Many traditional societies has considered environment as ‘Mother Nature’ because they have understand that protecting nature is vital for their very existence. Nature is considered as a mother in most of the societies because it nourishes an individual like one’s own mother. Resources provided by nature are used by all the living beings for their sustenance of life on the Earth.
In India nature and natural objects are worshipped during various festivals since ancient periods. Worshipping of Pipal tree, Tulsi plants etc and referring forests, rivers, lakes and sea as God denotes that Indian society has revealed the importance of the fact that this natural resources are vital for the existence of life on the Earth and without them life would be not possible on the Earth.
Air, water, forests and everything which exists around us are part of our environment. And for fulfilling our greed we pollute and destroy our environment. Our indiscriminate use of natural resource is so fast that it goes far far away from the speed of its regeneration.
Our modern society is always inventing new technology for increase in production and to achieve this goal of more production we are destroying our Environment. Use of fertilisers, pesticides, water pumps for more agricultural produce has destroyed the chain of environment and leads to its degradation. Developing new breeds of animals and crops are in fact interference in the principles of nature.
Increasing consumer’s demands with increasing population has motivated industrial development and intensive agricultural. Industrial developments have led to the more exploitation of the environment to fulfil the increasing needs of consumer oriented society. Industrial development is always having a grim side of indiscriminate use of non renewable resource. Without considering the fact that this indiscriminate use of non renewable resource will lead to its depletion is destruction for the non renewable resource as well as nature.
Increasing number of manufacturing units is one of the main concerns as this unit produces solid, liquid and gaseous wastes. These wastes pollutes rivers, ground water, air and land. These pollution are having a adverse affect on our health. So people must understand that increasing need are not satisfying rather it is devastating.
Moreover speed of use of renewable resources is so fast that we are not giving time to its regeneration. Few of them are ground water, timber etc. Loss of one resource is always having more than one effect. Like loss of forests not only affects the loss of timber and forest produce in fact loss of water resources also because forest acts as a sponge which holds water during rainfall and release them slowly during non rainy seasons. Moreover cutting of trees leads to soil erosion which in turn affects agricultural process. One of the most devastating effect of cutting of trees is the occurrence of flood during heavy rainfall.
Today life in metros is very tough because of its attracting property. Population density is increasing day by day due to different reasons. Few of the reasons are:
- Creation of more job opportunities.
- Matrimonial ties.
- Better medical and educational facilities.
- Existence of better entertainment facilities.
- Non establishment of new cities.
Developmental activities are also high in the metro cities and these development leads to the indiscriminate use of natural resources like use of petrol, diesel, and coal. Burning of these resources produces pollution which exceeds the purifying capacity of nature and hence polluted environment. In this pollution a number of diseases borne, that’s why we always find a large number of patients of heart and asthma in metro cities.
Destruction of forest has also leads to the reduction in the number of the wild animals. Today we can find a number of wild animals are extinct. This extinction of animals or birds disturbs the food chain and hence disturbance in the natural process.
Environment does not fulfils our economical needs only, it also fulfil our social and psychological needs. We always go for outing to gardens and places of greenery for our psychological and healthy developments.
Need for immediate attention
There is a need of immediate intervention in the today’s system of production and exploitation of nature and its resources. Our natural resources are rapidly exhausting and our environments are being increasingly destroyed by the greed of human beings. There is a need of sustainable development. It is the duty of every person to protect the environment and not only government. We often put the onus of protection on government however if we destroy our environment the cleanup process by government would not be achieved even by powerful government.
Even if we stop the wastage we can save a lot and this is not a one day game. Stop of wastage can be achieved only by awareness. Today with the improvement of economical condition of the peoples and availability of resources in abundant wastage is rampant. Change of behaviour of our society so that people should start saving is today’s big deal. This can be achieved with a planned chronology of awareness starting from school to social media. Use of electronics means in creating awareness is faster and effective. Awareness through movies, projects, drama etc can achieve a lot.
Use of non traditional source of energy is having a great potential in achieving environment protection. Some of them are Solar Energy, Tidal Energy, Wind Energy, Geothermal Energy etc.
Traditional conservation practices which are disappeared with the time must be reintroduced in the society. Various Government and non government organisations are doing a great job. Some Non Government organisations which are doing a great job in protecting environment are as follows:
- World Wide Fund for nature.
- CPR Environment Education Centre, Madras.
- Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Ahmedabad.
- Salim Ali Center for Orinothology and Natural History (SACON), Coimbatore.
There are also several Environment thinkers who have contributed much towards the environment protection in a different way. Charles Darwin, Henry Thoreau, Rachel Carson etc are few of them. They have gleaned the environment in a different perspective. Our society must inspire from them so that people start thinking nature as their home.