IN hounding progress and economic gains, we tend to put our preference for economic interests over environmental interests. And this is reflected in our attitude towards nature. Camouflaged as the effort and initiative towards progress, the human activities carried out have been persecuting the environment, forests and wildlife unremittingly. 

In the words of Ed Begley Jr, “When we destroy something created by man, we call it vandalism. But when we destroy something by nature, we call it progress”. The ramifications of our activities are proven to be cataclysmic to nature. For example, the continuous flooring and scorching of millions of trees in the Amazon for agriculture are discharging colossal amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. This abates the Amazon’s capacity to be one of the world’s main carbon sinks. As a carbon sink, the Amazon rain forest is a natural system that soaks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thus slows down the speed of global warming. Thereon, with massive deforestation activities going on all over the world, we are actually on the verge of switching off the planet’s lungs.

The Covid-19 pandemic is no accident. Akin to past global epidemics, Covid-19 is a warning that nature has had it with the ecocidal penchants of humans. With climate change sowing pandemic maladies, Covid-19 is viewed as nature’s way of fighting back. 

It is true that the Covid-19 pandemic is ravaging mayhem on countries around the world, inducing a global health crisis while pressuring economies to shut down in the face of stern quarantine measures. But the outbreak is also having a fascinating effect on earth’s environment, as nations constrict the motility of people. Actually, as humans are grappling with how to  cope with the Covid-19 outbreak, nature is reinstating balance. 

While the global population endures the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic, nature is seen to be pushing on as usual. As it happens, nature is healing herself. The global stoppage in human activities has had several positive results to the environment such as decreased nitrogen dioxide pollution levels due to less carbon-guzzling planes in the sky and less fuel-burning cars on the road. And the languid urbanisation and deforestation activities due to lockdowns have also helped to restore the quality of air to a healthy level. It is the air we breathe and the atmosphere that makes earth liveable and yet it is under threat from humanity. 

With the ongoing lockdown measures affecting millions of people all over the world, the altitudes of air pollution are deteriorating substantially in myriad parts of the world. For example, for the first time in 30 years, the Himalayas are finally visible from India because of the country’s Covid-19 lockdown.

The decreased levels of air pollution due to the global lockdown has been identified as a trend by a recent report issued by the Swiss company IQAir. IQAir had conducted a study on ten major global cities which would typically asphyxiate from high intensities of pollution: Los Angeles, New York City, London, Madrid, New Delhi, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Wuhan, Seoul and Rome. 

As the Covid-19 pandemic rages and sends humans indoors, scenes worthy of a Disney film have surfaced; from a group of endangered penguins seen waddling down through an empty neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa to a wild kangaroo hopping through the empty streets of Adelaide, South Australia to a mountain lion taking a nap in a tree in a residential area in Colorado, USA. Wildlife is always happy when the environment becomes quiet.

The movement control order (MCO) imposed by the Malaysian government on March 18 was a measure to control the chain of COVD-19 infection has had tremendous beautiful impacts on the local nature. From now – crystal clear Gombak and Klang rivers where the waters are usually asphyxiated with human and commercial waste to birds chirping happily on the window panes in Shah Alam to healthy and vigorous wetlands in Putrajaya where a romp of otters decided to frolicking and sunbathing in Taman Tasik Putrajaya. 

Evidently, nature is reacting positively to the Covid-19 global lockdown. Without us humans in the way, nature is thriving.

We commemorated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22 in the bosom of a pandemic, with the world decelerated and tottered by Covid-19. Yet Earth Day reminds us the planet still revolves, the global climate and biodiversity emergencies still mourn for attentiveness, and nature still unveils its scintillating robustness.

This Earth Day, as humans have recoiled indoors to discourage the spread of the virus, we are discovering how the ecological systems actually respond to our absenteeism from public spaces. In parallel, our planet, and our comprehension of it, keeps altering at a phrenetic pace. Regular temperatures are escalating, natural systems are deteriorating, and our susceptibility is heightened. Since the last Earth Day, we have witnessed even more confirmation that the extraordinary heterogeneity of life on this planet is diminishing. Every year, we say adieu to a number of species forever, and this past year was no different.

Creatures like the Chinese paddlefish, Cryptic Treehunter bird and the Sumatran rhino were declared extinct in the past year. Others like the Malayan tiger are expeditiously fading, now extinct in many of the places they once lived. These extinctions are being driven by habitat loss due to deforestation, climate change and pollution birthed by human activities.  

The Covid-19 pandemic is actually humanising the human race that we need to rethink of our arrogant relationship with nature. We must remember that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, but we are borrowing it from our children. Let’s not live on this planet as if we had another one to go. – April 25, 2020.

* Suzianah Nhazzla Ismail reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.