Ecology and Environment

There is a disquieting hush across the world as the linkage between the planet’s health and human well-being became pronounced during the times of the pandemic. The deepening socio-economic and ecological crises caused by patterns of production and consumption are being increasingly recognised.

Water quality of Ganga river remained grim during lockdown: CPCB

Forests are disappearing at a fast rate in India.

The pandemic and lockdown measures have had a drastic impact on a large population of poor and marginalised communities, causing loss of livelihoods and employment, food insecurity and socio-economic distress. While vulnerabilities, atrocities and injustices faced by forest communities due to forest, conservation and economic policies have increased d

In pre-colonial times, India’s forestlands were mostly under the use of the local communities. Forest policies led to centralisation in colonial times with forestland being subject to commercial over-exploitation for revenue generation purposes. This, in turn, led to land alienation of forest dwellers and an overall increase in deforestation.

Unabashed assaults by human beings on the natural ecological system have caused the coronavirus to spread in the first place.

The environment versus development debate has increasingly become more polarised, with discussions in the public domain revealing a stark contrast of views. Development has increasingly come to symbolise ‘doing something’ and ensuring ‘visible outputs’, largely in the form of infrastructure.

Agriculture uses as high as 85 percent of the available water in India of which the irrigated area accounts for nearly 48.8 percent of the 140 million hectare (mha) of agricultural land, while the remaining 51.2 percent is rainfed.

Kashmir’s glaciers are melting at frightening rates. Kolahoi glacier, the largest glacier in Kashmir Himalayas, has lost 23 percent area since 1962 and has fragmented into smaller parts!

Glaciers, frozen rivers of ice

There aren’t many studies on understanding the socio-economic impact of river pollution, and the handful of those available miss out on capturing the voices of the local communities who are most affected by river pollution.