Management of Natural Resources

Soil, air and water move again and again in cycles. This chapter is about forests, wildlife, water, coal and petroleum. There are international and national laws, and one person is not helpless.

The Ganga Action Plan began in 1985 because the water quality had fallen badly. Coliform bacteria live in the human intestine. Their presence in water shows contamination by disease-causing microorganisms. The Ganga runs about 2500 km from Gangotri to Ganga Sagar. More than a hundred towns in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal pour in garbage and excreta. Largely untreated sewage falls in every day. Bathing, washing clothes, ashes and unburnt corpses, and chemical waste from factories kill fish.

The book gives three names. Reduce means using less. Recycle means separating plastic, paper, glass and metal and making a new object. Reuse is even better, because recycling spends energy. Turn an envelope inside out. A jam or pickle bottle can work again in the kitchen.

The memory row has five: refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle. Refuse means not taking what you do not need, such as an extra bag. Repurpose means giving an old object another job. If a paper asks for the “three Rs”, write the three from the book and also write that reuse stands above recycling. Sustainable development meets today’s basic needs and saves resources for the coming generation.

Roads, houses, food, clothes, books and vehicles are all made from the Earth’s resources. The only thing that comes from outside is the Sun’s energy, and living things and physical and chemical processes change that too. As population grew, demand grew at a tremendous rate.

Management has to look far, so that resources reach the next generation. The benefit should not shrink to a few rich people. Mining throws away a large amount of slag for every tonne of metal, so a plan for the safe disposal of waste is part of management too. Taking a small gain today and saving the resource for generations are not the same benefit.

Forests are special places of biodiversity. The count is not only the number of species. The spread of bacteria, fungi, ferns, flowering plants, insects, birds and reptiles also matters. If diversity falls, ecological stability can fall.

There are four stakeholders. Local people need firewood, small timber, thatch, bamboo, fruit, medicine and fodder. The Forest Department owns the land. Industry makes bidis from tendu leaves, and also paper, timber, lac and sports goods, but it does not depend on one forest. Nature enthusiasts first watched tigers and elephants, and now watch the whole diversity. Even after the British, local knowledge stayed unheard. A monoculture of pine, teak or eucalyptus wipes out fodder, medicine and fruit. An industry can cut the teak of one area and take the next load from a distant forest.

The Chipko movement rose from Reni village in Garhwal in the early 1970s. The contractor’s workers came to cut trees while the men of the village were away. The women clasped the trunks and did not let them be cut. The contractor withdrew. A community lops branches and plucks leaves so that the resource returns. A contractor fells the whole tree. When a forest is cut, the soil and the water sources suffer too.

In 1731, at Khejrali near Jodhpur, Amrita Devi Bishnoi and 363 others were killed for khejri trees. A national award for wildlife conservation stands in her name. When sheep grazing stopped in the Great Himalayan National Park, the grass grew very tall, fell over and fresh growth stopped. In 1972, at Arabari in Midnapore, West Bengal, A. K. Banerjee involved the village in protecting 1272 hectares of badly degraded sal forest. They received work, 25 percent of the final harvest, and firewood and fodder for a nominal fee. By 1983 that forest was valued at 12.5 crore rupees.

India’s rain arrives in a monsoon of a few months. Regions short of water lie close to regions of acute poverty. Groundwater does not last when cover is lost, crops drink heavily and waste is dirty. The kulhs of Himachal are four hundred years old. Stream water went by a hillside canal to many villages. In the planting season the farthest village took water first. Two or three people, paid by the villages, managed the kulh. Water seeped down and fed springs. After the Irrigation Department took over, most kulhs died.

A large dam gives both irrigation and electricity. The Indira Gandhi Canal greened a large part of Rajasthan, but people near the source grew sugarcane and rice and people farther on got no water. There are three objections: social, because peasants and tribals are moved without rehabilitation; economic, because a huge public sum does not bring a matching benefit; environmental, because forest and diversity are lost. Tehri is on the Ganga. The Narmada Bachao Andolan opposes raising Sardar Sarovar. The oustees of the Tawa dam have been recalling a promise since the 1970s. Local harvesting names: khadin and nadi in Rajasthan, bandhara and tal in Maharashtra, ahar and pyne in Bihar, kulh in Himachal, eri in Tamil Nadu, surangam in Kerala. On level land, crescent earthen banks or check dams refill groundwater. Most dry up in six months or less. The aim is not to hold water on the surface but to fill it underground. This water does not evaporate, does not breed mosquitoes and stays relatively safe from waste.

Forest and water can last a long time if they are cared for. Coal and petroleum were formed from biomass millions of years ago. They will run out one day however carefully they are used. One estimate says that at today’s rate petroleum will last about 40 years and coal about 200 years. Besides carbon they contain hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur. Burning makes carbon dioxide, water, and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur. If air is short, carbon monoxide forms instead of carbon dioxide. The oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, and carbon monoxide, are poisonous at a high concentration. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. If all this carbon became carbon dioxide, the warming would grow.

The efficiency of a machine is also management. Complete combustion saves fuel and cuts smoke. Sustainable management has to accept each stakeholder’s interest, and still cut need so that the benefit of development reaches both this generation and the next.