It is frightening that across Goa small groups of people are fighting their own elected government, not for personal or selfish gains, but to preserve and save the environment. Even scarier is the fact that the government often ignores them or at times fights back. To add to the horror situation is the existence of other groups of people that will find fault or make allegations against those taking up a just cause in defence of the environment. It’s happening in Goa at this moment. If certain villagers of Tiracol and Mopa have taken up the cudgels for their village environment, there are others who blinded to the environmental costs of certain projects find that ‘development’ should be allowed no matter what the consequences.
The arguments on both sides are many and varied, but on World Environment Day, it is time to pause and consider where these arguments are taking us. It is time to pause and consider if it is even worth arguing whether the protection of the one planet that we have needs to be saved. That’s all we have been given – one planet. When the issue is placed in such a perspective, can there be room for argument? Every argument delays the protection and gives room for more destruction. This has to stop at some time.
The theme for this year’s Environment Day is ‘Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.’ That theme is eminently applicable to the current situation in Goa and the degradation of the State’s environment. The theme simply states that the one planet we have cannot be destroyed, that it has to be saved by the seven billion people that live on it, that what we take from the planet has to be taken carefully. And, that is exactly what a large number of people in Goa are not doing. Neither the citizens nor the government appear to have the protection of the environment at heart. The government has the law, the tools and the finances to protect the environment, but it doesn’t even pay the environment any lip service. What the government is lacking in is the political will to take up the defence of the planet we live in. Perhaps if the planet could vote, then politicians might have looked at the issue in a different light and actually attempted to save it from destruction. Unfortunately the planet cannot vote and it depends on the seven billion people who live on it to take up its defence. The issue is serious and cannot be set aside cursorily, though unfortunately that is what is actually happening at present.
While it may always be easy to blame the government for not doing everything it can and should do to preserve the environment, the ordinary citizen too has certain responsibilities towards the protection of the environment and these responsibilities cannot be avoided. If every person somehow benefits from the earth then that person also has the duty to give back to the earth. This responsibility is that much higher in the case of business and conglomerates that also profit from the earth.
The development that takes place in Tiracol and Mopa in the north has an effect on the villages of Polem and Palolem in the south. Every sand dune destroyed in the name of tourism, every tree cut to make way for a concrete building affects not just the environment of the immediate locality and the village but of the entire State and has consequences even beyond it. The costs of environment degradation are there to be seen the world over. Global warming is no longer a prediction but fast turning into a reality and the more the Earth is attacked, the faster will the planet hurtle towards warming and its unfortunate consequences.
On World Environment Day the government has to set aside time to listen to the voices of the people whose environment is being destroyed. The voices have been loud and often shrill, but have been falling on deaf ears. It shouldn’t be difficult to grasp and accept the fact that the growth of any economy depends on a salubrious environment. The destruction of the environment will in the long run lead to the economy. Perhaps once governments understand that, they may decided to give the environment a new lease of life. Until then, the citizenry needs to keep up the pressure for the planet has only them it can depend on.
