Mind the Gaps – Economy, Ecosystems and COVID 19 Recovery

The COVID 19 pandemic has spread at a mind-boggling pace in more than 210 countries and territories spanning the entire globe. The frenetic pace of the spread and reach of the pandemic underscores the inter-connectedness and proximity of geographically spread-out but economically interdependent economies.

A case in point is the mobility of human beings across and within national boundaries. The initial spread of the crisis was triggered by the mobility of infected people within and across national boundaries. Now the restrictions on such mobility are debilitating economies, especially livelihoods, and adding the layer of an economic disaster to the pandemic.

At the same time, there is significant emerging evidence that pandemics such as COVID 19 are triggered by another kind of mobility - of a human being going further inside ecosystems and increasing their proximity to wildlife and ecosystems. Several studies have pointed out that Zoonotic diseases like Ebola, Nipah, SARS, MERS and, now, COVID 19, have their origins in economic activities such as trade in wildlife, degradation of ecosystems etc.

A recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services concludes that “Emerging infectious diseases in wildlife, domestic animals, plants or people can be exacerbated by human activities such as land clearing and habitat fragmentation,”.

In the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic, the Acting Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity recently said that While Covid-19 demands immediate action, there also needs to be a long-term vision; one that enables us to fundamentally transform our relationship with the natural world to reduce the risk of future pandemics.

In a paper published in March 2020, scientists from the University of California at Davis conclude that exploitation of wildlife by humans through hunting, trade, habitat degradation and urbanization facilitate close contact between wildlife and humans, which increases the risk of virus spillover.

These multiple intersections of economic inter-dependence of national economies and the links of pandemics to anthropogenic interventions lead to the following conclusions. First, there are two kinds of mobilities of human beings – one in the economic sphere and the other in ecosystems. Both types of mobilities have significant impacts – positive and negative - on our economies as well as our ecosystems. Second, choices of economic actors in one part of the world in how they engage with ecosystems can have significant externalities on both human beings as well as ecosystems elsewhere.

This conclusion is well known in the debates on Climate Change, but we believe it is equally applicable to the case of COVID 19. Third, and related to the second point, we believe that shocks like COVID 19 should be treated as an endogenous shock when prescribing economic policy options for recovery from the shock.

Rather than treating the Pandemic at par with an earthquake, an exogenous shock outside of the economic system, it should it be treated as an endogenous shock akin to the 2008 economic crisis which had its origins within the economic system albeit outside national boundaries.

The implications of our conclusions are the following. First, within domestic boundaries, the short-term response should focus on alleviating the pains due to restrictions on the mobility of human beings, products as well as services. Relief, rehabilitation as well as investing in health infrastructure to alleviate suffering would be key elements of the stimulus in the next 12-24 months.

Second, in the medium and long term, the key focus should be on addressing the underlying causes of these pandemics. A key element of a strategic approach to address the cause should include stringent restrictions on the miscegenation of human activity with plant and wildlife in ecosystem hotspots.

The results of the limited human mobility and reduced economic activity is already visible on the ecosystems – the Ganga has cleansed itself and the Dhauladhars are visible from Jalandhar. However, the focus should be on developing systemic solutions which focus on the health of ecosystems, animals, plants, as well as human beings.

Third, due to the endogenous nature of the pandemic, any discussion on how to resolve the resulting economic crises must not be the exclusive domain of economists. There should be significant space for engagement in developing a long-term recovery roadmap which brings experts on economics and finance together with environmentalists and conservationists.

By Ashish Chaturvedi, Director-Climate Change at GIZ India and Arnab Mukherji, Associate Professor, the Center for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore