Reasons To Protect Biodiversity

“Biodiversity Is The Way, So Don’t Let Nature Go Astray”

-Anonymous

The term “Biodiversity” represents life on earth. It is commonly called as Biological Diversity. Biodiversity refers to a variety of flora and fauna and other species in the world. It can be measured globally or area wise. The count of biodiversity is called Species Richness. The health of the planet depends upon its biodiversity. More is biodiversity more healthy is the ecosystem and more inhabitable that place will be. Biodiversity plays a magnificent role in stability of the ecosystem, climate and supporting life. The man directly or indirectly depends upon biodiversity for fulfilling its various needs.

Biodiversity is life-supporting, it itself doesn’t come out as a threat to humanity. Humans are destroying it by various ways such as overexploitation, urbanisation, pollution, deforestation etc. Humankind is destroying natural environments at an accelerating rate. Between 1980 and 2000, more than 100 million hectares of tropical forest were felled, and more than 85% of wetlands have been destroyed since the start of the industrial era. Fortunately, the evidence base for determining action is compelling. A recent report by the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) found that the ways we produce and consume food and use land costs $12tn a year in damage to our environment, health and development. And if we do nothing, this will increase to more than $16tn each year by 2050. Population explosion leads to urbanisation which results into closer contact between animals and humans, resulting in the transmission of more and more diseases and viruses from wildlife to humans. This transmission of diseases from animals to humans is called “Zoonosis”. According to an estimate, there are around 435 diseases that come from animals over the past 60 years. In past, we encounter a number of such cases –SARS, Ebola, avian influenza and swine influenza etc.

At present, the world is dealing with one such crisis, and it is one of the worst crises to date i.e. “Novel Coronavirus” also called as COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 is the source of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a form of the severe acute respiratory syndrome. It is the 7th coronavirus that infect humans. The other species of coronavirus such as SARS first broke out in China in 2002 infecting at least 8000 humans across 29 countries, MERS which broke out in the middle east in 2012. Out of all these “COVID-19” is more contagious. It originated from China in December last year (2019). Because of this work processes halted and economies shattered.

As per recent data globally there have been 5,370,375 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 344,454 deaths (till May 26, 2020). In India, there have been 146,498 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4,187 deaths.

To prevent community transmission various countries around the world declared lockdown as right now there is no vaccination to prevent and medicine to cure the diseases. This lockdown comes out as both boon and bane.

On one side, due to the restrictions work processes and various businesses halted and economies shattered around the world. On other side due to the stoppage of various work processes such as industrial activities, air travel etc. it leads to reduction of greenhouses emissions and air pollution around the globe. Along with improving air quality, this lockdown is discharging wildlife and many species shows the sign of recovery after decades of relentless human pressure on the earth’s natural ecosystem.

The current crisis is an unprecedented wake-up call. We need to turn the process of recovery into an opportunity to do right things in future. We need to mend our ways to prevent further destruction of biodiversity and find a way for the peaceful coexistence of human and biodiversity on this planet. As we human cannot exist without biodiversity, we are dependent on it on one or the other way. An estimate by the World Economic Forum suggests that “as much as 50% of prescription drugs are based on a molecule that occurs naturally in a plant, while 70% of cancer drugs are natural or synthetic products inspired by nature”. So, clearly, preserving biodiversity is integral to protecting human lives.

Several treatments for health come from plants. Recently, it has been discussed that Hydroxychloroquine medicine that has been used for years to treat malaria, can be used in combination with other medication to cure or to treat COVID-19. But this quinine comes from a plant from the Amazon, so it’s important to keep all this biodiversity, but also work to explore all the active principles that are in these plants and can potentially be used for human health .So that, there will not be any other COVID-19 in future. As human and planetary health are interconnected. It is a wake-up call that we must live in our planetary boundaries and give space to each other to flourish without harming one another.