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Wise Coastal Practices for Sustainable Human Development Forum
Posted By: Kavita Khanna
Date: Thursday, 29 July 1999, at 6:15 p.m.
In Response To: Questions about salt extraction. (R Sudarshana)
Before I can answer those questions to your satisfaction, I would like to share a few thoughts. I know I am sceptical, but I want to give it a try.
Protection of the environment and catching up with development are conflicting objectives. I can see certain changes like new technology. But doesn't the natural world work the way it always has? Isn't it basically predictable? Actually we are making it less predictable and we're seriously threatening the viability of the planet's life systems. Ironically we are only doing better and better. Don't you think we are living on the edge?
Answer 1. WAS THE SALT REVOLUTION A WISE PRACTICE?
Beliefs that were wise for the past may not be wise for the future. Even though science and technology act towards specialised objectives it is essentially partial and incomplete. It is just a stepping stone to something else. As we have seen, many coastal regions have been destroyed because society views their destruction as either good in itself, or as a small price to pay for the benefits expected from wetland conversions. Such practices can only be dismissed as short-sighted as well as being socially and economically indefensible.
Answer 2. WHAT WENT WRONG?
'There is enough for every man's need but not greed.'
We always think that nature is so powerful and permanent that we couldn't affect the way it works no matter what we did. The host on a television talk show just yesterday claimed that there's no evidence we're hurting nature. This faulty thinking in fact got us into our environmental predicament.
So far, mankind has strongly favoured looking only at the near-term future and has refused to take seriously what could happen in the long term. Somewhere along the line, the balance of the extreme contradiction between unrestrained materialism and unrelenting asceticism began to tilt in favour of material progress. We need to learn how the world works.
Answer 3. WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A WISE VISION?
Our world is now so different that our predominant way of thinking is leading us to damage global life systems. Our only way is the way we think - what is the cost of being wrong? I wish we could, but it seems that we haven't altered our ways of thinking to stay in tune with the new reality we've created; we still fail to look ahead. We still think the future will be like the past, we still put our needs above the needs of life systems and society. A global society so populous, so powerful and so blind is not sustainable.
Answer 4. WHAT ACTION SHOULD WE TAKE?
Despite the conventional wisdom that says economic growth is good, I call for 'limits' to growth. It seems the only sensible choice in today's times.
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