The Cambridge Dictionary has two definitions of the wordEnvironment. As related to Nature, it says, “the air, water, and land in or onwhich people, animals, and plants live.” In relation to surroundings, it says,”the conditions that you live or work in and the way that they influence how youfeel or how effectively you can work.” Wikipedia defines Natural Environmentas, “The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living thingsoccurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is mostoften applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompassesthe interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resourcesthat affect human survival and economic activity”. Kashmir is world over knownfor its natural environment. The beautiful snow-capped mountains, lush greenforests, enchanting meadows, gushing mountain streams which appear like milkpouring from the mountain sides, shimmering lakes and beautiful flowers of allvarieties growing on their own all over without the efforts of a gardener!
Unfortunately, over the years due to extreme material greedwe have made every move to destroy the natural environment. The lush greenforests have been indiscriminately cut down by the timber smugglers with theconnivance of the forest officials and the security personnel. In fact, theState Governor recently made a statement to the effect that he knew the peoplewho have become rich because of the exploitation of Kashmir’s forests. There istruth in his statement as not only the timber smugglers but the forest lesseeswho got the assignment of extracting legal timber made millions by illegalfelling! At one time timber sleepers for almost all railway lines in India weresupplied from Kashmir. The practice subsequently stopped when concrete sleepersreplaced the timber ones. However, most of the forest damage has been done nextto the population areas. There are still very dense forests deep insidemountain valleys unapproachable through roads. In fact, if the state forestdepartment had used modern means of ropeways, lot of timber and firewood couldbe extracted from the deeper forests where it normally rots away. They do it inCanada.
The worst environmental damage has been done to water bodiesand the vast agricultural land. Kashmir was a natural habitat for the migratorybirds coming all the way from even Siberia. These birds used to spend entirewinter in the wetlands of Kashmir like Hokersar, Haigam and so on. In fact,Wullar used to be known as the second largest sweet water lake in Asia after LakeBaikal. That is no longer true. It is virtually filled up with willows and allother type of vegetation. It has been encroached on all sides and only a smallportion of clear water is left. In earlier times there were many stories aboutpeople having been caught in the storms of the lake. That is all gone now. Dalis a worst tragedy. We have physically eaten it away through vegetables grownall over its banks and even in the middle. There are 50,000 people livinginside the clear water body of the lake on artificially made islands. Manyschemes have been made to move these people out of the lake and settle them indifferent areas. But the project has always got delayed because these peoplerepresent a particular political “vote bank” for elections! The other waterbodies like Gill Sar, Khushal Sar, Anchar and so on have virtually disappeareddue to encroachments. These are now virtual marshes! Another serious threat tonatural environment which is becoming a health hazard is the indiscriminatedisposal of waste water into the river and the water bodies. There is nosewerage system and there are no treatment plants except a few around the DalLake. Same is the case with garbage. Tons of it is produced in the city but allis dumped in just one particular area without any treatment or proper disposal.The people living around the dumping ground have been regularly protesting asthe stench has been making their life miserable!
As regards the agricultural land, it has been everywhereconverted into colonies, shopping complexes, and so on. Ours is an agriculturebased economy and we used to be self-sufficient but now we are gettingeverything from outside the state. Not only have we converted our lush greenfields by raising brick and concrete structures on it but even the occupationof agriculture has been assigned by us to Biharis and other outsiders. We havebecome so lazy that almost a million skilled and unskilled workers are doingthe jobs which normally Kashmiri youth should have been doing!
Recently, the Government has constituted a State LevelEnvironmental Impact Assessment Authority Jammu & Kashmir and formulatedState Level Expert Appraisal Committee to assist the Authority. The objectiveof the authority is to promote environmentally sound and sustainable development.In J&K there has hardly been any prior assessment of various developmentalprojects especially in regard to natural environment. Most of the projects arevirtually started on ad hoc basis without determining the long term impact ofthese projects on the environment. Well, it is a very good move for futureprojects but what about some existing ones and what about the continuous damagebeing done to the natural environment everywhere? Who is going to take care ofthis? There are several laws on the statute book for taking care of the naturalenvironment including the forests, water bodies and so on. However, there is noenforcement. A law without means of enforcement is meaningless!
Failure to take care of natural environment has resulted inwhat is a buzz word these days, the “Global Climate Change”! God Almighty hasbeen very kind to us so far if one compares the weather here and in some otherparts. The entire sub-continent and the Middle East experienced the worst heatwave. The temperature in some parts has even touched 68 degrees Celsius. Therehave been instances of trees starting burning and even setting nearbyautomobiles on fire. Even Europe and America have experienced severe heatwaves! Some days back some parts of USA were caught in a severe heat wave. Itmay be too late for these places to take preventive action but we have achoice. If we even now wake up and try to save various components of theNatural Environment, we may escape the drastic consequences of the “ClimateChange”. It needs a universal movement involving the entire civil societyregardless of political affiliations or religious beliefs. The movement has tostart even from the toddlers. Will someone give us a lead please before it istoo late?