Sowing the seeds for a healthier planet?
Pandemic may push humans to rethink values
DANIEL Wanjama had everything ready for this year’s first seed fair in the Kenyan town of Gilgil, an important event where poor farmers exchange seeds of nutritious, hardy local crops they can’t easily buy in shops or markets.
But a week before the fair Wanjama had organised for late March, the government banned gatherings in a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“Farmers who were ready to deliver seeds are stranded with them, and those who were to obtain seeds have not planted,” he said by email.
“This is a serious situation because not planting means not having food,” added the founder of Seed Savers Network-kenya, a social enterprise based in Gilgil, about 120km north of Nairobi.
Wanjama also worries that the cancellation of seed fairs could hasten the demise of resilient crops that may help farmers adapt to worsening wild weather as the planet warms.
A 2019 survey by his organisation showed 34 varieties had disappeared over 20 years in Nakuru County alone, as traders spurned local varieties of yam, arrowroot, sorghum and millet in favour of more profitable crops.
Now, lockdowns and other measures worldwide to contain the virus are hampering efforts to conserve traditional food crops like those Wanjama wants to save, as well as forests, wetlands and their native species, scientists and environmentalists say.
Green groups and international organisations had billed 2020 as a
“super year” for the biodiversity of the planet’s plants and animals, as new global agreements were due to be sealed.
But key UN negotiations have been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic which many environmentalists blame, at least partly, on a failure to protect nature that has facilitated the transition of viruses from animals to humans.
Meanwhile, a relaxation of surveillance and monitoring in many countries has led to more poaching and illegal, unregulated fishing, said ecologist Sandra Diaz.
Popular videos of animals taking over empty beaches, parks and public squares may give the impression “we are witnessing some sort of ‘resurgence’ of nature”, but that is not the case, she said.
“It’s an extremely short truce,” said Diaz, a professor at Argentina’s National University of Cordoba and co-chair of a landmark science report last year that found human activities risk the extinction of a million animal and plant species.
Last month, Diaz and other top scientists behind that report warned of worsening future pandemics due to activities such as deforestation, farming, mining and infrastructure development.
The coronavirus pandemic has now dashed hopes 2020 would see new international accords to halt shocking declines in animal and plant species, including a global framework to safeguard ecosystems under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and a treaty to protect oceans.
Key summits to seal those pacts, originally scheduled for the autumn, have been postponed, with new dates yet to be fixed.
But Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the CBD’S acting executive secretary, said the pandemic was an “opportunity to reset our relationship with nature”.
“Covid-19 has reaffirmed what we already knew – that biodiversity is fundamental for human health,” she said in a phone interview.
Governments are now recognising this, she added, pointing to a joint call by mayors of powerful cities for economic recovery to be low-carbon and sustainable, and formal requests from Chile and Germany for scientific help to help avert future pandemics.
This week, the European Commission pledged to protect 30% of the EU’S land and sea, cut use of pesticides by 50% and put a quarter of its farmland under organic production by 2030.
A two-day Biodiversity Summit to be held at the start of September’s UN General Assembly will also give the issue a boost, Mrema said.
On a personal level, shop closures and restrictions on travel have led many people to reconnect with nature through walks in the park and local countryside, she said.
Lauren Baker of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food said consumers had also become more aware of the links between the environment and their food as lockdowns led them to cook more at home.
“If we are protecting nature today, it means we are avoiding the pandemics of tomorrow,” said Mrema.