Sustainable Development - Essay Example

Sustainable development “Sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs." (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Following the definition, the development of the world implies two important aspects of the concept of sustainability. It is multi disciplinary in nature and universally applicable. Again, there are no predetermined aims or plan but it implies a continuation of the state of well being of a person and this alone is the motive behind sustainability. There are essentially two different concepts based on which we form the idea of sustainability. Firstly, there is the concept of needs, which covers the conditions necessary for the maintenance of an acceptable standard of life for all people. This need may consist of anything like food, housing, clothing and employment. Secondly, there is the idea of limitations or constraint on the capacity of the environment towards fulfillment of needs of the present and the future. This limitation is brought about by the nature of technology used and the social organization. An economist would ideally define this condition as that of unlimited wants to be met by limited resources. (Unctad/GATT, 1992) Every person wants to raise his standard of living above the minimum level of sustenance but the resources provided by nature are limited. Limited resources may include the finite ones like land, drinking water and petroleum. Along with these there are intangible resources like the deterioration in quality of water, productivity of land and so on. Hence by these two arguments, one can easily judge or evaluate sustainable development in terms of political, technical and social and even environmental development. This difference between available resources and level of needs to be met has driven human beings to engage themselves in erratic interaction with the nature. This erratic interaction almost in all the cases has led to the deterioration of the future generation’s quality of life. When the natives of Easter Island engaged themselves in severe destruction of the Palm forest, they seldom managed to measure the future atrocities that they had to undergo following their own action (Routledge, 1919). The Palm forest there was essential for the survival of the creatures living in that island. After reaching the staggering number of 10,000, a population far higher than the island can back up. In search of agricultural land, the inhabitants started to cut down the palm trees. On one hand, this resulted in erosion of soil and on the other, affected the bird population (due to loss of habitat, their number was decreasing at a very fast rate). Again, with all the trees gone, little wood were left to build boats so that the population can go for fishing in the sea. These consequences ultimately led the islanders to walk the path towards cannibalism. Their number fell sharply and at a certain point, during the nineteenth century, the population of the island was found to be somewhere near 100 to150 - a sad decline of a civilization to barbarism. The incident of Easter Island is a lesson to us. It portrays how severe can Mother Nature be on us if we break her law. Currently, the biodiversity of our world is declining. It is not a very exceptional phenomenon as even before, for at least five times, the biodiversity touched the bottom (in science it is known as the five mass destruction). However, in the previous occasions, the plant specie remained almost unaltered. Yet the present loss in biodiversity is most significant in terms of the declining plant specie. The deforestation in the Amazon rain forest is quite well known among these. Every year, it is revealed from satellite pictures that Amazon rain forest; one of the world’s most biologically enriched places is shrinking. (Kumar, 1999) All these incidents will sooner or later led to the “problem of commons”. It is an interesting characteristic of an individual that he is almost everywhere preoccupied with selfish individual goal. This prevents him from looking beyond and taking proper care of the social benefits. This lessening of social benefits in order to increase individual benefits and one day sharing the common fate of the society is known as the problem of commons and this must be avoided. Otherwise, another ester Island will be in the making soon. Sustainable development: Measures to be taken In recent times, the importance of protecting Mother Nature has been realized. The following measures may in course of time be able to restore the nature in its initial form. It is a matter of fact that with the growing population, more land for agriculture and industry will necessarily be required. In order to attaint hat, it is not unexpected that more trees will be cut down but as a counter measure of this deforestation, planting new trees in the other regions, preferably regions near the deforested place is quite necessary. It has been found that after the advent of plastic, the nature has received a deathblow in terms of pollution and deposition of waste material. In recent times, plenty of biodegradable materials have been found which can be used in our day-to-day activities and after they lose life, they will be returned to the environment and will not form any toxic disposal. The carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions of fossil fuels are much more than that of the bio fuels. With the invention of bio fuels like Jatropha, pongamia, etc, this emission can be reduced to a safe level. Last but not the least, if and only if, we can manage the population at a reasonable level, the pressure on the resources will be less and the total biomass will be at a manageable level. The goal of sustaining the development will not be a distant star anymore. Conclusion It has been historically and statistically proven that environmental maladies have the most devastating effects on human civilization. A single Krakatoa blew a whole island. The way we are progressing is surely begetting several Krakatoas within our mother nature. If this continues with all resources drained and Mother Nature, suffering from several irreversible changes, will definitely give our future generations a torrid time to sustain their life and unless we pass through some definite reformation process, our future generation may have to crawl down the ladder of civilization and bereft of any coal, petrol and many other things, so back to those caves from where their forefathers started their journey towards the modern era. References: Kumar H.D. (1999) Biodiversity and Sustainable Conservation, Science Publisher, USA Routledge, Katherine. (1919). The Mystery of Easter Island. The story of an expedition. London Unctad/GATT (1992), United Nations Department for Policy Co-ordination and Sustainable Development DPCSD (1998), ‘The Indicators of sustainable development: framework and methodologies’, 1998,gopher://gopher.un.org:70/00/esc/cn17/199697/indicators/INTRODUC.ID World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987), Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, New York. pp. 4 Read More