The pressing need for Environmental Literacy
Last year, Government of India published a draft containing amendments to their environmental laws — in particular, guidelines for assessing environmental impacts for large industry projects. EIA2020, as its handle goes, was put up for public feedback.
As for the amendments themselves, environmental experts have highlighted that these are a set of diluted rules to clear industry projects faster, with minimal or no environmental impact assessment, apart from other shortcomings.
Environmental groups picked this up and ran campaigns to collect signatures, file petitions, and send emails to the ministry (that actually solicited these responses). The Minister for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change filed a complaint that the given email ID was spammed, and this led to the action of shutting down — albeit temporarily — a couple of activist websites.
It may have been this action that caused mainstream media to pick this up, and with help from opposition political parties, this became a popular issue. It is quite heartening that there was widespread public participation for an environmental issue, perhaps a first in debating technicalities of an environmental law.
Increased environmental awareness & the divide
Prior to this, these issues were discussed among environmentalists, activists, and academicians. While COVID-19 has pushed these issues to the back burner, such public involvement in environmental matters must be encouraged. Alongside, we must work on improving our environmental literacy. The general awareness on environment is on the rise, thanks to many factors:
- Greta Thunberg effect and other popular mass movements on Environmental Action & Justice
- Increasing media coverage on these issues
- Emphasis on environment in political campaigns with environmental strategies and policies as a key factor for electoral success
- Dedicated government ministry setup on Environment & Climate Change
- Environmental Science and Climate Change related subjects that have entered the school curricula at various levels, in varying intensity of the subject matter.
But like digital literacy, environmental literacy is also skewed in its coverage and this creates an environmental divide, pretty much like the digital divide. It is just as widespread — between the cities and the rural (where those in the rural may have a better appreciation of their local environment), between socioeconomic groups, and between the different generations of the populace.
From urban ecology to the rights of indigenous people living in the forests, to the need of forest corridors, and to the very idea of understanding forests and water systems — this literacy calls for an empathic (and emphatic) understanding of natural systems and the lives & livelihoods of people and other living beings whose lives are intertwined with such systems.
Becoming environmentally literate could equip people with the knowledge to be more discerning and make right decisions. It could also make the planet and its diverse life forms more endearing to them, and make them care more — hopefully.
There was a time when mankind was environmentally ‘aware’, as we learned to co-exist with the myriad fellow-beings with whom we share this planet. The amount of wisdom amassed over time with such first-hand experience is invaluable. That wisdom has been passed from older generations to the modern-day forest dwellers.
The modern humans have detached themselves from such heritage, and are mostly environmentally illiterate (this includes me). Modern environmental literacy should include, and draw from a curation of such wealth of knowledge about our natural systems passed down from our past generations.
Why Environmental Literacy?
- Negative language in pop culture
Let us look at the contemporary beliefs and discourses about animals in pop culture. It is normal for us to read (and relate to) wily wolves, cunning foxes, vengeful snakes, vultures that feast on the flesh, owls that are bad omen, etc.
Even donkeys, dogs, garden lizards, skinks, and worms get bad press. Would these help create in children, a favourable opinion of these animals, birds, and insects?
How many times in the recent past have we witnessed horrific scenes of a stray leopard being stoned and mauled to death by frenzy mobs? Elephants being traumatised?
We need to be a lot more considerate to these (and other) fellow-beings, and that consideration should reflect in our language and the stories we tell. We may recall the recent remarks on Twitter that termed as vultures, people making money out of COVID miseries. (While vultures are such noble creatures that do immense service to the environment!)
2. Inequity in sharing of natural resources
India (perhaps like everywhere else in the world) has an inequitable sharing of water resources among its people. With rampant abuse and illegal siphoning of groundwater, there is a skewed distribution of water, with more water flowing towards urban conglomerations, industries, and wealthier people — denying the fair share of water for the rural areas, farming, and for the poor.
There is this wonderful effort on compiling a global atlas of environmental justice — that shows areas where there are government / private projects that are in conflict with the environment. India has many such (probably the second or third highest number of [reported] conflicts) ( https://ejatlas.org/ ).
3. Bad press
Media has a responsibility towards shaping these narratives. This report reads ‘Green hurdles’ block railway projects (this is an old report, but I am sure we can find many such easily):
This is not the first time that a call for environmental protection gets bad press. We know that wild beasts wander a bit more into neighbouring forests in search of forage or water. These are corridors of passage that have been used by these animals to go between these areas for many years. What the rail and road projects have done is to trample over these corridors and make it difficult for the animals to move about.
Further, these projects fragment the forests, and that too has its own ill-effects on the wildlife. When such corridors are blocked with human occupation, there are incidents of animals straying into households, which is again met with ire and results in the mauling and killing of these animals.
Responsible reporting is also a part of sustainable futures. It is a ‘green hurdle’ that is preventing the world from an imminent collapse. It is that hurdle that will safeguard the future of our offsprings, and is the last ray of hope in ensuring a habitable and enjoyable planet for posterity.
4. The need for collective action
If we are to trust the Systems Thinking approach, we have to concede that any environmental or eco-systems damage that is done in one area will have a widespread, global effect.
We are already staring at the possibility of global warming — that the earth will be hotter by 2 degrees by 2050. We are looking at people being displaced owing to conflicts, and soon, we will see climate refugees, as a handful of countries would run out of water in 20 years.
Even outsourcing of jobs is not without an environmental agenda or risk. By outsourcing a certain job to an offshore entity, we put into stress, the environmental resources on the receiving side. Even such seemingly unrelated economic activity has an impact on the environment, and it is important to improve our awareness and understanding of such things.
And this is not even a complete list! There are many such issues with people being disconnected from the natural world around them, and the widening social gap between them.
Environmental literacy is the most pressing need of our times, for people are easily misled with various theories on natural systems and philosophies propagated by many groups to suit their own interests. With the information and literacy divide, it is much more difficult to bridge the environmental awareness gap in India.
But with effort, this could lead to good Environmental Citizenship — as ordinary global citizens, as business owners, and as policy makers.
