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