Chapter - 16 Management of Natural Resources

• The management of natural resources requires a long-term perspective so that these will last for the generations to come and will not merely be exploited to the hilt for short term gains.
• Resources like forests, wild life, water, coal and petroleum need to be used in a sustainable manner. We can reduce pressure on the environment by sincerely applying the maxim of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ in our lives.

FORESTS AND WILDLIFE

Forests are ‘biodiversity hot spots’. One measure of the biodiversity of an area is the number of species found there.

One of the main aims of conservation is to try and preserve the biodiversity. Experiments and field studies suggest that a loss of diversity may lead to a loss of ecological stability.

Management of forest resources has to take into account the interests of various stakeholders.

• The people who live in or around forests are dependent on forest produce for various aspects of their life.
• The Forest Department of the Government which owns the land and controls the resources from forests.
• The industrialists who use various forests produce, but are not dependent on the forests in any one area.
• The wild life and nature enthusiasts who want to conserve nature in its pristine form

Forest resources ought to be used in a manner that is both environmentally and developmentally sound – in other words, while the environment is preserved, the benefits of the controlled exploitation go to the local people, a process in which decentralised economic growth and ecological conservation go hand in hand.

Participation of the local people can lead to the efficient management of forests.

RAINS

Rains in India are largely due to the monsoons. This means that most of the rain falls in a few months of the year. Despite nature’s monsoon bounty, failure to sustain water availability underground has resulted largely from the loss of vegetation cover, diversion for high water demanding crops, and pollution from industrial effluents and urban wastes.

DAMS

Large dams can ensure the storage of adequate water not just for irrigation, but also for generating electricity.

Criticisms about large dams address three problems in particular –

• Social problems because they displace large number of peasants and tribals without adequate compensation or rehabilitation,
• Economic problems because they swallow up huge amounts of public money without the generation of proportionate benefits,
• Environmental problems because they contribute enormously to deforestation and the loss of biological diversity.

WATER HARVESTING

Watershed management emphasises scientific soil and water conservation in order to increase the biomass production. The aim is to develop primary resources of land and water, to produce secondary resources of plants and animals for use in a manner which will not cause ecological imbalance.

Watershed management not only increases the production and income of the watershed community, but also mitigates droughts and floods and increases the life of the downstream dam and reservoirs.

Various organisations have been working on rejuvenating ancient systems of water harvesting as an alternative to the ‘mega-projects’ like dams. These communities have used hundreds of indigenous water saving methods to capture every trickle of water that had fallen on their land; dug small pits and lakes, put in place simple watershed systems, built small earthen dams, constructed dykes, sand and limestone reservoirs, set up rooftop water-collecting units. This has recharged groundwater levels and even brought rivers back to life.

The harnessing of water resources by building dams has social, economic and environmental implications. Alternatives to large dams exist. These are locale-specific and may be developed so as to give local people control over their local resources.  

In largely level terrain, the water harvesting structures are mainly crescent shaped earthen embankments or low, straight concrete-and rubble “check dams” built across seasonally flooded gullies. Monsoon rains fill ponds behind the structures. Only the largest structures hold water year round; most dry up six months or less after the monsoons.

The advantages of water stored in the ground are many. It does not evaporate, but spreads out to recharge wells and provides moisture for vegetation over a wide area. In addition, it does not provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes like stagnant water collected in ponds or artificial lakes. The ground-water is also relatively protected from contamination by human and animal waste.

COAL AND PETROLEUM

Fossil fuels, that is, coal and petroleum are important sources of energy.

The fossil fuels, coal and petroleum, will ultimately be exhausted since they were formed from the degradation of bio-mass millions of years ago. At present rates of usage, our known petroleum resources will last us for about forty years and the coal resources will last for another two hundred years.

Since coal and petroleum have been formed from bio–mass, in addition to carbon, these contain hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur. When these are burnt, the products are carbon dioxide, water, oxides of nitrogen and oxides of sulphur. When combustion takes place in insufficient air (oxygen), then carbon monoxide is formed instead of carbon dioxide. Of these products, the oxides of sulphur and nitrogen and carbon monoxide are poisonous at high concentrations and carbon dioxide is a green-house gas. Another way of looking at coal and petroleum is that they are huge reservoirs of carbon and if all of this carbon is converted to carbon dioxide, then the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going to increase leading to intense global warming.

Because of this and because their combustion pollutes our environment, we need to use these resources judiciously.