Visakhapatnam: Covid-19 is a wakeup call to protect nature

Visakhapatnam: A new infectious disease emerges in humans every four months and 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases come from animals, observed National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHP) Environmental Safeguard consultant Indira Prakash Mellan here on Thursday.

Participating in a webinar organised by the Environmental Science Department, GITAM Deemed to be University, she said that coronavirus is a wakeup call to all to protect nature.

She pointed out that a degraded environment loses its capacity to support development and robs time to invest in development. Illegal wildlife trade and destruction of habitat may further cause damage to nature, she added. She said that during the past three centuries, the amount of earth's cultivated land has grown from 2.65 million square kilometers to 15 million square kilometers.

The institution's Dean of Science A Subrahmanyam stated that pollution has a greater impact on earth and every individual must utilise the resources in a conscious way. GITAM Institute of Science Principal M Sarathchandra Babu, Environmental Science Head N Srinivas, faculty members, students and research scholars participated in the discussions.