Save Earth

According to the well-known journal, Science, Dead Zones, the area of an ocean with extremely low-levels of oxygen resulting in the death of marine-life, has doubled every 10 years since the 1960s.

This is because, Science informs, of pollution caused by nitrogen-rich crop fertilizers.

The world has more than 400 Dead Zones.

In India, the Arabian Sea lashing the Bombay and Goa coastline has been declared a Dead Zone area.

Surprisingly, all the affluent, industrially-advanced countries in Europe (the EU nations), the eastern and western coast of the USA, and Japan are the regions where Dead Zones are located. Dead Zones pose a severe threat to coastal ecosystem

- August 21, 2008

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The (After) Effects Of Climate Change
By Abrar H Rashid*

In this Climate Change scenario, which is leading to Global Warming, one thing is standing out: India is going to suffer the most. This is the conclusion derived at by leading environmentalists and climatologists. That the Kosi-disaster in Bihar-state is a direct result of Global Warming is a foregone conclusion. Most of us seem to be forgetting this fact.

Why do I assume that? Because, adding water to this flood is glacier-burst!

Glacier-burst is a phenomenon when melted ice starts moving down-stream; eating up villages, causing flood-havoc in towns and cities. It, the burst, also causes the glaciers to shrink. This means, the rivers whose lifelines are the melted ice or meltwater – like the Ganges or Ganga, Indus, Yellow River or the Mekong – will dry up in the decades to come and environmentally will harm the economies of these river-carrying countries, affecting the lives of the locals.

India, especially the northern part of the country, where the basic livelihood of over 300 million (30 crores) people depends on the ‘riches’ delivered by three rivers – the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra - faces a turbulent, grim future. Not only all these rivers, and their innumerable tributaries, are destined to get over-flooded, but also keep on changing their courses; thus inundating with water the dry land, too! (River Kosi had last chaged its course a hundred-years ago.)

India needs to notice what its immediate neighbour, Bangladesh, is doing to ward off the perceived danger that Global Warming is destined to bring: As most of this country is a flat-land – a 4’ mound is considered a hill – and fearing that the rising sea-level of the Bay of Bengal will takeover the country within a period of 25-40 years, it is already begun to build dykes to ward-off the water from engulfing the land. Nature has rewarded it by extending this country’s sea-level by upto 30 meters!

As the two mammoth rivers – the Ganga and Brahmaputra end their run in this country, the silt that they carry with them have been deposited just near sea shore!

Caught in a political-bankruptcy, Indian political leaders of all hues and cry should end their differences and begin directing all their energies over the Climate Change-danger that we all, including them, are going to face. For, Kosi is just a beginning; the end may be more menacing than one can even think of!
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Devastation Caused By Kosi Floods

Harsh Mander reports in The Hindustan Times, dated Oct 28, 2008, that “The river impetuously traced a new course, across fields and dense settlements for 150 kilometres, often 15 to 20 kilometres wide. Its untamed waters swept away more than 300,000 houses in 980 villages in the districts of Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa, Araria and Purnea. It destroyed standing crops of paddy, wheat and vegetables in 110,000 hectares of fertile land. An estimated 3.2 million people lost their homes and livelihood, many times more than in any natural disaster in the country in recent history.”

He also stated that according to the government 194 people had lost their lives; “although the figures are hotly contested”.

- September 2, 2008

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The southeastern Pacific, home to a fifth of the world’s fish stocks, is facing
climate that is literally going cold.

Reporting from Lima, capital of Peru, Reuters said that this area “plays a crucial part in global weather patterns and scientists want to discover why the temperatures have dropped on the desert coast.”

The news agency quotes a French scientist, Alexis Chaigneau, as saying that “Peru has a very important role in global climate. Over the past fifty years, the Peruvian coast has gotton colder, mainly because of strong winds that have pulled up the deep cold waters of the icean current.”

-September 4, 2008

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From sun-rise to sun-set, tropical India is awash with sun-rays. This makes the country a sitting (so to say) power-house; generating trillions of kilowatts of power in a year.

This news was revealed today by Mint, a publication of HT Media Ltd. According to it, if this nation “were to convert just 1% of the 5,000 trillion kilowatt-hour of solar radiation (or, simply put, sunlight) it receives a year into energy, the country will have enough to meet its energy needs - even in 2030 – according to the national action plan on Climate Change.”

However, it quotes Debashish Mujumdar, chairman and managing director of Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd, as saying that this will be possible only if the nation provided “capital subsidies”, “evacuation infrastructure”, “interest subsidies” and “generation-based incentives”.

- October 2, 2008

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The Four Faiths – Hinduism (or Vedanta), Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism – founded in India follow the same principle of disposing off the dead: Cremate or burn the body to ashes.

But now it has been reported today by Mint that “Even the dead are adding big time to the carbon footprint”! The prominent business-daily quotes a Varanasi-based body-burner, Kalu Chaudhary, as telling it that for a body to be burnt completely, it requires 400kg.-500kg. of wood.

This is a lot of wood for a single body to burn. As Anshul Garg, director of a NGO, ‘Moksda’, points out: Around 50 million-60 million trees are cut every year In India to burn the estimated 8.5 million or 85 lakhs dead. This means, anywhere between 1,500sq.km.-2,000sq.km. of forest land are being cleared every year just to burn the dead.

‘Moksda’ is in the process of developing a technology to make the cremations more environment-friendly.

-Oct. 9, 2008

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The financial crisis, that began in the USA and is now plaguing the world, is also going to ‘heat’ Earth further.

Reports APF from Paris today: “Tighter budgets, shrinking corporate profits and worries about jobs could crimp manoeuvring room at upcoming UN talks* on toughening curbs on Greenhouse Gas emissions, said sources.”

Predicts Steve Sawyer, secretary-general of the Global Wind Energy Council, Brussels: “Some politicians will try to use the current crisis and seemingly inevitable slowdown to draw attention away from their failure to act on future and current commitments. But regardless of what politicians believe at any given moment, Global Warming is in fact a challenge that cannot be ducked.”

*The talks are going to be held from Dec 1 to 12 at Poznam, Poland.

-Oct.5, 2008

In a press-release carried by all, widely-circulated newspapers around the world (in India, it was The Hindu) on Nov 13, the UN Secretary-General, Ban ki-Moon, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang, as well as the Prime Ministers of Poland and Denmark - Donald Tusk and Anders Fogh Rasmussen - highlighted that the current financial-crisis should be considered to be an “opportunity”.

While admitting that the “global financial crisis is most immediate” (“Global growth is slowing. Budgets arte tightening.”), they went on: The “more existential is Climate Change”. This on-and-off financial “shocks” facing the world can only be solved, according to them, by pursuing “green economy”.

Around the world, countries have begun to invest in this economy: Nearly a million jobs have been created in Brazil in the biofuel industry; Germany expects to employ more workers than the automobile industry by investing heavily in environmental technology, and Denmark, which already has invested heavily in green technology, has shown a remarkable 78% green growth “with only a minimal increase in energy consumption”.

They have jointly called the “developed and developing countries” to contribute to the cause of fighting Global Warming, each in their own way; with every nation refusing to compromise their right for development and the economic well-being of its “citizens”.

- October 26, 2008

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Carbon Credit or Certified Emission Reduction (CER) prices are tumbling: They have gone down by 4 euros a tonne to 16 euros a tonne.

This is bad news for companies based in India; with the main reason being the global financial woes.

Although CERs do not form a fighting-spirit in combating Global Warming and industries in the developed world have kept on adding CO2 to the atmosphere,

it was agreed by all nations meeting at Kyoto, Japan in 1990 to make it possible for all developing nations to sell Carbon Credits to factories in the developed world.

India has ‘stocked’ an unsold CERs of more than 42 million, informs The Times of India.

-October 28, 2008

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The beauty in-the-sea, the corals, are in danger of getting bleached further.

Reporting and quoting the findings done by the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the Queensland University, Reuters said that some reefs are destined to be destroyed by the year 2050. The reason: The Earth is heating up; the sea is becoming ‘hot’. Both these reasons are enough for the corals to begin bleaching further.

One of the most beautiful, natural regions in Australia is the ‘chain-of-corals’, the Great Barrier Reef, off Brisbane.

-October 28, 2008

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The World Wide Fund (WWF) has issued a stern warning that the world is running short of natural resources, and Earth is heading towards a ‘credit crunch’ – around $2 to $3 trillion every year in natural capital - in an ecological-way.

APF quotes WWF’s Director-General, James Leape, as saying that “If our demands on (Earth) continue to increase at the same rate, by mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles.”

The WWF’s Living Planet Report apprises us that the world’s capacity to renew these resources by a third outstrips the growing demands in natural capital – air, biodiversity, forests, soil and water. Jointly produced with Global Footprint Network and the Zoological Society of London, the report says that more than three-fourths of Earth population live in nations where consumption outstrips biological capacity.

-October 29, 2008

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The approximately 1,600kms ‘long’ Western Ghats – a mountain range in India that starts near the border of Gujarat- and Maharashtra-states and runs through the western portion of the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka (formerly Mysore), Kerala and Tamil Nadu (formerly Madras) – is one of the world’s ten “hottest bio-diversity hot spots”, reports The Hindu today.

     Being a “catchment area for the complex of river systems”, the well-informed newspaper notes, the range “has over 5,000 species of flowering plants, 139 mammal species, 508 bird species and 179 amphibian species.

     “At least 325 globally threatened species are found there,” the Hindu informs. “The area is ecologically sensitive to development and was declared an ecological hotspot in 1988 through the efforts of ecologist Norman Myers.”

     Right now – although belatedly – a move is on to set-up a task force to conserve the natural riches that the mountain range is full of. Heading this force is Anantha Hegde Ashisara.

-October 31, 2008

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Mohammed Nasheed, 41, the newly elected President of the island-nation of Maldives, has decided to use a portion of the country’s billion-dollar revenue from tourism to buy new land in other countries.

And, the reason?

The rise in sea levels by “up to 59cm by the year 2100 due to Global Warming,” reports the London-based, much-respected newspaper, The Guardian.

“Most parts of the Maldives are just 1.5m above water. The President said even a ‘small rise’ in sea levels would inundate large parts of the archipelago,” the highly influential and widely-read newspaper quoted him as saying.

Maldives is a chain of 1,200 islands and coral attols, about 800km away from India.

The countries targeted for resettlement (by purchasing land) are Sri Lanka, India and Australia.

A Trip To Mulshi

By Abrar H Rashid

The apparently sleeping with half-closed eyes, hippopotamus-shaped mountain top seemed to stare at me unflinchingly. On its side, a little bit higher, another mountain curved itself, with its nose pointed at the sky, and descended hurriedly on the abject poverty-stricken Adivasi-Katkari tribe, staying in six huts, of about 25. This was Tamini-village, in Mulshi-taluka, to the West of this city.

“We have been staying here for the past 35-40 years,” says a smiling, with a face drenched with wrinkles but a relatively young – about 25 –, woman.

“We have been given this piece of land by ‘Tata Power’ (in lieu of) looking after it and seeing to it that no one touches or breaks the trees (over here),” she continues, adjusting the paloo on her shoulder. “Nothing; we are not given any monetary compensation; we have to fend for ourselves … For water, we have to cross the road and go about half-a-kilometer to the waterfall (across the highway, ‘hidden’ by the trees) … A doctor visits us every week; he charges us Rs 100 for an injection that he (administers) one in this family … We earn our meager income from the shikakai that we sell in the market.”

Poverty has not left India, Pune. Although the city has begun to thunder about its growing middle-class, people in its outskirts still live agonizingly and endure the pains of a growing, expanding world-of-poverty. They, the Adivasi-family just called upon, see no light-of-hope descending upon them in near- or distance-future; they know for sure that they are destined to live like this forever!

This is what the 70-odd students of St Vincent’s College of Commerce, an evening college situated in the Camp area of this city, learnt when they proceeded on a field-study trip to Mulshi, about 35 kms away from Pune, as part of the ‘Workshop On Environment’ held on March 29. (They had left packets of lunch for the Katkari tribe.) The principal, Mr M P Parmar, and a lecturer of the college; together with two city-based environmentalists also had accompanied the students. The trip was sponsored by two city-based builders, ‘Ramesh Builders’ and ‘Kumar Properties’.

Gearing straight to Mulshi dam, going past a string of resorts built recently to draw the tourists, they did not come across any dense forests that this region was once famous for. Nor did they see or sense any leopard-, tiger- or hyena-activity in the region. The region has been systematically stripped off trees, making way for development to step-in without any difficulty.

“I am awestruck; I am amazed,” Dr B R Mardikar, environmental consultant for Bharatiya Vidyapeeth, told this writer who also had accompanied the college-students. “One good thing that development of this area has done is it has made the villages more accessible. But I have seen gutka packets, beer bottles and cans just littering on this ‘clean’, natural place.”

Dr Mardikar, 72, was not lying. Groundwork of development has already begun to clean the region’s rich environmental-wealth. At Kandalika Valley, which has just been declared a World Heritage Site, we found industrial,

violet-coloured waste lying at its entrance or beginning.

Prof Swapnil Seth, 30, who has gone down this mini-Grand Canyon until the beginning of a small forest situated near its bottom, cried, “I think so this is an industrial waste dumped here by some industry…” I glanced up and scanned the mountainous-beauty to pick out the offender; but failed to do so. What I could see, apart from the surrounding hills, was the lightly simmering, shivering Mulshi-lake whose water-level had already begun to show signs of shrinking.

These ghats are one of the “oldest mountain ranges in the world”, he said as he fought the urge to scramble down again in the valley. He took some steps near its mouth, and every one of us became eager and excited to follow him, when he looked up at the setting sun and decided against the exploration-jaunt!

Across the road, I saw the range towering steeply over me and as my eyes went higher, a slight movement among the shrubs jutting out of the mountain caught my eye: A small bunch of monkeys had sighted us and were scrambling to safety. We were no danger to them; theirs was a fruitless scramble!

At Tamnh Ghat, believed to be 35 million years old (no wonder, then, Western Ghats are recognized by the world as a hotspot for biodiversity), we came across patches of very, very small ant-hills. Ant activity (building hill-houses that can “rise up to 8’,” according to Dr Mardikar) was in progress here and we were advised by him not to step on the brownish-pinkish patches that were neatly spread out on the grass-covered earth by. “This place is regularly frequented by wild boars and small deer*,” he informed us. “And deer means there have to be families of monkeys around.” We looked up to the trees then; but like the deer, the monkeys too had made their vanishing acts! “Well, the deer comes out in the night; I guess, so do the monkeys,” he quipped, giving up.

Development means destruction of the natural environment.

Whereas, today, the Mulshi-taluka is still free of any fast-pace development-projects, I expect the area to become a drudgery of workforce descending upon it soon. As it is, near the dam, we saw gravels of construction materials lying on the rocky ground. Plans are going ahead, reportedly, to built a ‘Lyasha Lake City’ in this area.

The most affected by such a development, apart from the flora and fauna, will be the Adivasi-Katakri tribe. Spread in about 5-6 small clusters around the Mulshi-area, their native-language has already been replaced by Marathi. “Most of them work as agricultural-labour,” said Prop Seth. “They do not want to leave this land and, although the Government had build houses for them, they still prefer to live in the huts.” They had “sold the material of the Government-gifted houses in the market,” he ended jest fully.

*Kids

+The author is a practicing Freelance Writer and a Journalist with a strong feeling for the environment; especially for this city. He was amongst the ones who had carried out the ‘Workshop On Environment’ for the college.

ritefeatures@yahoo.com

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Pollution Responsible For 40% Deaths

By Abrar H Rashid

 
Human beings, especially those who are affluent and rich, have degraded Earth’s livable environment and put this planet in jeopardy. Not only have we polluted the air and water but also the soil that helps produce our life-sustaining food. Having an enormous impact on everyone’s future, reports suggest that 40% - some 62 million – are caused by none other than pollution.

      This alarming news came to light in a study carried out by ecologist David Pimentel for Cornell University , USA . He was “surprised with the number” and suggested “the importance of the environment as it’s related to our deaths.”

      We, in India , should not dismiss this report with a shrug, but swallow it with a gulp. For ex : 70% of us drink untreated water! As Pimentel put it: “Water is one of the major concerns, without any question.”

As the world’s 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water (according to WHO), 80% of all infectious diseases – cholera, intestinal infections that lead to malnutrition – are water borne and kill millions of people, especially children, around the world. It is estimated that in India and Africa some 1.4 million loose their lives every year as a result of cholera, dysentery and other diarrheal diseases.

      This was confirmed by WHO-scientist, Dr Annette Pruss-Ustun. According to her, “Water sanitation and hygiene are considered globally one of the big, big causes of death.”

       She goes on: “While in many countries there is still (a) water supply (problems’), proper disposal and treatment of sewage is a little bit less common in developing countries.”

Air pollution is another killer that is playing havoc in the air we breathe: Every year, according to WHO, it is responsible for 3 million deaths; chiefly caused by such diseases as chronic bronchitis, pneumonia and lung cancer.

      Indoor air pollution –  caused by cooking food on a sigadhi, heating up water on stoves fueled by cow-dung, coal or wood – is being held responsible for such deaths and little more than half the world’s households, most of which are purely ventilated, use these fuels. WHO’s Pruss-Ustun found that “In some houses you enter into the kitchen, and even though you might even have a permanent opening in the house … you can hardly see … the wall on the other side; so thick is the smoke”! A common occurrence in slums and villages in India .

      This indoor pollution kills one person every 20 seconds or 1.2 million in a year, records the WHO. According to Pimentel, more than 200 different chemicals can be found in the smoke; 14 of them ‘deathly’ carcinogens.

Another polluted killers are toxic chemicals. These are one of the main health hazards for which basically the industries are responsible. It has been found that it is very difficult to pin-point these toxic chemicals because so many are used in combination. Bemoans Dr Pruss-Ustun: “It is impossible to estimate more precisely because …there are so many toxins”!

      Chemical exposures can contribute to development-of-cancers’, birth defects, immune systems defects, behavioral  problems, altered sex hormones and dysfunctions in specific organs.

       The industrially- and technically-advanced West is facing this problem today: Pimentel found out that Americans of all ages carry at least 116 foreign chemicals in their bodies. It is anybody’s guess that we, Indians, who take little notice of the pollution engulfing us, will be carrying four- to five-times as many chemicals as them!~

*The author is a Freelance Writer & Journalist, contributing to 150 publications based abroad.

The Unloved Earth!

By Abrar H Rashid

I Love Earth!

But now, especially during the past three decades or so, when humanity’s knowledge in science and technology is experiencing a massive leap coupled with a swift progress in living standards and degradation of life’s morality, my beloved is getting destroyed; life is slowly being ebbed out of her.

However, she is a tough nut to crack. Thank God for it!

She knows, she is the only place in this vast, awesome Universe who can hold life in its caring arms and that without her, no life can exist - either human, animal or plant. And because she loves us, humans, silent-she also keeps on sending us near-death, destructive messages in the forms of earthquakes, hurricanes (cyclones), floods etc.; making us ill and creating ‘soiled’ famines; not forgetting killing many of us.

Earth as seen from the failed NASA-mission of Apollo13 in 1970.

During the past, did she not send Tsunami, Katrina and Rita hurricanes, ground-splitting earthquakes as a warning to us, humans, alerting us that she is badly, severely getting hurt by us?

It did!

But, even then, we have not taken or taken little notice of the harm that we are continuing to afflict her with.

Beloved Earth knows us well; it existed millions of years before we started to walk on it, stamp it, dig it, built on it. No wonder we often call it Mother Earth.

But like little children carrying for their real children, we do not care for Mother Earth. This fact she knows very well and like all mothers, she forgives us, her children, and tries to accommodate herself to our devilish, destructive or crazy-style of living.

Take volcanoes, for example. Nature, the well-known environmental-science magazine published in London, has over a year ago reported that erupting-volcanoes actually help ward off Global Warming (that has led to the changes in the climate that we are facing today). According to it, the fine paericles thrown in the atmosphere by an erupting volcano lingers at high altitude in the air and, in turn, reflect the sunlight and warming infra-red radiation back in space before it ‘lights’ down and touches my beloved’s surface.

However, the sad part is that there are not many active volcanoes erupting in the world today; thereby making Global-Warming have a field day.

The off-and-on breakup of icebergs from the massive ice-land of Antartica, that freezes up to 60 per cent of our Mother’s fresh water’ in recent times is a case point. You understand what will happen if we fail to stop our Mother from heating up? We loose 60 per cent of fresh water! And the sea-level will rise upto 65 feet if this continent is deprived of ice; ‘drowning’ the coast and coastal-cities around the world.

And this Global Warming is not only melting the ice in the Antartica-region ; it has also begun to effect the Artic-region, too: There is less snow falling over this region; an uncommon occurrence, going against natural-law; affecting the lives of both animals (reindeers and polar bears) and humans (Sami-people) living in the Tundra region across the northern reaches if four countries: Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway.

More so, the London-based Observer had reported that Global-Warming is also being held responsible for glaciers to burst! That means millions of lives are threatened; especially in our country, Bhutan and China. Pakistan and Nepal are also being hit hard by the Himalayan glacier bursts’.

Glacier bursts were uncommon in the just concluded century: 50 years ago a glacier burst use to occur once in 10 years. Now it is widely feared that within the next five years or so, glacier bursts will become an annual event!

They occur when melted ice starts moving down-stream; eating up villages, causing flood-havoc in towns and cities. It, the burst, also cause the glaciers to shrink. This means, the rivers whose lifelines are the melted ice or meltwater – like the Ganges or Ganga, Indus, Yellow River or the Mekong – will dry up in the decades to come and will harm environmentally the economies of these river-carrying countries, affecting the lives of the locals.

I am proud to boast that in Asia my country, India, has become the third largest economy (after Japan and China); growing at the rate of 8.1 per cent in recent times. But I am depressed to learn that we are losing 6 to 10 per cent of GDP every year die to environmental degradation! Take water, for example: over 70 per cent of water that we drink is polluted!

Global Warming is the chief cause of Climate Change that my beloved Earth is undergoing today. Chiefly caused by unhealthy, killing gases emitting out from motor-able vehicles and factories, it is recently cosing the world $200 billion(in revenue loss) a year. Side by side, it has badly, menacingly, severely afflicted my home-town, city, Pune, said to be the eight most polluted city of crowded India.

This past year we have had faced a heated summer, a water-laden monsoon … and the ongoing winter, which is taking a long time to leave us …?

Well, I expect, Global-Warming will close on it, crushing the cold out of it! Or maybe, leave it unscathed!

*The author is a Freelance Writer and a Journalist and an Editor-in-Chief of a news agency, ABIE Press Features. He can be contacted on: ritefeatures@sify.com

February 13, 2008

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Some Important Environmental-Dates

February 2: World Wetland Day

March 21: World Forest Day

April 22: Earth Day

June 5: World Environment Day

July 11: World Population Day

September 16: World Ozone Day

September 28: Green Consumer Day

October 3: World Habitat Day

October 4: World Animal Welfare Day

October 13: International Day For Natural Disaster Reduction

The Clear, Cloudless ‘Photo’ Of the Envioronment

The shape, the sense of today’s Environment is there for

everyone to feel, to experience: Hot summers (often resulting in drought), water-laden, unpredictable monsoons and luke warm winters.

Such a manifestation is being felt around the world:

From high peak of Mt Everest to the deep sea off Guam in the Pacific.

This is contrary to what the Environment

was some 35 years ago.

So what is happening to the Environment?

Why is it that all of a sudden we are facing a crisis, so to say,

of, perhaps, an unforseen, exigency trait that was hovering over Earth

more than 150 years ago, ever since the world

went industrial?

More so, and inspite of ecologists around the world warning us

of impending danger, not many of

us are taking them seriously.

Why?

Isn’t this ‘heat’ that we are feeling just now -

be it Summer, Monsoon or Winter -

serving us as a warning.

The time has arrived for us to consider what the team of

National Geographic and Eureka Forbes Institute Of Environment

decalred some years ago:

                      We have not inherited the Earth

from our forefathers …

But merely borrowed it from our children!

Here are some Photographs of Our Beloved Planet:

Ecotone - the name

of this Blog - is an area

where different Ecosystems merge.

12-year old Severn Suzuki, a Canadian girl, speaking at Earth Summit, 1992, held at Rio de Janeiro, had said:

“(I have come here) to tell you adults you must change your ways. Coming here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future.

“I’m only a child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you (!)

You don’t know how to fix the hole in our ozone layer; you don’t know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream; you don’t know how to bring back an animal now extinct; and you can’t bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.

“If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”

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By setting up Ecotone, I am doing what she, Miss Severn Suzuki meant: I want to save this world from getting wiped out from the ‘map’ of this glorious, unique, perhaps only one Universe, and I believe, presume, hope that you, too, would desire the same.

We have to forget the world getting bombed out-of-existence by weapons of mass destruction or by aliens/extra-terrestrial beings or by any another unimagined forces’.

We have to maintain that: This is Our Earth; this is everyone’s Earth.

This Earth has sustained lives for billions of years; this Earth will sustain lives for trillions of years from now on.

The shape, the sense of the present environment is there for everyone to feel, to experience: Hot summers and drought, water-laden monsoons and luke warm winter. Such a manifestation is being felt around the world - from the highs of
Mt. Everest to the deep sea off Guam in the Pacific.

    So what is happening to our environment? Why is it that all of a sudden we are facing a crisis of, perhaps, an unforeseen, exigency trait that was hovering over our planet, Earth, more than 150 years ago, ever since the world went industrial? More so, and inspite of ecologists around the world warning us of impeding danger, not many of us are taking this issue seriously. Why? Isn’t the present ‘heat’ serve as a warning?

     I expect you, the readers’ of this blog, to take this ‘heat’ in your hands and try to save Earth from going-to-dust, from becoming rotted, from making it dysfunctional!

However, before we go any further, let us see what exactly is environment.

    Humans (as well as animals, plants-trees – in fact, all living beings) survive because of air that we breathe. The gravitional pull of Earth is what keeps stationed on the ground, on soil. Thus, environment stands for our surroundings which also includes the Air and the Soil.

     These surroundings are very important in one’s life … because they determine the development and behaviour of a living being. For ex.: A camel has been ‘designed’ to withstand the heat, and cold, of a desert; a polar bear, penguin or puffin have been created in such a manner so as to withstand the cold of the poles.

     Similiarly, a lotus, water-lily or fishes can survive, grow and multiply only in water; in dry land they are a dead-matter.

      None of them can survive in any condition that is alien to them! (Of course, this excludes humans!)

Environment forms the basis of ecology; a science that studies the behaviour of humans, plants and animals in a particlur environ-condition. Derived from a Greek word, oikos (‘a place to live in’), it was devised by a German biologist, Ernest Haeckel (1834CE-1919CE).

     Human Ecology: This refers to the study of human behaviours with respect to their environment. And we, humans, form one of the most important components, parts of the environment! (But we seldom think about the future because we are continuing to use the fast repleting natural resources in a most unplanned manner. In this respect, the tribals belonging to over 3,000 tribes around the world are excluded; for them, the natural resources form their livelihood or lifeline. Among us, they are the most environment-friendly!)

      Like the tribals, animals too can be considered to be friends-of-nature or true-environmentalists! Living responsibly in a particular emvironment, they can adapt themselves easily to the environmental conditions. Actually, they live in integrity, more honestly, and do not change their environment.

      More so, they rarely move to other areas (unless changing-climate forces them to) of Earth. (Pets, domestic-animals or animals kept-in-chains’ are excluded in this.) Their feasible, natural home is called habitat. (Habitat is also the home of plants.) And is, more or less, the ‘address’ of a species. Comprising of distinct areas, these habitats have their own characteristic climate, soils and living communities of plants and animals. For ex.: Water-lily, lotus etc. will grow in water only; a camel will live comfortably and survive in a desert only.

Ecosystem: Comprising of the distinct soil and the rocks below the ground, the ground-level and the air surrounding it is an ecosystem.

     Being a distinct area where various, different species of animals and plants live together in absolute harmony (Ex: A rat shares living space with many other organisms), it consists of a number of habitats, coupled with the behaviour of plants and animals depending upon the condition prevailing in that or their ecosystem. Thus, living things adapt themselves to their surroundings and become associated with each other to form or constitute comities. And each one of them has specific roles to play with each ecosystem.

     A common example is that of a tree whose leaves begin to start to dry up, decompose and fall on the ground. Once on the ground, they begin to pass nutrients to the soil. On the other hand, while the leaf is still ‘stuck’ to the tree, a caterpillar stations itself on the tree branch, crawls forward to the nearest leaf and survives by eating it. Then, comes a bird – any herbivorous bird – attacks the caterpillar with its sharp, pointed beak, kills and eat it.

    On the ground level, another nature’s wonder is at work: A fungi – a plant, with no green leaves or flowers, which frequently lives on other plants – decomposes dead leaves; later bacteria ‘breaks down’ the dead plants’, as well as animal and human waste matter, into nutrients. These nutrients – which are known as soil nutrients – are absorbed by the roots of surrounding trees.

The working of the ecosystem should teach us a very good and important lesson: Nature doesn’t waste; it recycles!

    Another area where nature teaches us is in interconnectivity: Our planet’s air (atmosphere), soil (lithosphere), water (hydrosphere) and living things (biosphere) are interconnected.

Ecosystems are zones of different climates, and they range from hot and wet at the Equator to cold and dry at the Poles (in between lie the tropics and temperate zones – the most favoured for lives to live, prosper and multiply.

     Distributed all over Earth chiefly according to the climates’, ecosystems have different boundaries which can be easily made out or distinguished.

     However, at a number of places, many ecosystems’ merge together. Such an area is called an ecotone, the name of this Blog.