#Environment Day: Not a Day to ‘Celebrate’, but a Day to ‘Re’‘Spect’!

New Delhi, June 5: Environment conservation is not only our moral duty but it is our ‘constitutional’ duty as well! The Constitution of India in its part IV-A, Article 51-A mentions 11 Fundamental Duties which each and every ‘nationalist’ Indian is supposed to perform. Out of these 11 fundamental duties, the 7^th fundamental duty is:

“to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers, wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures”

 

Unfortunately, we all are aware of fundamental rights but are we really aware of the duties? Environment protection has now become a buzz word but there still prevails a great level of chaos and confusion on action. It’s a world famous misunderstanding that ‘planting trees’ is everything! Tree Plantation is indeed a good initiative but true environment conservation is much beyond that. It is all about limiting human interference in nature. There is a very nice and thought-provoking statement by Pune-based renowned environmentalist Prof. S.D. Mahajan. He says, “forest is such a huge and long evolved ecosystem which human-beings can’t create!”

Hence, World Environment Day is not something to ‘celebrate’ but it is a day to ‘Re’‘spect’ i.e. to introspect! It’s a day to analyze our day to day life from an environmental perspective. It is a day to learn, think, and to begin with the 6 R’s of nature conservation – Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Restore and Respect.

REFUSE:- Say ‘No’ to all those products which pose critical damage to environment either in their production process or after their use or which consume too much energy eg. plastic carry bag, chemical intensive cleaners, etc. While purchasing any commodity from the market one must think, “is it really necessary to me or I am buying it just because I can afford it?’’ We have to change our consumption patterns and urge for eco-friendly alternatives.

REDUCE:- It happens that a product causes environmental damage but it has a great utility to us and its use is unavoidable. In this case we must follow this second ‘R’ i.e. Reduce! We can’t avoid the use of electricity and fuel but we can reduce it to a great extent by turning off unnecessary lights, avoiding use of machines for easy manual works, using public transport so far as possible and so on.

 

REUSE:- One of the biggest cause of environment degradation is rapidly spreading ‘Use and Throw’ culture. In functions, we carelessly use plastic or paper plates, cups and spoons for our convenience. Now-a-days, changing mobile handset after every four months has become a fashion. Fast changing technology is bringing ‘new’ versions of products making the older ones ‘outdated’. Its disastrous! Just imagine the volume of garbage we are throwing into the nature! Market is flooding with millions of single-use products every day. Now it’s up to us whether to let ourselves to be the victim of the ‘use and throw’ culture or making a smart choice of durable, long-lasting, and reusable products.

RECYCLE:- The segregation of papers, plastic and electronic waste must be done at home and segregated waste, instead of throwing into dustbin, must be given to the nearby recycling plant.

RESTORE:- We must strive to restore what we have lost, restoration of forests, rivers, oceans, mountains and restoration of all the valuable ecosystems. It is true that we can’t restore everything we have lost because the loss is tremendous. But it is the need of the hour to simultaneously work on restoration along with preventing further degradation of the existing environment.

 

RESPECT:- the word ‘Respect’ has two meanings in this context. First it implies ‘respect towards nature’ and secondly it means ‘Re’‘spect’ i.e. self-introspection. We should look back to get to know how the ecosystems on this earth have evolved after millions of years’ upheavals and how fast we are destroying it. We must look into our own habits which, directly or indirectly causing nature to destroy.