A new lease of life to the biodiversity of Coimbatore during the COVID curfew

Coimbatore: It is said that every cloud has a silver lining. True indeed! Even as the COVID-19 pandemic is raging around, the biodiversity of Coimbatore has been given a new lease of life.

With the fortress of the Western Ghats on its one side, a plethora of diverse woods all around, and myriad water bodies strewn across the landscape, the district of Coimbatore could have become a personification of biodiversity, but was not to be due to various factors such as the abundance of vehicular traffic and industrial presence. So far as traffic congestion goes, Coimbatore stands next to the metropolis of Chennai. But to the delight of many environmental and biodiversity aficionados, history is being rewritten during the COVID curfew as a result of which the Kovai coin has two pronounced sides now - a smart city and a biodiversity hotspot.

Eversince the nationwide COVID lockdown was instituted on March 22, we have been witnessing unforeseen challenges, the duration of the curfew is serving as a turning point for our relationship with nature. What we never or sparsely did became the new normals - social distancing, hand sanitisation, face masks, handwashing and what not?Amidst all this chaos, the COVID crisis has also provided us with a reset button on our relationship with nature. People's attitude and approach to nature has undergone a world change in many places. It seems that mother nature has reaffirmed what we already knew, that biodiversity is fundamental for human health, and has given a new urgency to the need to protect it. 

The curfew aided us on this front. Factories don't spew smoke like before. Lesser the vehicles on the roads, lesser the emission of noxious gases. The environment started reinventing itself. Needless to say, there's a world of difference between the pre- and post biodiversity climes. To know more about this, we spoke to the WWF zoological researcher, Bhuminathan.



He said, "Air pollution went down a bit. Roadkills on hill roads decreased. Obstacles in elephant pathways seemed to lessen. Hunters who poison and trap wildlife such as deer, monitors, peafowls and otters among others were booked. Animals and birds that were hunted have been confiscated. These are welcome changes."

He added, "As for the water bodies here, volunteers from many organisations have rehabilitated many lakes and ponds. Many birds nest on the trees in and out of the water bodies. The birds feed on the food available there. There has been a pronounced improvement in the quality of the air around these places. This goes onto prove that more than selfie spots and walkways around lakes, we need biodiverse water bodies that can give us clean and breathable air.

He concluded, "It is true that people have been facing a lot of challenges because of the COVID curfew, but the good out of the bad is that without the presence of tourists in places such as Ooty, Valparai, Anamalai and Atakatti, wildlife moves about freely and air pollution has dramatically declined. Spots where birds and butterflies and animals live fearlessly become better biodiversities."