India, June 16 -- Land use degradation creates ground for zoonotic disease like COVID-19as the interaction and physical distance between animals and humans gets closer

Land use change, which prepares the ground for zoonoses like the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), should be reversed urgently, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has said.

Over 70 per cent of all natural, ice-free land in the world is affected by human use, according to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

"In a short space of time, COVID-19, a zoonotic disease, led to the worst economic crisis since the Second World War. A majority of the countries went into lockdown for two months, on average,"...