Suffer the Environment at Your Cost!
By: Charles Chasie
This year’s World Environment Day came in the wake of some very sobering happenings as the world was confronted with its ‘inconvenient truth’ about climate change – fast depleting glaciers, food shortages, rocketing oil prices and dramatic and unpredictable climates everywhere providing vivid, if shocking, indicators of what has already come to pass and what more might be coming! For North East India and its surrounds, cyclone Nargis which highly affected 2.4 million people and the earthquake in Southwest China that left 5 million homeless, have been too close and tragic not to sit up and take notice. Cyclone Nargis also gave NE a taste of its stormy weather despite the barrier of the mountain ranges in between.
In Myanmar (Burma), the difficulties surrounding aid to cyclone affected people raised a great storm of international controversy as well. Why there should be any controversy at all in helping people affected by a tragedy of such magnitude is simply incomprehensible. “National security”, apparently, was one of the main reasons. But what could be more vital to national security than saving the lives of the people? The reactions and responses of the political leaders in Myanmar in the middle of such a tragic event raise disquieting questions about their love of the people and reflect their views of nationalism.
Tragic as the earthquake was, and emerging economic superpower that China represents, this Asian Giant quietly and stolidly accepted what happened. Whether the earthquake was a consequence of human action, as a fall-out of the building of the Three Gorges Dam as some claim, is another matter – the truth will, someday, emerge. According to media reports, there was ‘transparency’ about the tragedy from the Chinese Government and there was no attempt to hide details or use the tragedy to make a point. Perhaps, the coming Beijing Olympics helped to some extent. But there was dignity in the midst of human tragedy. Just about the only thing that spoilt this image was China’s sharp reaction to actress Sharon Stone’s suggestion that the earthquake was possibly ‘bad karma’ as a consequence of China’s misdeeds in Tibet recently. Ms Stone’s suggestion was unnecessary.
Cyclone Nargis and the earthquake in China, two tragedies of high magnitude, came around the time of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. So many have lost both father and mother; and many more have lost at least one of them. Many parents have also become childless. And some families have simply been “erased”! But the greatest suffering of these tragic events will be endured by those who will have survived, with their means of livelihood wiped out, and having to exist in a hell on earth they never imagined possible.
In such backdrop, how does one greet World Environment Day?
In the midst of rising food prices and scarcity, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the Stockholm International Water Institute and the International Water Management Institute have expressed their grave concern about the wastage of food. For instance, these organizations, in a report titled “Saving water : from field to fork – curbing losses and wastage in the food chain”, say that in the US alone, about 30% of produced food, worth about 48.3 billion USD is wasted every year. According to them, water falls in the category of food and already 1.2 billion people live in areas where they do not have sufficient water to meet their needs. The above organizations have launched an initiative on May 14, 2008, at the 16th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development to achieve at least 50% reduction in food waste.
Earlier last year, it may be recalled, the UN Millenium Development Goals Report on Asia was less than optimistic and showed a trend that could, in the near future, further destabilize communities and societies in the region. While unprecedented economic growth has spurred progress and reduced extreme poverty of those living on a dollar a day by half, what has been of concern has been the sharp rise in the inequality gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. Even the above reduction of poverty has been more in East Asia than in Southern Asian region where the figures seemed to have actually worsened with one third of the population still living on a dollar a day rating. At the same time, inequality has sharply risen all over. Even in eastern Asian region, the consumption rate of the lowest one-fifth of the population has actually come down from 7.3% in 1990 to 4.5% in 2004. Such a trend does not augur well for the future.
Meanwhile, on the occasion of World Environment Day, 2008, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), has called for environmental protection through sanitation. In a statement from Geneva, WSSCC stated that 500,000 tons of faeces are openly defecated everyday to the environment around the world and that this posed serious health hazards, the organization believed that providing toilets and protecting the environment would become a winning combination.
The statement, quoting Jon Lane, WSSCC Executive Director, further said, “Each year, more than 200 million tones of human waste go uncollected and untreated around the world, fouling the environment and exposing millions of people to disease and squalor… On World Environment Day, midway through the International Year of Sanitation, WSSCC is calling for governments, stakeholders and individuals around the world to accelerate the work to end these ongoing human and environmental catastrophes”. The organization believes the Millennium Development Goal target of reducing sanitation needs by half by 2015 through spending $10 billion a year – less than 1% of global military expenditure – is possible. At the moment, the assessed number of people requiring basic sanitation is 2.6 billion people, or roughly one-third of the world’s population.
On the Indian scene, there is encouraging news. For the first time, the Government of India has initiated an official 3-tier organizational structure of government agencies to manage the Climate agenda of the country at the national and international levels. It is to be called the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change and will consist of a 12-member Core Team, a Technical Group and a Guidance Group, the latter headed by the Prime Minister himself to advice the Core Team, especially on international negotiations. The Convener of the Core Team will also be the Special Envoy of the Prime Minister.
On the agenda is also the preparation and implementation of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. The plan will belatedly spell out India’s response to Climate Change – this was supposed to have been done before the Climate Conference of Parties meet in Bali in December 2007. The action plan is now expected to be ready by end-June, 2008. The Ministry of Science and Technology, chaired by the Minister himself, will prepare and finalize the Plan. Implementation, at various levels, will be coordinated by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.
The above may seem like a pot-pourri, even a mish-mash of different ‘ingredients’. But what they do show is that humanity is faced with very serious environmental problems and people, at various levels, are concerned. How can such numbers of concerned people be multiplied so that they swell into a coordinated ‘movement’ of people for humanity and planet and ensure the survival of the human race as we know it?
Such questions bring us back to our own ‘environment’ in North East and Nagaland. In so many areas, and even on the Indian national scene, Nagaland, even as a state, may be considered as a ‘backyard’ by many. But in the environmental, ecological and biodiversity fields, we are part of the original home of the world’s flowering plants and could play a most crucial role in helping to ensure security of food and health of the world. Whether we decide to play that role or not is up to us as no one can thrust that responsibility on to us!
Something that made one sad was a news report in the Hindu newspaper, dated May 22, 2008, that India is home to 88 threatened bird species. Whether the bird species actually included those from NE I do not know, but the body of the news item made no mention of NE, possibly the richest area for discovering new species of flora and fauna still – as in such fields, NE and Nagaland are still “largely unexplored”!
As the world is pre-occupied with Climate Change and all things connected with forests, environment and ecology – because they provide much of the sources/resources of survival and renewal – one thinks of the mindless destruction that goes on all the time in Nagaland and prays that Nagas will choose to become wiser through working out an adequate plan and pursuing it with determination. For instance, the State’s reserved forests, especially Intanki, represent the ‘lungs’ of the State. In their destruction, mostly moved by personal and sectional/group interests, could Nagas be walking the path of collective self-immolation?!
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