Environment
Dr. Priya Ranjan Trivedi staying at A 15, Paryavaran Complex,
New Delhi 110030 (INDIA), Mobile : +91-9818097247 has designed a Masterplan Paradigm for the overall development of
environment in the
following manner :
1.1 Principles
The Earth’s life support systems are fundamental to
maximising human welfare.
In pursuit of our goals are to ensure equity and social
justice, and that those sectors of the community least able
to bear the cost of redressing environmental degradation
will not be disadvantaged.
Ecological sustainability will be through formulating an
Environment Policies which could be :
a) the protection of biological diversity and the
maintenance of ecological integrity;
b) the use of material resources in accordance with the
Earth’s capacity to supply them and to assimilate wastes
arising from their use; and
c) equity within and between generations.
Where there are threats of serious or irreversible
environmental damage, decisions should err on the side of
caution, with the burden of proof resting with technological
and industrial developers to demonstrate that the planned
projects are ecologically sustainable.
To become ecologically sustainable, our society must change
over time from one which recognises no physical or
ecological limits, to one which lives within the capacity of
the Earth to support it and allows for the Earth to sustain
the diversity of living things. This means that ingenuity
must be used to do more with less, the trend to more
efficient use of physical resources and energy must be
accelerated, and the limits within which society and the
economy function must be explicitly recognised. To enable
targets to be set and progress to be measured, these limits
must be defined as early as possible.
These are the following goals and limits as essential for
the achievement of ecological sustainability in our country.
1.2 Goals
a) achieve an ecologically sustainable society, both in
India and globally, which lives within the capacity of the
Earth to supply renewable resources and to assimilate
wastes;
b) ensure that human activities maintain the biological
diversity of all named organisms at the level of subspecies
and of all other organisms, through the adequate protection
of the ecological communities of which they are part;
c) hold the amount of water captured for human use from
surface aquatic systems and provide environmental flows to
all river systems and their dependent ecosystems;
d) limit the amount of water drawn from groundwater systems
to rates not greater than they are replenished;
e) reduce emissions of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse
gases;
f) eliminate human-induced release of ozone-depleting
substances in the upper atmosphere;
g) reduce the total quantity of solid, liquid and gaseous
wastes (including those from non-point sources) annually
disposed into the environment;
h) maintain or restore the natural diversity and
productivity of soil in agricultural and pastoral areas;
i) reduce the total amount of land occupied by human
infrastructure (transport, buildings, roads) and agriculture
(grazing, cropping);
j) facilitate closer liaison among rural, urban, tribal and
indigenous peoples in India, such that all might benefit
from indigenous knowledge of our land in order to further
its management in ways which are sustainable;
k) provide for increased participation by local communities
in planning and implementing strategies to protect the
environment;
l) increase environmental awareness leading to a desire by
all Indians to protect the environment; and
m) apply the principle of intergenerational equity in all
environmental programmes.
1.3 Short Term Targets
1.3.1 Biological Diversity
a) ensure funding and enforcement of habitat recovery plans
for endangered species;
b) implement, as a matter of urgency, national legislation
to control the clearing of native vegetation, with
complementary provisions at state and/or local level; and
c) establish a comprehensive and viable system of
terrestrial and marine protected areas managed primarily to
protect biodiversity; the system will include all remaining
areas of high wilderness value, and will also protect wild
and scenic rivers which remain in essentially pristine
condition;
d) prohibit automatic mining rights and mining exploration
on agricultural land.
1.3.2 Forests and Wood Production
a) end logging of old growth and other high conservation
value native forests immediately, and over time complete the
phase-out of most logging from native forests, including
regrowth forests;
b) adopt a Wood Products Industry Plan that will accelerate
the transition from native forests to plantations by
encouraging the fullest possible domestic processing of wood
from plantations, and increased recycling. As a complement
to the plan, we will provide a package of retraining and
other assistance for workers facing displacement from the
native forest-based industry;
c) integrate commercial wood production into diversified
agricultural enterprises, and provide marketing mechanisms
to facilitate this; and
d) support the development of alternative fibre industries
where they are more ecologically sustainable.
1.3.3 Mining and Mineral Exploration
a) to prohibit mineral exploration and mining as well as
extraction of petroleum and gas in nature conservation
reserves, including national parks, wilderness areas and
other areas of outstanding nature conservation value;
b) to ban all new sand-mining operations in the coastal
zone.
1.3.4 Marine Environments and Fishing
a) work to establish a comprehensive system of marine
reserves in Indian waters; and
b) for existing fisheries, work to immediately prohibit an
increase in level of harvest, and determine as a matter of
urgency the requirements for ecological sustainability and
regulate the catch accordingly, with a substantial safety
margin to ensure sustainability
1.3.5 Climate Change and Ozone Depletion
a) reduce emissions of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse
gases and to have clear national, regional and local energy
policies adopted to enable this target to be reached;
b) support an international protocol that makes these
greenhouse gas emission targets binding for all
industrialised countries; and
c) phase out production of carbon tetrachloride, methyl
chloroform, CFCs and halons immediately, and HCFCs and
methyl bromide by 2005.
1.3.6 Machinery of Government
a) legislate to establish a Commission with independent
funding to examine and report on the environmental
performance of public authorities;
b) strengthen the Environment Protection Act 1986.
c) ensure the development of publicly accessible, well
resourced, compatible, coordinated networks of data
monitoring and data-based legislated State of Environment
reporting at local government, state/territory or regional,
and national levels;
d) ensure the Government maintains and exercises those
constitutional powers which are applicable to the
environment, with State environmental policy to be
supervised and subject to a minimum set of stringent
national standards.
