Indian Wildlife Club Forum

Amin: Gandhi advocated sustainable development. His "charkha" was a symbol of self-sustenance and self-empowerment.

In today's knowledge society can the computer take the place of the charkha? I believe it can. Government of India has plans to take the benefit of ICT-led development to every village by creating village knowledge centres in over 6,00,000 villages in India by August, 2007 which marks the 60th year of Indian independence. Ambitious? May be. But we are talking Gandhi's language. Every Indian did not take to spinning on a charkha. But the computer appeals to every Indian.

India is one of the twelve megadiverse countries in the world.

Bio diversity is important for sustainable development because it represents the wealth of biological resources available to us and for future generations for food, clothing, medicine and housing. Polluted waters, deforestation and green house gases are threatening our biodiversity.

Environmental initiatives by individuals and groups like us, however small, will help in keeping our bio-diversity at the centre of developmental projects.

The "developed" countries are actually the culprits when it comes to the destruction of ecosystems in "not-their-backyard" as we are finding out the Bush Administration and their approach to the "conservation" of the lands in the north for a few more gallons of oil to feed the insatiable demand in the US.

We can talk about not destroying the ecosystems but when the family needs the tree branch to use a fuel for the cooking I dont think saving the tree for the future generations will have an impact; especially when the current generation is close to starvation.

Poeple can do a lot but the "powers that be" can not fathom making use of humna-power. Where is the sexy slogan or the picture when all you can show is gangs of people making a road versus the shinny new tractor OR the crane that build the "hospitality industry" units instead of people.

Ecology as a resource slogan sounds a lot like "data as resource" and "people as a resource" campaings we here so often in the government or private industry. The only thing that ever seems to matter is the $$ to be had now versus in the future. The penalty for failure still seems to be promotion to the next level.

Maybe it will be different in India. Between 1920 and 1948 someone did try but I think it has yet to catch on.

Thank you for some thought provoking ideas, Amin.

The developed nations of the world are trying to find a balance between development and ecological sustainability. Countries like India still have some natural resources untouched by big developmental projects. NOW is the time to think of conservation.

Restoring a lost ecology is always harder. E-Government has the ability to address many economic issues. The abundance of manpower in our country can be utilised/can be empowered by e-governance which does not exploit our natural resources. In fact, e-governance for conservation involves montoring, assessing and showcasing our natural resources- creating employment oppotunities for thousands in the process.

Instead of looking at natural resources as an exploitable resource, we look at it as an asset which needs to be valued and protected. The benefits of protecting this asset are universal.

It depends. If you mean by that the process of motivation and move away from the current practices of destroying the current environment with no regard to the future or the impact on the "global" environment, then I agree it is complex. For that I doubt if there ever will be anything mere mortals can do. History also shows that those who are above the mere mortal category get "removed" sooner or later; usually sooner.
The purpose of the work for Canadian Environment Agency was to monitor the process for the Assessment of "Industrial" projects on the environment and to Assess the impact based on the Guidelines established as to the protection of the environment. The scope was global in that any Canadian Organization doing work in any part of the world had to provide the data on the impact on the environment. The Agency operates in Canada "for ever". The problem, as I saw it, was that "vested interest groups" would try and circumvent the provision of the data or privide vague and "useless" data.
Educating the public on the importance of managing the environment and looking beyond the "today's bubndle of branches to cook with" is not a simple task when the focus of the "powers that be" is towards other goals like weapons and IT jobs.

Regards

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)has just been unveiled.

The Ministries which get into the bandwagon now stand to benefit immensely. The Ministry of Income tax is a case in point where technology is working wonders to boost revenues and plug loopholes.

We appeal to the Ministry of Environment and Forest to actively participate in the NeGp. This will benefit conservation, regulate poaching, boost tourist revenues and create jobs.

There are traditional practices such as sacred tanks and sacred groves, institutions such as Van Panchayats as well as new initiatives such as joint forest management (JFM).

A lot of community based conservation happens on Government lands such as reserve forests, wetlands, and coasts. A good example is the efforts of villagers in Alwar district in protecting the catchment forests of Arvari river, most of which are on Government land.

Once this area is declared as a Conservation Reserve, several Government Agencies will take over the conservation work. A government –people participation approach rather than amending laws and coining new terms seems to be the need of the hour.

Dr Susan Sharma I read your paper. You make the process sound very complex. I think the solution would be by starting to look for a generic approach.

 For example, all the stakeholders (and I reallly hate that word) are really the same just different roles (and some with multiple roles). The Environment has several aspects as of now and more will come into play. There is a relationship among the Environment Factors. And finally the "Stakeholders" and The Environment have several attributes you need to track and record.

I did a system here for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency using the same concepts and it worked fine and provided a vastly superior capability for research and investigation then if they had remained in the "independent" stakeholder and environment factor mode.

 All the best Regards

Dr Amin Adatia MBA, PhD

amin@knowtech.ca KnowTech Solutions Inc

(www.knowtech.ca)