If you have noticed, when you wake up early in the morning, there is a pleasant music of Nature that is playing in the backyard. Yes, there is chatter of birds, chirping of crickets or croaking of frogs, even in cities like Mumbai. We hear them everyday; may be that’s why we tend to ignore it. But there are some areas in the developed world where it is deathly silent. Want to know why it is so..?
Pure air, Solar energy and fresh water are known to be our resources. I need not tell you the pollution of Air and Water taking place all round the globe. Everything..from pesticides to our daily drainage, our devoted offerings to Deities (Nirmalya, as called in India) to heavy loads of cosmetics used in make-up..everything ultimately reaches to our sacred rivers and then to ocean. All our deeds have made the water of rivers so unfit for use that we have to spend crores to make it suitable for consumption.
Some might say, "We never throw anything harmful into river. Then why we are forced to pay for water purification in the form of taxes?"
Yes, you might have never ever used pesticides or cosmetics (?). But, being a consumer, you must be using numerous products which are manufactured in industries. Take for example, Paper manufacturing company or a Thermo-electric power plant. I am not trying to criticise anybody or any company here. All I want to say is ultimately, its all of us, Humans, who are responsible for these pollutions. There N number of industries or companies which are disposing the harmful chemical by-products into rivers or emitting disastrous gases in the atmosphere without any pre-treatment.
So I will say the taxation is justified! But here We are taking all the living organisms in water for granted. We are paying in currency, but forcing them to pay in the form of their lives; and that's too for our deeds. In Nashik, we have example of Nasardi. Surprised? Yes, it used to be a fresh water river few decades back, harbouring many fishes & other organisms. But now it is being converted into a Nala (river of dirty water) in which only disease spreading mosquitoes or like can develop. Its our loss too as we lost a source of fresh water.
Same applies for Air. As the cities increased in size, air pollution increased exponentially. With less food available for birds, they have to migrate to countryside. But their too, we have fields sprayed with poisonous pesticides; further contributing to decreasing the number of birds. Similarly insects, amphibians, reptiles have decreased tremendously in numbers in last decade, especially in developed countries.
Thank God we couldn’t yet deteriorate the solar energy, which is an energy source for life on Earth. But still there are reports of declining soil fertility from various parts of the world. To understand this, we must now look at another of the Earth’s basic resources, the soil. The top soil contains loads of micro-organisms, ranging from algae to earthworms. They all are essential component of soil. The action-interaction of these micro-organisms help in enriching the soil with number of macro- and micro-nutrients. The soil won't be fertile if we lose these creatures. And that's what is taking place. The pesticides & herbicides won't differentiate in 'good' insects/micro-organisms and 'bad' ones. Its spraying kills them all. It also been reported & proved that the traces, usually in increased concentrations, of these poisonous pesticides are found in the soil even after 5 years; though rain water keeps on washing them into the water streams, contaminating the the aquatic life too!
Some might say, "We never throw anything harmful into river. Then why we are forced to pay for water purification in the form of taxes?"
Yes, you might have never ever used pesticides or cosmetics (?). But, being a consumer, you must be using numerous products which are manufactured in industries. Take for example, Paper manufacturing company or a Thermo-electric power plant. I am not trying to criticise anybody or any company here. All I want to say is ultimately, its all of us, Humans, who are responsible for these pollutions. There N number of industries or companies which are disposing the harmful chemical by-products into rivers or emitting disastrous gases in the atmosphere without any pre-treatment.
So I will say the taxation is justified! But here We are taking all the living organisms in water for granted. We are paying in currency, but forcing them to pay in the form of their lives; and that's too for our deeds. In Nashik, we have example of Nasardi. Surprised? Yes, it used to be a fresh water river few decades back, harbouring many fishes & other organisms. But now it is being converted into a Nala (river of dirty water) in which only disease spreading mosquitoes or like can develop. Its our loss too as we lost a source of fresh water.
Same applies for Air. As the cities increased in size, air pollution increased exponentially. With less food available for birds, they have to migrate to countryside. But their too, we have fields sprayed with poisonous pesticides; further contributing to decreasing the number of birds. Similarly insects, amphibians, reptiles have decreased tremendously in numbers in last decade, especially in developed countries.
Thank God we couldn’t yet deteriorate the solar energy, which is an energy source for life on Earth. But still there are reports of declining soil fertility from various parts of the world. To understand this, we must now look at another of the Earth’s basic resources, the soil. The top soil contains loads of micro-organisms, ranging from algae to earthworms. They all are essential component of soil. The action-interaction of these micro-organisms help in enriching the soil with number of macro- and micro-nutrients. The soil won't be fertile if we lose these creatures. And that's what is taking place. The pesticides & herbicides won't differentiate in 'good' insects/micro-organisms and 'bad' ones. Its spraying kills them all. It also been reported & proved that the traces, usually in increased concentrations, of these poisonous pesticides are found in the soil even after 5 years; though rain water keeps on washing them into the water streams, contaminating the the aquatic life too!
Water, soil and Earth’s green mantle of plants make up the world that supports the animal life of the Earth. Although we, modern man seldom remember the fact, we could not exist without the plants that harness the sun’s energy and manufacture the basic foodstuffs he depends upon for life. Our attitude towards plants and other organisms is singularly narrow one.
The problem is, We do not adjust or change according to Nature. We try to change Nature according to us. Actually speaking, Nature has everything to sustain and balance the life..enough for man's need, not for man's greed! But one thing we have to keep in mind, if we want our future generations to live here peacefully and prosperously, then we have to share this world with all living organisms. After all, its their world too!
'But how?'
For starters, lets have a look at our roadsides or field borders. Usually we do not allow growth of wild shrubs & climbers there, do we? Especially in some parts of urban societies. Generally, though known as weeds, these shrubs & climbers are not invasive at all. Of course they usually accompanied by real weeds too, but this doesn't mean that we should remove them also. We can't ignore the beautiful flowers they bear, which also provide food for bees and insects. These insects, so essential to our agriculture, deserve something better from us than the senseless destruction of their habitat. There is obviously more to the wish to preserve our roadside vegetation than even mere aesthetic considerations. In the economy of Nature, the natural vegetation has its essential place. Hedgerows along country roads and bordering fields provide food, cover and nesting areas for birds and homes for many small animals. But their destruction is justified by their bad company. How could some intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death to their own kind? To destroy the homes and the food of wildlife is perhaps worse in the long run than direct killing.
For starters, lets have a look at our roadsides or field borders. Usually we do not allow growth of wild shrubs & climbers there, do we? Especially in some parts of urban societies. Generally, though known as weeds, these shrubs & climbers are not invasive at all. Of course they usually accompanied by real weeds too, but this doesn't mean that we should remove them also. We can't ignore the beautiful flowers they bear, which also provide food for bees and insects. These insects, so essential to our agriculture, deserve something better from us than the senseless destruction of their habitat. There is obviously more to the wish to preserve our roadside vegetation than even mere aesthetic considerations. In the economy of Nature, the natural vegetation has its essential place. Hedgerows along country roads and bordering fields provide food, cover and nesting areas for birds and homes for many small animals. But their destruction is justified by their bad company. How could some intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death to their own kind? To destroy the homes and the food of wildlife is perhaps worse in the long run than direct killing.
You can definitely search other ways to if you wish to..like keeping water-baths or so. Keep your eyes wide open and you will certainly find the way.
If we look at the history of life on Earth, it has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. The origin of Life on Earth is dated 3.8 billion years back while that of first human 2 million years ago, according to scientists. If we consider this era from the start of life on Earth till today as 1 hour. Then calculations tell that we, humans have come here just 1.89 seconds before! All other organisms like insects, fish, plants, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds etc have been here since eons of time, a way before humans. So we are new-comers here. But look at the hell around we have created for the other living organisms. They, certainly do not deserve this!
It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the Earth - eons of time in which that developing and evolving and diversifying life reached a state of adjustment and balance with its surroundings. Given time - time not in years but in millenniums - life adjusts and a balance has been reached. For time is the essential ingredient; but in the modern world, there is no time!
Do You wish to change the perspective to look at our environment and its inhabitants???
Killing the 'weeds' along the road next to the wheatfields, and all along the streets in our town is something we have tried to fight. Now we simply garden for wildlife in our own patch.
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