Sustainable Development Protecting the Environment
Sustainable development is about enhancing human well being
with the ability and opportunity to shape the life for better health, education
and material comfort. People’s happiness and satisfaction with life are closely
associated with breathing fresh air, drinking clean water, living in clean
environment in addition to safety and security. The importance of
sustainability is how to manage risks by retaining options. There is
considerable uncertainty about the human actions on complex eco-systems.
When assets can be degraded or destroyed without risk of
punishment, they are likely to be depleted often in a wasteful fashion.
The global environment movement is a new focus of modern
civilization to protect the environment with harmony of nature. Thus
sustainable development is now a key issue in decision making process.
In the advanced countries economic developments have caused
unprecedented crisis leading to pollution of air, water and land. In the
developing countries, the deterioration of environment is due to poverty and
inadequate infrastructure. Poverty reduction is essential because the risk of
conflict increases with poverty,
economic stagnation, political instability, etc.
The book ‘only one earth’ warns that mankind must treat
mother earth with great care and love.
India needs eco-friendly development. The economic
development becomes relevant only when it is based on principles of
environmental conservation and harmony with social justice.
In other words, India needs sustainable economy with
renewable energy and recycling of resources.
The earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs but
not every man’s greed.
The age of consumerism may lead to over-extraction and over
consumption resulting in pollution and eco-degradation with serious
environmental impact.
Environmental and social assets matter greatly for well
being and productivity but they are often neglected. The environmental
situation is that of interdependence and not independent. Carbon emission must
not exceed fixation of CO2 in nature.
The challenges of the future are to eliminate rural poverty,
strengthen rural-urban linkage, intensify agricultural production, manage land
and water to feed growing population, family planning, industrial ecology,
control wasteful land conversion, create employment opportunities,
environmental education, etc.
Our aspirations for prosperity must be linked with
sustainable development. Any serious attempt at reducing poverty requires
economic growth to increase productivity and income in developing countries. However,
development requires attention not just in economic growth but also to
environmental and social issues.
The transformation of society and management of environment
are to be considered integrally with economic growth to avoid jeopardizing the
growth itself over the long-term or even irreversible consequences.
The core challenge for development is to ensure a better
quality of life for people.
attention must be kept on :
·
Poverty though declining but still poses a big challenge.
·
Widening in inequality creating social problems.
·
Devastating conflicts leading to wastage of scarce
resources.
·
Pollution of air due to heavy reliance on fossil fuels for
energy. Greenhouse gases will continue to grow unless a concerted effort is
made to increase energy efficient and alternate fuels.
·
Increasing scarcity of fresh water – water consumption is
rising quickly and availability in some regions is alarmingly reducing. As such
better conservation and allocation of water to be ensured for maintaining
access to safe water for drinking.
·
Soil degradation.
·
Deforestation.
·
Declining fisheries – the
aquatic environment and its productivity are on the
decline due to over exploitation.
Windows of Opportunity :
The development process is about change and transformation
of scientific and technological innovation which help developing countries
minimize inefficient use of natural resources viz. the green revolution enabled
developing countries avoid widespread starvation.
Income Growth :
Future economic growth will require major investments to
modernize and expand capacity towards putting development on sustainable path.
The population has been growing too rapidly for fiscally
constrained government to expand provision of jobs, infrastructure and public
services to keep space with people’s needs.
The growth of world population is primarily contributed by
developing nations. World population growth is expected to slow down due to
following factors :
v Educated
employed women with smaller families.
v Greater
off-farm opportunities creating a need for more education for children.
v Availability
of modern family planning methods.
In future lower rate of population growth will reduce the
pressure on natural resources but is likely to be offset by the increase in per
capita consumption.
Transition from Rural to
Urban Areas :
As countries move from poverty to affluence there is a shift
from heavy dependence on agriculture as a primary source of income to
employment to on-agricultural activities. This resulted in shift of population
from rural to urban areas.
Increasing densities in towns and cities and the greater
connectivity between cities as well as between urban and rural areas increases
the catchment area of markets.
Creativity, knowledge flow, increasing scale of activities
and larger catchment areas are central to productivity growth.
Generating a strong investment climate including sound
macro-economic fundamentals, good governance and basic infrastructure require a
framework which are in national scope. Dismantling subsidies, restricting
reservation policies based only on economic status, husbanding forests and
fisheries, curbing air, water and solid pollution are major national
challenges.
Prof. P.K. Mukherjee
Assistant Professor
Department of Management Studies
