Modification of natural landscapes and pandemics

India has the second largest population in the world with over half of the territory used as cropland. India's food production will need to increase substantially in the coming decades due to an expected population size of more than 1.6 billion in 2050. The larger population will drive energy demand and demand for other commodities, necessitating modification of natural landscapes. To ensure food security in the future, agricultural systems will have to respond to population growth and changing dietary habits, besides climate change. An analysis shows that in India, in order to meet future food production demands, agricultural lands are likely to expand, and existing farmlands need to be intensified. Both processes however, will likely result in biodiversity losses. Besides the intrinsic value loss, in the current context of coronavirus pandemic, it is important to note that biodiversity loss tends to increase pathogen transmission and disease incidence. Most epidemics do not just happen; they are a result of what we do to nature. Infectious disease, therefore, is largely an environmental issue. Humans, livestock and wildlife share large pools of microorganisms and parasites, many of which under favourable conditions can infect and potentially establish a new host species, or adapt to new population structures and contact patterns of existing host species, leading to changes in manifestation. Both processes result in emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). Viruses are more likely to emerge than other types of pathogen due to their wide host range and rapid evolution. EID events have risen significantly over time after controlling for reporting bias. EID events are dominated by zoonoses (60.3% of EIDs): the majority of these (71.8%) originate in wildlife. Therefore, efforts to conserve areas rich in wildlife diversity by reducing anthropogenic activity may have added value in reducing the likelihood of future zoonotic disease emergence. Zoonotic EIDs represent an increasing and very significant threat to global health as is being currently witnessed. Loss of species can increase encounter rates between pathogens and hosts when the lost species are not hosts for the pathogen. Of course, if the lost species are hosts capable of transmission, declining biodiversity would reduce the total number of hosts, decreasing transmission. Observations from across the world prove otherwise; see WHO’s dataset on disease outbreaks by year for the period 1996 through 2020. For pathogens, loss of diversity is most likely to increase transmission if the loss causes an increase in density of competent hosts. There are at least a dozen examples of pathogens for which species loss leads to increase in total transmission. Over 300 emerging disease events were identified in humans globally between 1940 and 2004. For pathogens that establish in new species, the emergence process involves multiple steps, including the initial invasion into the new host (‘spillover’), the production of transmission stages within the new host, and the establishment of the pathogen in the host population as a whole. The effect of biodiversity may vary for each of these steps. For the initial invasion, biodiversity may act as a source pool. Almost half of the zoonotic diseases that have emerged in humans since 1940 resulted from changes in land use, from changes in agricultural or other food production practices, or from wildlife hunting. These human activities increase rates of contact between humans and animals, possibly a critical factor underlying spillover. Expansion of agricultural areas through deforestation can lead to increased wildlife-human and livestock-wildlife contact with livestock-human transmission leading to a range of infectious disease outbreaks and emergence events, and modification of transmission mechanism. Besides agricultural encroachment, road construction, logging, dam building, irrigation, wetland modification, mining, the concentration or expansion of urban environments, coastal zone degradation, in other words, modification of natural landscapes cause a cascade of factors that exacerbate infectious disease emergence. In recognition of the large scale diversion of forest land to the extent of 4.135 million hectares until 1975-76, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 was enacted. Since then, until 2014, 1.2 million hectares of forest land has been diverted for non-forest purpose with ‘adequate mitigative measures’ like creation and maintenance of compensatory afforestation, realization of Net Present Value, preparation and implementation of wildlife conservation plan. Several stipulations are in place for granting forest clearance under the Forest Conservation Act but are not necessarily adequate to address loss of species. The EIA process also does not address loss of biodiversity adequately. Out of 10 Office Memoranda issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, GoI, under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, related to forest clearance and wildlife clearance only the one dated 28 May 2013 addresses the issue of biodiversity in case of hydropower and river valley projects. Human health and environmental health could be simultaneously improved by the same policy or management actions provided agriculture and animal husbandry expansion and intensification, and other modifications of natural landscapes are implemented in a way that minimizes biodiversity losses. Now is the time to revisit the provisions of forest land diversion under the legal framework of Environment Protection Act, 1986; Forest Conservation Act, 1980; and Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. We must resolve to leave the standing forests and other natural landscapes alone or brace for more frequent and virulent disease outbreaks. Until the most recent outbreak, it was believed that the annual cost of new human diseases transmitted from animals was US$ 6.7 billion. After the world recovers from the current crisis and is able to undertake an economic assessment, the annual cost figure might be several notches higher.

• Healthcare
• China
• India
• Cornavirus
• COVID
• COVID-19
• EID
• Forests Act
• Landscape
• pandemic

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