“Connecting People to Nature”

Dr. Rakesh Jasrotia
Environment plays an important role in our life; there is a close relationship between man and environment from very beginning. We all depend on a wide range of essential benefits provided by the environment for our day to day existence, including the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. By managing the environment well we can greatly improve our quality of life. For this purpose we celebrate World Environment Day which comes on 5Th June every year for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. This is the biggest annual event for positive environmental action.
The main significance of this day to celebrates the natural environment and allows a global platform to raise awareness on the environmental issues worldwide with plans to mitigate these issues as a global community. Moreover connecting people to nature and make them environment friendly is another important significance of this day.
If we go back to the history of World Environment Day the year 1972 marked a turning point in the development of international environmental politics, the first major conference on environmental issues, convened under the auspices of the United Nations, and was held from June 5th to 16th June in Stockholm (Sweden) known as the Conference on the Human Environment. Later that year, on 15 December, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution designating June5 as world Environment Day. It was first time celebrated in 1974 with the particular theme “Only One Earth”. Since 1974, the celebration campaign of the World Environment Day is hosted in different countries of the world on 5th June every year by adopting different ways such as street rallies and parades, concerts, tree planting, clean up campaign and in the shape of seminars and conferences.
In 2015 the theme of the World Environment Day was “Seven Billions Dreams; One Planet; Consume with care”. In 2016 the theme was “Zero tolerance for the illegal Wildlife Trade” and in 2017 the theme is “Connecting People to Nature”. This year’s theme invites you to think about how we are part of nature and how intimately we depend on it. In last few decades people distancing from nature due to advancement in agriculture, growth of cities, technological advancements, growth of industries and dominate the landscape and disrupt the natural systems in one way or other way.  We are already seeing the effects of our industrial ways through the extinction of Species, the melting of glaciers and the destruction of landscape. As we continue to disturb the world’s natural systems we are recognizing a rippling of consequences. Our reorganization of these effects suggests that our role in nature far more influential than it should be.
The environment of Jammu and Kashmir State has been very much degraded. Deforestation, land degradation, soil erosion, floods, landslides, vanishing of wildlife, shrinking of wetlands and number of pollution such as air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, food pollution and increasing vehicular pollution year by year are now regular phenomena of state. The J&K state government’s Environment and Remote Sensing department recently released a report calling immediate measures to undo the environmental damage caused by unplanned construction at the famous resort Sonamarg. The area of Dal lake was 22Sq Km in 1931 has shrunk to only 15 Sq km in 1999 and at present only 11 Sq km area contain water. The meadows of Gulmarg and Sonamarg have been trampled; the Dal, the Wular, Aanchar and Gangabal lakes have been polluted. The heavy vehicular traffic and widening of roads is the main cause of landslides between Batote and Ramban and between Ramban and Ramsu. The reason of floods which had come in river Tawi and Jhelum in 2014 due to the encroachment of the catchment area of these rivers. Deforestation is taking place at a large scale in our state. This is authenticated by the fact that considerable area under the Closed Forest category has been shifted to the Open Forest category and large area of the Open Forest category has turned into Degraded Forests due to continuous deforestation. This deforestation has ultimately resulted in large scale degradation of soil.
Now the time has come to deal with this situation more firmly in state. No doubt it is important to design such development in an eco-friendly to preserve and conserve the fragile ecology and environment.
Our environment has a huge impact on our health mental state and emotional well being. Living in an unstable temporary environment creates a sense of helplessness and embarrassment. By teaching people about the environmental, evolution and ecology we can provide them with the tools of change. We must respect the natural order of things and find a way to live accordingly.
In the last to give a human face to environmental issues, empower to become agents of sustainable and equitable development promote to change attitude towards the environment and advocate partnership between each human being and each society to ensure a safe future. Make today that we the people of state choose to adopt and eco-friendly sustainable lifestyle and start it with yourself and set an example.
(The author is a Asstt Prof. Geopraphy GDC, Kathua)
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