Manipur HC links COVID-19 to destruction of forests, insists on restoration of lost greenery

It said while there had been a clarion call for halting deforestation, the need to restore the lost forest had now become relevant due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Image used for representational purpose only.
Image used for representational purpose only.

GUWAHATI: Linking diseases including COVID-19 to the destruction of forests and displacement of forest species, the Manipur High Court has ordered the restoration of country’s lost forest for maintaining environment and ecology.

Hearing public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Manipur Valley Village Reserve Forest Rights Protection Association, a two-judge Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Justice A Bimol Singh said as the pandemic had “trampled” continents to decimate the homo sapiens, there was a need to keep the forest intact as much as possible and a “Lakshman rekha” needed to be drawn based on research and study of each forest.

The court made references to several books and articles written by naturalist Charles Darwin, Nobel laureate and biologist Sir Peter Medawar, veteran journalist Jim Robbins, Professor Carl Bergstrom of the University of Washington who is an authority on pandemic and infectious disease to drive home its point.

“There are ever so many animals viruses that are yet to come and cause global pandemics which make it imperative that we protect forests, reforest empty lands and provide buffer zones separating humans and wildlife to prevent such extinction events from occurring again and again,” the court quoted from Professor Bergstrom’s article.

The court said the question posed before it was if there was a link between the destruction of forest and pandemic.

“A virus is a piece of bad news wrapped in protein,” said Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Medawar, an eminent biologist. That simple-looking protein-coated RNA is rocking the world to pieces, the court said.

It said while there had been a clarion call for halting deforestation, the need to restore the lost forest had now become relevant due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The restoration of forest, wherever destroyed, will ensure that ecology is restored to bring back the fine balance that nature has envisioned for itself,” the court said.

It also said that a question looming over humanity was the way forward stating that in the midst of COVID-19, countries were testing different methods such as lockdown which was causing great economic downslide, herd immunity, enhancing medical tests, wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing etc to tide over the pandemic.

“Despite all these methods, the simple protein coated RNA - COVID-19 is still spreading its ugly tentacles and lakhs of people all over the world have succumbed to it. All these methods appear to be scientifically convincing yet, the containment of the virus appears to be an insurmountable task…The entire humanity is caught in Protagoras paradox and all the slokas are unable to hem the viral breach. Every problem needs a solution and we need one for this pandemic,” the court said.

Pointing out cases of ecological imbalance due to decapitation of the forest, the court said during the imperial governance, millions of trees were felled at the “Shola forests”, which were one of the world’s best-preserved multi-layered biodiversity, and as replacement exotic eucalyptus and wattle trees were planted on large mountain tracts in the Western Ghats but this had resulted in severe environmental degradation and acute water scarcity in that region.

The court insisted that human beings redefine their role in the cycle of nature.

“To believe that human beings are the dominant amongst all living species…appears to be a misconception. Homo sapiens, though a dominant species, cannot claim predominance as one specie is inter-linked to the other in their own cycle of life. It has to co-exist within limits thereby maintaining the balance in nature. The indiscriminate population fuelled deforestation and unnecessary animal human contact appears to be the cause of the present pandemic which could have been otherwise avoided,” the court observed.

It said the impact of deforestation and the need to restore destroyed forests was an issue applicable not only to Manipur but entire India and countries across the globe.

The court also insisted on regular screening to identify and isolate zoonotic virus transmission. It directed the Centre to ensure that the ongoing research on infectious diseases was properly funded and monitored.
 

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com