Environmental Conservation: Challenges and Actions

The world at large perhaps looked for the first time at the very basic question- "Development at what cost?" In June 1972, at the UN Conference on Human Environment and Development. That the level of global concerns changed dramatically within 20 years was witnessed at UN Conference an Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1992. More than 180 countries participated in the meet and agenda for twenty-first century was decided. The "Millennium Development Goals" 2000 and UN Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 made the urgency of the tasks more clear. But now at the nearing end of first decade of twenty-first century, problems still persist, specially in developing countries while tangible solutions appear elusive. In the present publication, the author have tried to select 20 topics of environmental concerns and have made attempts to analyze the current situations. While actions taken can be apparently praiseworthy new thoughts have emerged regarding impacts of such action (example growing plants for biofuel in degraded land while land remains a finite resource at the cost of rising food price). New challenges have emerged seeking new thoughts for action.  The question is how much sensitized the civil society has become in India? While public participation in decision making is a proclaimed policy in the country, the reality speaks otherwise. A series of national policies (e.g. agriculture, water, population, forest, and environment etc.) have been changed during the post globalization period but in the process some of the real issues have been sent to the back seat. The country still lacks a uniform land policy as a result of which several incidents of conflicts find place in the media. So is the case of implementing the policy of promoting renewable and new energy initiative. The forest policy still remains silent on the issue of determining Net Present Value (NPV), while an alarming increase of conversion of forests for non-forestry purposes can be noted. In all such issues, the civil society can play a positive role. The present publication is expected to empower the society at large; however limited may be its scope, with information’s of the happenings of the current times and demand environmental security while moving onwards to the path of development.