Needs to Improve Social Awareness for Environmental Management

There is Chinese proverb, which says, “If you plan for one year, plant rice, if you plan for 10 years, plant trees, if you plan for 100 years, educate people.”

The creation of social awareness for environmental management has to follow this strategy if the situation is to be improved. So far, environment has been a subject, which has been a subject, which has been very commonly discussed by media men, counting more upon the doom’s day. Such sensational approaches often hit the headlines.

However, an attitude, which would facilitate awareness about the prevention and regeneration of environment, has been lacking.

There is a need to develop a strategy for the management of environment. This should be expressed it in a language which will appeal to the common man in a creative manner by establishing the relevance of environmental education to their day-to-day lives. Man’s basic needs are food, shelter, clothing and recreation. The concern about the environmental education arising out of food production, enhanced ways of earning livelihood, effect of technology on day-to-day life and also the impact of all these developments on health will be more relevant to a common man.

A) Concerning the Agricultural Productivity

No one questions the role of forests in maintaining the environment, but at the same time, no one has ever questioned the need for agriculture.

Agriculture was the first activity in the evolutionary process of present civilization. The concern about environment has come up here because of the rapidly changing balance between the forested and cultivated land. In India, today, we have 145 million hectares of cultivated land while the protected forest area is believed to be 35 million hectares. When man took to agriculture, there was very little fear of adverse effect on environment.

The traditional agriculture has been based largely on renewable resources of energy-solar energy, rainfall, animal residues, waste products and the microbial activity which decomposes them.

The concept of industrial inputs in agriculture like chemical fertilizers, pesticides and farm machine ware totally absent.

The present day food needs compelled mankind to modernize agriculture and make it dependant on industrial inputs and large amount of energy. Coupled with this situation, there is population explosion in most of the developing countries including India.

Hence, one cannot say that if new methods of agriculture are causing problems one should revert back to traditional system. Before one talks about the possible solution, it is better to have an idea of the process, which has led to the present situation.

1) Land Use Patterns:

In India the land use planning has been guided by economics. Due to pressures of expanding population, soil is cultivated more and more intensively which poses a threat to productivity. Careless use has resulted in damage to the soil and consequent reduction in quality and quantity of woodlands and forests. The problem has been further aggravated due to soil erosion and deforestation. For various reasons, the top soil is also lost or damaged year after year. This has adverse effect on agricultural productivity.

At present no consolidated and reliable statistics and information are available to start a well planned policy of land use.

2) Water Resources:

Water is an integral input into agricultural productivity besides being a major life support system. Its misuse can cause degradation as well as erosion, affecting lives of people and crop yields.

India provides a diversified picture of water resources. Most of the north Indian rivers are augmented by melting of snow but southern rivers do not have this advantage. These are dependent on land surface management. Nearly 70% of the area in India is subjected to water stress, i.e., water scarcity of floods. This is further aggravated by:

i) Ignorance about nation’s water capacity; the common man, even people who matter, consider it to be abundant and unlimited.

ii) The concept of water conservation and management is till alien to us.

The chronic water shortage in Tamil Nadu in recent years is a warning signal for the years to come.

3) Irrigation Patterns:

Irrigation schemes have been developed as an answer to unpredictable rain pattern in India. Today about 44.7 million-hectare area is irrigated. On the one hand, one is not sure about returns in terms of yield, i.e., financial returns commensurate with investment. On the other hand, large areas, which have become submerged under reservoirs, got waterlogged or were destroyed by construction of roads and colonies which are the side effects of these projects. This has resulted in less cultivated area, displacement of local persons and other problems related to forced migration.

4) Issue of Social Awareness:

The above discussion shows that the concern with increasing agricultural productivity is widespread in terms of its implications as well as the categories of people involved. A farmer or a villager, the immediate persons to be affected, are as much involved in the process of destruction and regeneration, as is the planner at the national level. Hence the concern is seen to be both at global as well as at micro level.

B) Concerning Industry

Green revolution in a way is the result of industrial development. Demand for more food resulted in the application of science and technology for higher production. Related industries like fertilizers, chemicals, foundries, etc. came to into existence. Through the technical process on the concentration of capital and technology in the hands of a fewer people. But its external effects are carried far afield. This development has resulted in consumption of valuable natural resources at a faster rate on the one hand, and the production of pollutants on the other. The consequences are:

1) Increased waste production and pollution

As industrialization increases, the use of polluting materials grows at a fast rate. The developing countries suffer from the problems of ill management of polluting products. The developed countries suffer from the affluence causing the pollution. Examples are the large number of vehicles on the roads, throwing of waste industrial products in the rivers, no proper system of dealing with toxic substances, and disproportionate volume of consumer wastes like containers, tins, etc.

2) Cost of Pollution

Not only is pollution a problem in terms of public health, it also creates problems in terms of the expenditure on pollution abatement and loss of quality and quantity of resources. It is common experience that the green belts around industrial areas are becoming a luxury. Either one suffers from the ecological imbalances or the extinction of rare species or one pays the cost for maintaining national parks and wildlife sanctuaries to maintain the balance.

Industrialization has exposed humanity to more and more metallic impurities in the environment. It has also resulted in urbanization creating slums and thus affecting not only the general health of the people concerned but quality of life of the urbanites in general.

C) Concerning Health

If one takes the above argument further, the health concerns have been created because of industrial development on one hand the ecological imbalances caused by the need for higher agriculture productivity on the other.

Although the ends are not bad, the means to achieve then have been ill planned and ill conceived. Some of the concerns in health have arisen because of the polluted air, unhealthy living places and unhealthy food tat one consumes.

Development, modernization and urbanization lead to complexity of life and increase in psychological strain affecting the community health in turn.

1) Urbanization

The worldwide tendency of people to crowd together has resulted in higher population densities in many cities. People have migrated from rural areas in search of alternative sources of livelihood. This unplanned growth has resulted in poor quality of life.

The urban population has grown much faster than the facilities for water, light, housing and food. Job scarcity over the years has further added to the unhealthy living standards. Concentration of wastes on the outskirts of cities has resulted in the accumulation of wastes, which could not be decomposed in a natural manner. This has created polluted air and many health hazards.

2) High Incidence of Diseases

Poor environmental sanitation and inadequate supply of safe drinking water is a major factor leading to diseases in the cities, specially in slum areas. The capital city of Delhi had faced this problem in the recent past and newspapers are full of such news from other parts of the country. Migrants who come to live in cities are suddenly confronted with environment very much different from rural areas. This has also caused many emotional problems resulting in high rate of crimes, delinquency and mental diseases.

3) Malnutrition

Unhealthy living conditions and uncertain source of income have caused problems of malnutrition in the urban sectors, contributing to health problems. This is further aggravated when developing countries do not have a national system of health. As a result, the medical services are also not available or inadequate.

D) Other Areas of Concern

In addition to the areas of agriculture, industry and health, there are some others also that need attention. These are environmental ethics; environmental laws; public administration and environment; forests, woodlands and grasslands; wildlife; birds; population dynamics; urban settlements. Social awareness in necessary in all these matters.

E) Planning Intervention

Maintaining the quality of life amidst population explosion, increased consumption and increased waste accumulation calls for disciplined human decisions. Human interventions are inevitable at all levels from the local to the national. These interventions cannot be ad hoc and left chance. It must be emphasized that these need to be guided by:

1) Ethics of relationship of men to environment in which the general welfare supersedes self-gains and conservation is preferred to abuse.

2) The direct beneficiaries of the intervention be held responsible for the control of degrading effect and restoration of degraded environment.

3) The general public be made conscious any unavoidable effects that may result from encroachments on environment and be helped to tackle them so that the adverse effects may be minimal.

These safeguards are possible only if a multi-faceted approach is taken and directed at all strata of the society through a hierarchical national network.