ENVIRONMENT AND SELF-ENDANGERED MAN

ENVIRONMENT AND SELF-ENDANGERED MAN

J.V. AMIN 830, Las Palmas Drive,

Goodyear, AZ 85338, USA

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHERS (INDIA) P.O. Box 91 Jodhpur

Published by: Scientific Publishers (India)

5-A, New Pali Road, P.O. Box 91, Jodhpur – 342 001 (India)

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© Amin, J.V., 2009

ISBN: 978-81-7233-554-0

Cover Design: Tanay Sharma Lasertype set : Rajesh Ojha

Printed in India

This Book Is

Dedicated To

All those Who Are

Willing to Listen

To Others

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

When I started to write the acknowledgment for this book, many memories of people who have helped me in life came rushing in. Without their help, I would not have been able to arrive at a stage of my development that enabled me to write the book. Foremost among them is late Dr. Howard E Joham. He helped me through my difficult days of a graduate student in the fifties. He was my guide for Ph.D. program and our relationship continued to develop over the years. It was through his encouragement that I became a member of the Faculty of Texas A & M University. There were not too many people from India in US then, and a place on the faculty of a University was rare still. During long drives of field trips, we discussed everything under the sun and our friendship lasted till he ceased to be. For his contributions to my technical development, I am deeply grateful and wish to recognize him.

During my association with environmental projects at the M.S. University of Baroda, I interacted with large number of scientists, government officials, social activist and foreign consultants. Among them, I wish to acknowledge first, my good friend DR. S.D. Sabnis who was the director of these projects and who has gone over the draft of the book and offered valuable criticisms and help with editorial effort. He is a taxonomist and I am ignorant of the field so his help in checking scientific nomenclature has been of immense value. Late DR. G. Prathapasenan, late DR. S.N. Padate and DR S.J. Bedi were associated with projects as botanists. DR B. Pilo, DR N. Radhakrishnan and Late DR Y.M. Naik were zoologists. DR S.A. Chavan and Mr. Tadvi associated with these projects in their capacity as forest officers. DR Colin Reese, Mr. Nelson Riddley and Mr. Tom Blinkhorn provided significant inputs from the point of view of the World Bank. I also wish to recognize inputs from DR. H.C. Metha of the Navsari Agriculture College, DR. Anil Patel of Arch Vahini of Mangrol and DR. A. Gaston of Morse Commission.

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Conversations with them have helped me to get better insights into various problems. Thanks are also due to Dr. A.O. Arya for his valuable help towards publication of this book.

Last, I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to my late sister Maniben Patel, my wife of 59 years Kusum, my daughter Kalpana Gilchrist, my son Atul and his wife Cindy. Their influence and understanding has motivated me to undertake this book.

J.V. Amin

PREFACE

My academic training involved Chemistry, Soils and Plant physiology and this gave me an opportunity to work with two projects of environment. First of these project was a bench mark short term study commissioned by the Government of Gujarat State, India, to study impact of Navagam Dam, on the environment in the vicinity of the dam and the river. Several years later, the Gujarat Government, commissioned a second longer project to evaluate the influence of the dam on the ecology systems of neighboring areas. Both of these projects were assigned to the Department of Botany of the M.S. University of Baroda. Gujarat; and I was associated with both projects in a senior capacity

During the intervening period between two projects, Navagam Dam had become controversial because of interstate disputes for submergence area and agitations for resettlement of project affected people. Consequently, there was considerable interaction between investigators of the second project and people of World Bank, government bureaucrats, environmental activists, social workers, economists, journalists and even a visiting German parliamentary group. It became quickly apparent that many terms including 'sustainable development' had different meanings when used by people with differing backgrounds. Different priorities ruled the thinking of these diverse groups; and for environmentalists, social activists and economists science based principles and investigations had a very low priority. To confuse the situation further there were even strong differences between people of the same persuasion.

Since then, I have attempted to understand development of various aspects of environmentalism and the book is a compilation of what I have found. It is possible that some will disagree with my conclusions. In fact, I expect it because environmentalism comprises many people with strong emotional convictions and commitments; and their opponents too hold strong views. However, if some of them can be persuaded to look at points of view other than theirs, the book will have accomplished a lot.

Most of the reference material used in this book comes from computer websites. The transient nature of some of these websites is a source of some uneasiness for me. When a material is sourced from a traditional library it is

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there for others to access for a long time, but this may or may not be the case for material that has been taken from Internet source. On the other hand, when developing sources for current topics, the Internet has much more utility than traditional libraries.

I would like to mention some of the things that stood out for me while I was researching for the book. First, even though environmental concerns have a short history of only fifty years, they have affected life of people deeply. Many of us, through pressure of daily living transmitted through economics, live with negative aspects of environmental degradation; and in so doing have learned to accept them as a part of our normal life. The incident of Jetpur contamination of ground waters that has been reported in the first chapter is an example of this phenomenon. Recently soft drink giants Coca Cola and Pepsi were involved in controversies in India when a number of insecticides were found in their drinks and excessive amounts of cadmium were detected in the sludge discarded by Coca Cola Company. Even then, people continued to drink them. In a recent TV show on an American Network, it was mentioned that a number of exotic chemicals of modern origin were detected in Mother's milk in a large number of cases. The same program also indicated that these chemicals can get in human body from a number of other sources and Mother's milk was still the best source of food for infants. Sixty years ago, such incidents would have created much more concern than they do today. In each of these cases, people have accepted living with risks of changed environmental conditions.

Second, even though numerous attempts have been made to preserve a large number of wild life species, there is an absence of well thought out strategy in most countries. We seem to be operating on ad hoc basis as and when we decide to protect a species. Little attention has been paid to habitat build up and planning even when conservation is stressed. There appears to be a general apathy towards providing inputs for building up environmental resources, perhaps because long term efforts tend to have a second place to short term gains. It may also be because improvement in quality of life can only be achieved by making life more expensive and many poor countries cannot afford it.

It is also abundantly clear, that practice of traditional power politics in international relations can create great environmental damage through wars, or through attempts to corner precious dwindling resources. It not only creates mistrust among nations it tends to create many miseries for the under privileged poor, who then are forced to live off the land and thus deteriorate their environment further. Abolition of all wars is not a popular cause; and yet there is considerable danger that humanity and the environment that sustains all life can both perish. It is a scary thought, and we need to be well aware of it. Chances of such a catastrophe occurring would

Preface xi

be greatly enhanced if we are unable to come to terms with changes brought about by population increases, dwindling resources, weapons of mass destruction and our conditioning for hostility. Cooperation among nations rather than competitive hostility appears to be necessary for preservation of environment and for our survival; and we need to strive towards it. All the factors that pose danger for human race are of human origin and therefore I have titled the book ‘Environment and Self-Endangered Man’.

Present environmental crisis resolves into four sets of problems. They are 1 Scarcity of resources of habitat, energy, and sustenance, 2 competition for resources between men and between man and other life-forms, 3 wide ranging pollution of resources by modern industrial pollutants as well as biological materials from municipal sources and 4 requirement of inputs to conserve and restore environmental systems. These problems are likely to become more serious as human population grows and as more countries strive to achieve economic prosperity and parity with developed countries. Their solutions need to be based on technological as well as people based approaches because neglect of either is liable to develop incomplete solutions that will prove counter productive. Both of these approaches have been used in the book. Interaction between them has been used to consider opposing viewpoints of developed and undeveloped countries, of environmental activists and developers and of conservationists and human right activists.

In the ‘Resource’ section, the first chapter traces history of environment movement and defines environment in terms of resources. It examines causes of degradation of environment and rates competition among men and the resultant wars very high among them. There is a pressing need to develop and execute plans to tackle these problems. Towards that end, status of resources of land, water, rivers, coral reefs, wetlands, sea and oceans are evaluated and their management requirements are listed. It is recommended that watersheds should be considered units of environment for planning purposes; and that particular attention should be paid to augmenting productivity of environment in underdeveloped countries where a large part of populace depends on products of their environment for daily living. Efforts to conserve endangered wild life need to be an important part of these plans. In this connection, roles of WWF, IUCN, Ramsar Convention and CITES are highlighted in the text.

Three chapters in the ‘People’ section, cover population problems of different countries, conflicts between different sections of society for resources, manipulation of science information and scientists by vested interests, issues of sustainable development and endemic violence of human nature. It has been argued that sustainable development is not possible if environment is not sustained and that policy options should accommodate specific solutions of problems at local, regional and national levels. It is

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strongly asserted that prevalent atmosphere of competitive national interests and conflicts in international affairs contributes significantly to destruction of environment; and that the trend of competitive hostility and powers of modern destructive weapons can combine to exterminate all life-forms including man on this planet. Therefore, to preserve environment we need to learn to share and to cooperate. That can only be achieved if we listen to point of view of others-hence I have dedicated the book to all those who are willing to listen to others.

J.V. Amin

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement vii Preface ix

1. Environment as a Resources Platform 1

2. Land and Water Resources 18

3. Biodiversity and Endangered Species 52

4. Atmosphere and its controversies 64

5. Pollutants 81

6. Population Problem 109

7. People 122

8. Endangered Humans 145

Appendix - A 162

Appendix - B 165

Appendix - C 221

Author Index 230

Subject Index 233

RESOURCES