Poltics of Environment

The politics of environment has been attracting wider attention for quite a few decades. Various environmental movements and schools of thoughts are prevalent today. And, they are having a strong presence at international, national and local levels. Nonetheless, concern for nature is not a current thinking. Ancient societies had preserved an environmental ethics of their own by means of those social values and practices that they professed and practised. The same is the case with multitude of indigenous groups which are cut away from modernity. From the perspective of many world religions, the abuse and exploitation of nature for immediate gain is unjust, immoral and unethical. In the ancient past, Hindus, Buddhist and others were careful to observe moral teachings regarding the treatment of nature. In these systems, not only the commons but also the ruling elites followed those ethical guidelines. Hindu vision proclaims the greatness of the cosmos and advocates the great forces of nature the Earth, the sky, the air, the water and the fire as well as various orders of life, including plants and trees, forests and animals, are all bound to each other within the great rhythms of nature. Respect for nature is deeply embedded in the Buddhist tradition. One of the key points of the Buddhism is that it tries to liberate from suffering not just human beings, but even worms and ants and all creatures, large and small. Islam and Christianity have much in common in their view of the natural world. In this regard, both the Bible and the Quran share the same Semitic values and ethical concepts. It is advocated that the earth and its beings are the creation of the Almighty and the abuse of them by humanity is severely to be condemned. In the modern times, it was Mahatma Gandhi who emphasised the need for the conservation of environment. He was a critic of the ‘world of machine’ and insisted that man must show concern for nature and all other living beings. Many accept that Gandhian pacifism and living in tune with nature are becoming more relevant in recent times. It is well known that environmental struggles like Chipko, Brazilian Rubber Tapper Movement; Green Belt Movement etc had been directly inspired by Gandhian ideology. From the seventies onward, there was a spurt in the formation of different schools of environmental thinking. Prominent among them, the Deep ecology argues that all being, human and non humans, posses instrinsic value. Deep ecology rejects anthropocentrism. On the contrary, social ecology adheres that the roots of all evil is the result of hierarchy in nature. Another prominent theory is Eco-feminism which suggests that women are closer to nature by the fact of their biological essence: the ability to give birth and nurture children. According to Eco-feminist, the roots of environmental problems are adropocentricsm. Yet another latest school, the Ecological post-modernists find fault with the modernisation. It condemns technology based development. Post modernists consider that negative consequences for the Earth, and its population are caused by the present modernisation pattern. In the early 1980s there were approximately 13000 environmental movements in developing countries. These groups have been formed to press for solutions to regional or local problems or sought to get the political system to respond to its demands. In North America, Australia and part of Scandinavia the environmental agents has often been dominated by attempts to protect wilderness areas from the intrusion and excess of human development.