The blessings of divine nature come in the forms, we rarely expect them to be. The reason is quite obvious; the divinity embedded into its existence is beyond our comprehension. Nature encompasses not just a collection of flora and fauna but a complex of ecological processes occurring every moment benefiting humanity at large. Any minor disruption resulting from the biotic and abiotic interference, in the form of land use change for livelihood, affects not just the local environment but the whole ecosystem, which this system is a part of.
Therefore, knowing the implications of our actions for survival warrants understanding the ecosystem we are an integral part of. An ecosystem is a collection of the organisms and the physical environment in which the relevant organisms interact. It includes living things such as plants, animals, microorganisms, and non-living environment, like soil, land, air, water, dust, and other parts of nature.
A city dweller might think of the local environment as something, perceived to be existing around her immediate daily life routine, affecting and, in turn, affected by her actions. This might include the water supply to her home, workplace, place of leisure and things like that; air she breaths; food supply for living and so on. She might be concerned about her action on these apparent components of her local environment, without being much concerned about the not-so-apparent components such as the local water stream addressing the water demand; the local vegetation in the vicinity addressing the oxygen demand; the not-so-distant farmlands addressing the food demand and like.
Awareness about their present status and the effect of our actions on their functionality might drastically change the way we define our local environment. Irrespective of the scale the local environmental issues might include, air and water deterioration, deteriorating soil quality, and deteriorating health due to water, air, land and vegetation hazards affect our lives. It is mandatory to know the relationship of our daily actions on these or at least some of these components of our local environment.
Our daily acts might affect favorably or adversely the local air, water and soil by addition to or deletion from pollution. Discharge from industry, power stations in industrial areas and use of coal, cattle dung, firewood, kerosene in rural hinterland have implications for air pollution. The sewage management by local municipality and pesticide residue on farmlands might play role. The point and non-point source might become source of water pollution depending upon our life styles and livelihood sources. An unregulated industrial discharge disposal affects the immediate soil and a water body close by. The uncontrolled untreated runoff from farmlands, construction site and local habitats finds into way into local stream and downwards, to start with. Our household disposables like plastic bags, glass bottles, kitchen by products and like might end up mixing with soil. The agricultural residue from farmlands like fertilizer and pesticide, apart from polluting water streams, might percolate into deeper layer of soil.
This is time to sensitize the local societies about this interplay of our daily activities and the local environment around. While municipalities play their administrative role, the members of citizens must ponder over ways and means to inform and seek participation of all sections.
- The local kindergartens may be the first place to expose our kids to the local environment. A system of incentivizing the kindergarten schools and, in turn, the local teacher to give exposure in innovative ways to pupils would be first step.
- Evolving relevant curriculum for primary and secondary schools to give appropriate exposure to students about the interplay of local human activities and the environment would further add to their understanding.
- Beyond secondary level including appropriate action project addressing the local environmental issues into curriculum would not only motivate the students but may also be helpful in identifying innovative solutions to address them.
This is not an exhaustive list, but these are small steps to be undertaken to begin with. Innovative ways must be evolved to involve every segment of our society without further delay as humanity is short of time.