Ecology & Environment

The developing countries are in desperate need of development in order to meet the basic essentials for life of its teeming millions. The developing process profoundly alters the delicate environmental fabric with concurrent beneficial and adverse impact on status of the environment. So, the gradual and continuous deterioration in the environmental health lends compelling weight to the need to find a balance between human development and exploitation of natural resources. During the course of time population-driven development has increased as well as technically mediated interference as a part of our way of living, but aspirations for greater material wealth have made many individuals more isolated, living wasteful lives, which has imposed strain on the eco-health. Good eco-health has, more or less, come to be regarded as something unchangeable and obvious. The continuous degradation of environmental resources has made people more aware of the susceptibility of the biosphere to the human intervention. There is a growing awareness that environmental health is as much a question of life styles as of agricultural or industrial activity. Therefore, it is necessary to change people's attitudes with regard to the environment. So, a new eco-friendly behaviour is necessary in which quantitative demands and confrontations must be replaced by the qualitative appreciations and co-ordination. Development is the crying need of the hour, no doubt, but should not be at the cost of environmental health. This will hopefully lead us into a new era of sweet harmony between human and environment where all care for the well being of life on earth will be automatically fulfilled. Since the environment is which we live is of special interest and importance to us, there is an urgent need to know the status of the environmental health and to develop appropriate strategy for proper ecorestoration. Therefore, in order to know the lesser-known facts, I have dared with humble notion to bring out such a comprehensive review volume with a hope that the environmental scientists and ecoplanners ma undertake further investigation which are neglected hitherto.