Environmental Management

Environmental Management

 

Ä The Ecosystem is formed by the biotic and abiotic factors and their interactions with each other.

Ä Biotic factors: Plants, animals, microbes.

Ä Abiotic factors: Air, water, soil, etc.

Ä Physical, Chemical and Biological factors affecting living organisms in any possible way are collectively called as ‘Environment’. Environment is the condition in surrounding.

Ä There are two main types of environment. One is natural environment and the other is artificial environment.

Ä The science that deals with the study of interactions between biotic and abiotic factors of the environment is called as ‘Ecology’. Basic functional unit used to study the ecology is called ecosystem.

Ä A small pond is example of an ecosystem, and the Earth is the largest ecosystem.

Ä The environmental balance is maintained through continuous operation of various natural cycles like water cycle, carbon cycle, gaseous cycles like nitrogen cycle, oxygen cycle, etc.

 

Ä Environmental balance is also maintained due to various food chains of ecosystem.

Ä Environmental conservation has become the need of hour for mankind.

Ä Today, all developed, developing and underdeveloped countries have accepted the responsibility of environmental protection.

Ä Unnecessary and unacceptable change in the surrounding environment due to natural events or human activities is called as environmental pollution.

Ä Pollution is of various types namely, air pollution, water pollution, sound pollution, soil pollution, thermal pollution, etc.

Ä Ultimate adverse effect of all these pollutions is on the existence of all the living organisms and therefore, environmental conservation has become the need of the hour.

Ä Various reasons like population explosion, rapid industrialization and indiscriminate use of natural resources, deforestation and unplanned urbanization are responsible for environmental pollution.

Ä Radioactive pollution can occur due to natural and artificial reasons. UV and IR radiations are natural radiations, whereas X-rays and radiation from atomic energy plants are artificial radiations.

Ä Chernobyl, Windscale and Three Miles Island mishaps are the major mishaps of the world.

Ä Environmental conservation is our social responsibility.

Ä To create awareness about the conservation of environment, values like positive attitude and affection towards environment, knowledge about it, should be inculcated among children through education.

Ä In 1972, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has been established in a conference arranged on human and environment in which environmental problems were discussed.

Ä In India, a separate  environmental department  has been established after thorough discussion  on environmental problems.

Ä Ministry of Environment and Forests is involved in planning, inducting and increasing awareness about environment and forests through various programs since 1985.

Ä Since existence of the human race, there is interrelationship between environment and human. Human beings established dominance over the nature. They utilized all the natural resources as much as possible.

Ä Human has to play a crucial role in maintaining the environmental balance.

Ä Laws enacted about environmental conservation are: (i) Forest Conservation Act, 1980. (ii) Environmental Conservation Act, 1986.

Ä Biodiversity is the richness of living organisms in nature due to presence of varieties of organisms, ecosystems and genetic variations within a species.

Ä Biodiversity occurs at three different levels, viz. Genetic Diversity, Species Diversity and Ecosystem Diversity.

Ä There should be positive attitude of human beings towards the environment for welfare of entire living world.

Ä A person can perform a role of either a conservator, organizer, guide or a plant-friend etc.

Ä Biodiversity can be conserved by many ways. Many people in the society are voluntarily coming together to perform this noble work of conservation of biodiversity.

Ä The forest conserved in the name of God and considered to be sacred is called ‘sacred grove’.

Ä Sacred groves are in fact ‘Sanctuaries’ conserved by the society and not by the government forest department.

Ä Thirty four highly sensitive biodiversity spots are reported all over the world. At present, 86% of the sensitive areas are already destroyed.

Ä As far as India is concerned, out of 135 species of animals, 85 species are found in the jungles of eastern region.

 

Ä The threatened species can be classified as endangered species, rare species, vulnerable species and indeterminate species.

 

Ä International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) prepares the ‘Red List’ that contains the names of the endangered species from different countries. Pink pages of this book contain the names of endangered species, while green pages contain the names of previously endangered but presently safe species.