Thoughts on World Environment Day
Need for a green budget
Forests: Nature at your service’ is the theme slogan of World Environment Day, 2011. It reminds us of the call of Engels, “let us not….flatter ourselves over much on account of our human conquest over nature. For each such conquest takes its revenge on us”. Other classical or ‘positivists’ (Comte, Durkheim, Spencer and others), however, might have thought that natural resources will never be depleted. The popular idea, around the ‘developed world’, was that a nation will achieve progress through industrialisation (raw materials of which have to be extracted from nature, mainly from forest resources around the world). Since then, despite nature’s endless effort to provide a balanced natural habitat for all species, human population has been engaged to unprecedented consumption through indiscriminate squeezing the nature’s resources.
Since late nineteen eighties deforestation has been identified as one of the causes for environmental pollution, climate change and frequent disasters. As a result of deforestation about 10,000 species around the world have been disappearing every year. Many species are already on the verge of extinction just now. Research indicates that deforestation should be central to all contemporary discussion on climate change. This is because forest is the controller of atmospheric temperature and moisture as the biomass of tropical forest preserves about 55 percent of the world’s organic carbon. Deforestation exhilarates the process of building up greenhouse gases by interrupting the natural absorption of carbon dioxide by forests. This has also been argued that production of greenhouse gases are more from burning of tropical forests than fossil fuel.
To analyze the thrust of the slogan of environment day, 2011 for Bangladesh one has to refer back to the role of forest resources in conserving the ecology, environment and biodiversity of the country. It is a well known fact that the ecological, social and cultural diversities of Bangladesh have been contributed by the interaction of various species and ethnic peoples living in the forest zones. The country has been identified as a distinct one due to its varied nature of biodiversity. The mangrove forest, one of the world’s beautiful natural settings in the Sundarbans, protected the country from being totally devastated by great cyclones and surges including Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2004.
For last two decades Bangladesh has become a ‘role model’ of deforestation, artificial plantation with exotic and alien species and abuse of power in the name of government forest department. Human population involved in such type of destruction of the biodiversity is not concerned about ‘natural community’ or living with all species in a natural habitat. They do not define environment from the perspective of ‘a microbic action to the size of world population’. They neither consider the importance of establishing direct linkages amongst production, consumption and environment. Deforestation also contributes to the socio-economic and cultural crises, examples of which can be drawn from the perspectives of the rights of indigenous people. Due to deforestation and structural establishments, the biodiversity of forest lands has drastically been degraded as well as significant changes occurred in the livelihood patterns of indigenous communities.
It is a popular saying that a country should at least have 25 percent forest cover for a balanced environment. Bangladesh does not even have more than 10 percent. Being encouraged by different programmes, people have been planting trees (mostly quick-growing alien species) at a large scale, and may be getting benefit out of plantation. However, we should realize that plantation can never be an alternative of natural forests. It is only the natural forests which are able to provide us with food, medicinal herbs, fodder and ingredients to make our living meaningful in a given habitat, which can neither be the goal nor the outcome of plantation. In this context we must recognise that there is no alternative to taking steps to prevent deforestation in the natural community.
In June Government of Bangladesh will declare the budget for 2011-2012. It is expected that as of last year the environmental issues will find a status in the budget. However, while development of a country is measured through GNP or defined in terms of economic growth, it is expected that environment will not get its due space. For an environment-friendly budget, one has to look for the answer of the question ‘to what extent economic growth is an adequate measure of development’? If economic development considers all kinds of productive activities at a similar level or if budget is based on utilizing resources without considering the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources it should not be considered as environmentally friendly.
In the past unplanned industrialisation, which has either been established through clearing the forests or encroaching rivers, has been identified as contributory to economic development. To overcome such anomalies a budget must differentiate between sustainable and non-sustainable activities. Budget should consider and focus on the social, economic, cultural and environmental practices of a country. The political economy of environmental crises should also be counted. It must be remembered that agriculture is still the basis of development in Bangladesh. Economic growth is not necessarily good if a country has to compromise with its natural environment and the future generation has to pay the price as a consequence.
Lessons have not been learnt from the negative consequences of dependency on the ‘top down’ approaches or on the models of developed countries and thus we have been continuing with practices based on such past experiences. We must look for the alternative views of development based on prudent local level decision making. Budget should focus on the local governance of rural agro-based economy with a special focus on protecting natural forests including all species of ‘natural community’. The use of much discussed ‘climate change funds’ from different sources need to be revisited in this regard.
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