Hyderabad: Ever since the nationwide lockdown was enforced to arrest the spread of the deadly coronavirus, it has given rise to another humanitarian crisis, where lakhs of migrant workers are now returning to their home states in the absence of employment opportunities.
Significant migration of humans: Cause of various issues
Our modern day development led to the migration of humans - not only in large numbers, but to very distant places too. Along with the various ecological and economic issues arisen because of this, one of the most disturbing issues has been the abysmal living conditions of migrants. While we are obsessed with the skyline views of cities, it is time we get the ground-line view of the migrant clusters.
Nature manages its biodiversity by physically locating species in colonies with communication done through signalling instead of mass transfer of inhabitants, based on the concept of energy transfer and not mass. If mass transfer takes place beyond a point, nature becomes unhealthy and tries to revert to its natural state. The current reverse migration is probably nature's way of correcting the wrongs.
Significant migration of microbes within human body: Cause of disease
With 90 per cent of microbial cells including bacteria, viruses etc., we are just a shell for the trillions of microbes. Our microbiome is not only helpful but also essential for our survival. It aids in digestion, immunity etc. It may appear to be a chaotic world of trillions of microbes in our bodies, however, nature has created order by colonising different species of microbes in different parts of our bodies, benefiting both the host and the organisms.
For example, in a healthy individual, within the gastrointestinal tract, the small intestine has aerobes and facultative anaerobes whereas the large intestine, has predominantly strict anaerobes. Similarly, in a healthy individual, the pharynx has gram negative bacteria but these are absent in the nasal passage.
Even though in healthy individuals these different types of microbes inhabit their respective locations, they aid in creating various signals which may not only impact the host location cells or organs, but cells and organs at other and distant locations too. For instance, the short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) derived from bacterial fermentation of dietary fibre can enter circulation and signal through their cognate receptors to many organs including the central nervous system, which in turn regulates other tissues.
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However, if there is significant migration or change in numbers in the microbes in a particular region, then it leads to diseases. For example, when bacteria from colon move to the small intestine in significant numbers or the population of bacteria in small intestine increases unduly, it leads to SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). It can eventually lead to various issues related to digestion, immunity etc. Our modern day development led lifestyle is proving to be a major threat to our own health.
Significant migration of a species: Cause of ecological imbalance
Phytoplankton are tiny photosynthetic marine organisms. They clean half of the total carbon dioxide sponged from air. So even though phytoplankton physically remain in their marine environment, they are able to play an important role by energy interactions in the global ecosystems too.
Again, our modern day development led global warming has made ocean water warmer, which in turn has decreased the phytoplankton population. Experts are predicting that this will lead to migration of phytoplankton to cooler waters which may lead to further ecological chaos.
Reverse Migration : Correcting the wrongs
Clearly, the modern day development-led migration of people from their homes to cities was against nature. It is critical to understand and look at options to provide opportunities locally which does not necessitate large scale human migrations. Nature, which is based on science, is indeed our best teacher. We now need to fathom the science behind nature's true interconnectedness instead of the fake interconnectedness glorified in the name of modern day development and globalisation.
(The author, former Vice President of Morgan Stanley, is an alumna of the prestigious IIT Roorkee)
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