoes mutation and becomes contagious. Virus mutations are normal processes in the evolution of a virus and occur at gene level and, therefore, cannot be avoided.
Various studies point out that intact ecosystems and biodiverse nature hotspots are supremely successful in drawing the crucial line of separation between humans and animals. But insatiable human hunger for natural resources-driven economic prosperity means that mankind is crossing the invisible line and driving into the 'prohibited' sphere of the wild plant and animal world that are replete with hitherto unknown viruses that quickly latch on to the 'human hosts'. This trespass into nature's domain has its own set of penalties and associated costs.
The breakage of ecosystem integrity usually occurs when deforestation, change in land use and mining sort of activities abound. These activities triggered by human intervention have an irreversible impact of the ecosystem biodiversity as they forever alter the indigenous specie population and density. This helps viruses to spill over, mutate and multiply finally leading to more toxic and contagious phenotypes against which humanity has no known remedy or protection available.
Given these conditions, it is easy to comprehend that restoration of lost ecosystems and ensuring preservation of existing ones is a primary priority for mankind. India must understand that the biodiversity of the ecology is irreplaceable and that the disruption of the same means inviting certain death and destruction. Towards that end, India must take immediate measures to preserve the sanctity of its ecology by first gently encouraging the population to adopt environmentally friendly lifestyles which are less and less dependent on precious natural resources.
A resource-exploitative lifestyle that is intensely dependent on harvesting precious natural assets of the environment is also unable to develop and retain natural immunity against common infections and viruses. This is due to over dependence on medicine regimes. An eco-friendly lifestyle will ensure resurrection of biodiversity which in turn will help revive the natural immunity that humans are born with.
(The author is an environmental journalist. The views expressed are personal.)
