How close is Environment to us? Are we Considering it as our family

Everyone in this community is a part of a family. All are aware how intimate and bonded are relations among the family members. Unfortunately, if a member of a family is not well or suffering from pain the family members respond to them whole heartedly by extending our hands of care and concern to them. Assuming a step further, if a member departs away from us we undergo into deep agony and irreplaceable damage. In contrast, why are we not feeling the similar concern and care or why are we not feeling the same pain when a very intimate lifesaving member of our family is not well and slowly getting weak? If we wonder who it is, it is our environment or nature existing around us and with us as one among the family member.

Environment consists of all living and non living things occurring naturally on this earth. It not only nurtures us with resources but also encompasses the interaction of all species in this planet. From a grain of soil to the rocks, mountains, deserts and more importantly air and water in the form of atmosphere and oceans, lakes and rivers respectively with whom we coexist is called environment. Since it is responsible for our existence the environment is more than a family member.

From the times immemorial our ancient Rig-Vedic Aryans comprehended the importance of nature and began to treat the nature divine and started worshipping them in the form of Agni (Fire), Varuna (Rain), Vayu, Dyus (Sky), Soma (Plants), etc.They also dedicated many hymns to those natural elements which became the basis for the Formation of Vedas and also emergence of a religion. Not only from the perspective of the resources and composition but also religiously and socially also has this natural environment played a significant and dominant role in our life.

Irony of the present day life is we are hammering out our own life saving environment for our enhanced selfish desires and aspirations. Our greed and narrow mindedness has clouded our consciousness so much that we have crossed every limit in degenerating this ecological environment to unsustainable levels. The nature has it’s capacity to replenish it’s resources in a certain pace, but the pace of human exploitation of these resources have exceeded the pace of replenishment which is resulting in draining out the earthful wealth to unearthful hollowness.

Our thirst of economic growth, industrialization and so called development has damaged this helpful environment in all the aspects. When speaking about water, life cannot be imagined in absence of this wonderful gift of our environment. The pollution through untreated industrial effluents and poisonous sewages released to the water sources, pollution of air through the poisonous gases from industries, vehicles and depletion of ozone layer by release of CFC and also causing global warming by the increased emission of the greenhouse gases.

Without going deep into the different pollutions, let us concentrate on the impact of such pollutions and interventions on the environment. There is a subtle inter relationships between every species to our ecology. In other words the entire biodiversity along with the physical environment is interconnected in one or the other ways. Destruction or harm to one element of the biodiversity or physical environment can cause the imbalance of the whole interconnected chain. This phenomenon can be explained through a simple example.

The seed of the plant called “Calvaria Major” could germinate only if its tough outer coat is worn-out. This worn out process was done by a bird called DODO by consuming it. The seeds used to wear out by the digestion process of this bird and excreted out to the ground. Then only the seeds would germinate into a plant. Unfortunately, DODO is now extinct due to human hunting. Hence, the calvaria plant also disappeared from this earth

Broadly, speaking there are hundreds of names of the extinct species in the Red Book list of the IUCN. Also there are hundreds of endangered and threatened species in the list. If we generalize the DODO bird and Calvaria plant’s example then we can presume thousands of species either perished away or on the verge of getting diminished. Conversely, Perishing of many such species can possibly put human life also at risk.However; we are already feeling the heat of the environmental degradation in the form of floods, famines, natural disasters in the form of earthquakes and tsunamis, also in the form of global warming and many hazardous infections that are detrimental to our lives. Although there is lot of awareness being created regarding the protection of our natural environment, it has to be intensified greatly to every one in this earth. Celebration of the EARTH DAY is an attempt in achieving this global voice. In addition, Stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants, Montréal protocol on ozone depletion, Nagoya protocol on Bio-diversity conservation are such global attempts in conserving this invaluable environment.

Before Concluding, One thing we need to remember that we are intelligent species in this earth. As Charles Darwin says Environment has chosen us as the fittest ones, rather than perishing away like dinosaurs so we need to cooperate with this environment for our successful existence with such a Carrying Capacity that we provide future generations a gift of a healthy environment. Sustainable development should be the goal rather than only development. This can be possible only if we consider environment around us more than a family member and be grateful to it.

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