We celebrated World Environment Day on June 5. We observe it every year.
I’d first like to mention few points from an article written by Bharat H Desai, Jawaharlal Nehru Chair & Professor of International Law, in the Tribune on this day. He says:
- “This year’s World Environment Day is unique in many ways. We are in the midst of an unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic that has paralyzed every country on our planet. It is one of the rarest events in the human history where people’s lives and livelihoods have been crippled in such a manner.
- It enjoins upon us to ponder over the reckless destruction of wild spaces, endangering of plant and animal species, poisoning of land, atmosphere, water resources and the oceans, melting of the polar ice caps and unsettling of our essential ecological processes.
- It is now an appropriate occasion to reflect upon the course traversed in the past 50 years and to look ahead in an effort to seek answers for a better common environmental future.
- How can we manage our profligate lifestyles, resource-heavy extraction-based production processes and wasteful patterns of consumption in a way as to not endanger the survival of life on earth in general and the future of humankind in particular?
- On World Environment Day, an honest assessment of what we have attained in the past 50 years of regulatory processes, use of innovative tools and environmental statecraft is needed. Have these brought about a change in human mindsets? How do we jettison human greed and define our needs? What might be the new ideas and approaches to effectively address the issues?”
I believe he has said it all, and let me remind that this is just an excerpt of what he expressed. We need to critically ponder various grave situations that lie ahead of us and restore our Mother Earth.
I would end with one tiny miny suggestion from my side that I too observe and can be an “easily-adaptable” step from our part.
Whenever we receive a parcel (and we do a lot these days owing to a rise in online shopping trend), please open the parcel carefully so that you do not shatter the entire box in one go. Take the things out and cherish them, but do not throw away the packing envelope or box. Keep them safe in one place of your home and use them when required (like for throwing away vegetable peels or any other home trash; box can be put to various other uses). It is just a practice which, when started, will become a part of us, help us in many ways, and will also protect the environment. Don’t forget that each step matters!
Think and Restore till we meet back again!
Avani Raj Arora
