The Value of Nature: Ecological Politics in India

Despite widening awareness about the adverse effects of human activity on our natural environment, there are multiple perceptions of what needs to be urgently attended to and by whom. Whose reference point defines the value of nature? For a vast majority of Indians, nature continues to be the source of life, it provides subsistence and meaning, and it contributes to their self-definition of who they are. It is also brutish and unpredictable, often bringing starvation, conflict, and strife. For others who predominantly live in urban areas, priorities encompass pollution of air, water and land, loss of vegetative cover and diversity of flora and fauna, destruction of the ozone layer, and destabilisation of climate. There thus exist complex and vastly differing relationships with nature in these two domains. How nature is ‘valued’ in each domain and how the dynamics in one impacts on the other frames ecological politics. This book explores the different approaches to the environment as well as examines the emerging international framework of coming to terms with the environmental crisis.