The COVID-19 pandemic has sharply brought into focus how intrusions into natural landscapes are not just environmental concerns, but are also intricately entangled with public health. Little attention has been paid to systemic causes such as large-scale biodiversity loss that underlie the emergence and re-emergence of these diseases. Institutional networks of public and animal health in India that are involved in the surveillance and control of zoonoses are outlined herein. It is shown that the lack of a systematic framework that explicitly involves institutions that manage biodiversity and wildlife health leads to gaps in operationalising a One Health framework in India. Addressing these lacunae requires a supra-ministerial mechanism that brings together public health, ecology, and veterinary and social sciences to combat the threats posed by existing and emerging zoonoses.
Managing human-wildlife conflict in India will involve addressing the power structures that exist between the forest department and the local population.
The killing of Avni, a conflict tigress in Yavatmal, Maharashtra, who was thought to have killed several people, led to a huge controversy. The issue raises questions on the drivers of human–wildlife conflict, the destiny of tigers in a human-inhabited and -modified landscape, and whether tiger reintroductions can happen in such a scenario.
