DR. JOE D’SOUZA
Today is World Environment Day. It was in 1974 that United Nations in one voice declared that June 5 each year be declared as the day for nations around the world to introspect and reflect upon the state of the environment at the local level and act to keep our surroundings clean and healthy, so that the “Good Earth” would be able to sustain life on the planet for eternity. The initial slogan for the Environment Day was “We have to think of environment at the global level but we all have to act at the local level”.
Our father of the nation; Mahatma Gandhi, much before the world decided to observe Environment Day, had not only talked about the need to protect our environment but his entire life was about sustainable and healthy yet simple living. Gandhiji words to us as a society, ring in my ears and mind. Gandhiji said emphatically-there is enough in the world for man’s needs but there isn’t enough the earth could provide for man’s greed.
To sensate us as citizens of the world we were sternly told that we have not inherited the earth from our ancestors but borrowed it from our future generations.
Let me very briefly talk about the global context of the “World Environment Day” before focusing on local issue which Goa and Goans are today facing.
In Europe specially there are small and big nations and rich and poor too. Whether it is Danube or Rhine, rivers in Europe meander and traverse across nations. In India too River Indus passes through India to reach Pakistan. The point I wish to make here is that if the country through which the river passes pollute and contaminate the river, the sickness and morbidity becomes the concern of the next nation, as the receiving nation is a victim of the pollution of the river, due to domestic sewage and industrial discharges of the rouge nation, through which the river initially flows. Hence it was decided upon at the International level that the “polluter has to pay” for the damage done to the environment.
Today, we are all concerned about the rise in sea water levels and climate change. But if you look closely, it is the few nations of the industrialised world that are bellowing and belching out the greenhouse gases into the environment, which are truly responsible saturating the atmosphere of our earth, and these gases are in turn responsible for trapping heat energy from the sun, from the radiations we receive from the incident solar radiations. To add a nail to the coffin of our woes in our efforts to make a quick buck, we fell trees and destroy our forest covers which in reality are the sink for the greenhouse gases.
To add insult to injury, we fail to release that our oceans are repositories of rich photo plankton blooms, which act as effective and efficient carbon sink. Sadly, oceans too are used as dump yards for world garbage mostly of the industrialised and developed world. Very recently we have the dubious distinction of plastic wastes been scooped out from the deepest trench in the world, which is known as the Marina’s trench. Oil pollution, garbage, sewage and the industrial effluents released in our water bodies all round the coastal regions of the world are not destroying our biodiversity but also directly responsible for global warming as our pollutants are killing the algae, sea weeds, phyto plankton which absorb greenhouse gases and reduce the adverse effects of global warming.
Now let us focus on the local issue. As Goans we have been doing everything possible to damage and destroy the environment since Goa’s Liberation.
I will not touch about the nature and the gravity of damage done to Goa due to the illegal and unsustainable exploitations of our forest wealth, the haphazard exploitation of our mineral resources, which have totally depleted and contaminated our water bodies, nor would I elucidate as to how concretisation, coal imports and pollution of our rivers is destroying Goa’s environment but I will stress just as to how one person and also a single point source of pollution is destroying Goa.
Since the theme this year is “Air Pollution destroying societies”. I will first explain as to how just one individual, when he behaves as a bull let loose in the China shop can hold the environment of a city to total ransom and decay.
Today, Panjim is full of particulate matter. GSPCB has done precious nothing to measure the levels of noise, ambient air quality in central Panjim, exclusively caused by the officials of the CoP.
The MLA of Panjim is keen to get the casinos out of the River Mandovi. Keeping aside the damage done to the River, the traffic fall out or Panjim roads due to these casinos and pleasure hunting boats permitted by CoP is today responsible for the responsible for the growth of respiratory, enteric and skin infections besides cancers. Strangely Panjimites are in deep slumber, whilst a Terminal Building with a capacity of over 1000 persons, would work and move round the “Terminal Complex” which would add to the grievances of Panjimites.
Last but not the least, with everything that is happening, what the political class does at Sonsodo is absolutely intriguing and absurd. Adversity provides opportunity and ignorance is bliss. It would be pertinent for Goans to know at this stage that the “enzyme technology” proposed by the chairperson of MMC is nothing short of a scam, a proposal to siphon public monies in the garb of bioremediation. Enzymes are proteins and denature or inactivate at high temperatures. The operation would be meaningless because the fire is due to biologically generated methane.
The people of Margao and the residents at Sonsodo are squarely to be blamed as they have to been the main culprits of the sins of omission for allowing the political class to reap the harvests of looting the exchequer in the garb of Solid Waste Management.
It is high time Goans wake up to the fact that the protection of the environment is imperative to the protection of life. All over Goa, people have afforded scant respect to our environment. The coal pollutants at Vasco, sewage effluent killing our rivers and strewn garbage destroying our forests around the Western Ghats. Let this Environment Day be an occasion for us to reflect and introspect.
