WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY – June 5, 2020
VIRTUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: CELEBRATE BIODIVERSITY
Gujarat National Law College, Gandhigram, Gujarat
By Nanditha Krishna
In 2002, the Indian Parliament enacted the Biological Diversity Act followed by the National Biodiversity Rules in 2004. The main objectives of the Act were the conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. Earlier, the Wildlife Protection Act, 1973, and its 1991 Amendment provided for the protection of birds and animals, while the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980, a vast improvement on the earlier Act of 1927, was intended to provide a high level of protection to the forests and to regulate diversion of forest lands for non-forestry purposes.
Biodiversity – or biological diversity – includes all the organisms found on our planet, the plants, animals and micro-organisms, the genes they contain and the different ecosystems of which they form a part. India is one of only seventeen mega diverse nations in the world, with over 85,000 out of 12,00,000 animal species in the world, and 45,000 out of 3,90,000 plant species. It is estimated that the world knows only about 17,70,000 species out of 5 to 10 million. We hardly know what we have, leave alone what we have lost.
Biodiversity is essential to the survival of every species, as each organism is linked to another in a fragile web of life. These form a food chain that links food producers to consumers, and maintains ecosystem diversity. The amount of green plants in any environment should be much more than the animals or insects that feed on them. Humans are only a strand in this delicate web of relationships. Every living creature is a part of a food chain. There are several food chains which, depending on the environment, could be simple or complex. But all food chains are fragile, and if even one link is broken, it sets off a series of reactions that could cause the collapse of the ecosystem. If predators are killed, the herbivores will multiply and eat up green plants and grains, leaving the land barren and unproductive. This is how a biologically-rich region like North Africa became the Sahara Desert. What would happen to public health if scavenger birds like the vulture were wiped out? Every species has its role, making species diversity essential.
Loss of biodiversity impacts immediately. There is the example of the genetic similarity of Brazil’s orange trees causing a terrible outbreak of citrus canker in 1991. The rapid deterioration of the ecology due to human interference is aiding the rapid disappearance of several wild plant and animal species.
Biodiversity is under serious threat in India for several reasons. Poaching and the wildlife trade are major national concerns, and all the international laws in the world have not been able to stop it. Habitat loss, caused by population growth and housing needs; pollution from sewage and effluents; the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers which is wiping out entire insect species on which are dependant birds that pollinate our plants; encroachment, siltation and eutrophication that are destroying wetlands; oil spills, toxic effluents and sewage, blasting and dredging, collection of ornamental fish, trawler fishing, nylon nets, destruction of coral reefs and hot water from nuclear plants which are destroying marine life; chemical pesticides, sewage and other organic wastes and sand mining that are destroying rivers; forests which are cut down for timber and urban use; mining of minerals and so on. There is no natural resource that is not under threat, leading to biodiversity loss.
As natural resources are depleted, there is less to go around, less to share. Economic, social and political problems are a natural corollary. Water, the most important natural resource which comes from hills and forests, is a source of discord today.
Loss of biodiversity is a threat to civilization, second only to thermo-nuclear war in its severity. The consequences could be quite incalculable. Other environmental problems like pollution, global warming and ozone depletion could be overcome, but not the erosion of biodiversity or extinction of species. Species once lost cannot be brought back.
The current Covid 19 pandemic, which has emerged from the wet animal markets of Wuhan, China, is the result of human interference with nature, the destruction of the intricate web of life and the loss of biodiversity. The virus always existed. Its predator is missing. Habitat destruction, air and water pollution, indiscriminate poaching and killing of wildlife, intensive farming of animals and the disappearing green cover have combined to cause global warming, climate change and now this destructive pandemic.
In this lockdown, people are celebrating the return of avian and terrestrial wildlife, or birds and animals in cities and in the countryside. Air and water pollution have decreased, while the North Pole’s largest-ever Ozone hole has finally closed. What humans could not achieve despite spending millions of dollars or rupees, Nature has achieved – a rejuvenation of planet earth. Humans are a very small part of the web of life, but cause the greatest damage. Celebrating biodiversity is celebrating Mother Earth.
I would like to end with a hymn to the tree and the forest from the Rig Veda (IX 5.10.):
The cosmos is a tree with a thousand branches…
The tree is the lord of the forest…
Which is a symbol of life that is self-regenerating and immortal…
And a Hymn to the Earth from the Atharva Veda’s Bhoomi Sukta (XII.I.26, 28):
Earth, my mother, set me securely with bliss…
The earth, which possesses oceans, rivers and other sources of water;
Which gives us land to produce food grains on which human beings depend for their survival;
May it grant us all our needs for eating and drinking: water, cereals and fruit.
Let us celebrate biodiversity by making time and space for nature, by remembering that the earth was made for animals and plants too. Ahimsa is non-violence in thought word and action, and non-violence to all creation would be the best celebration of biodiversity.
June 5, 2020 global online broadcast, World Environment Day, 2020:
https://www.wedonthavetime.org/events/worldenvironmentday
Hinduism and Nature, one of Dr. Nanditha Krishna’s recent books, can be found at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0798KX6F3/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Photo Credit:
Alosh Bennett / This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Valley of flowers, Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India.