Linking livelihood and governance to ecology

An organism's environment is everything altogether -- all other organisms and non-living and physical materials around it somehow influence it. Each and every element of its environment is its amenity. The organism and each amenity (living and non-living) of its environment are interlinked, each one is in some way dependent on other, and the invisible super power "Nature", in a perfect calculative way maintains the balance among all these elements. Such a complex system of interactions and network is called the "Ecosystem", for example, forest ecosystem, human ecosystem etc. In each ecosystem, the land, water and air, which serve as the sources of amenities, are fixed and limited, and so has a limited carrying capacity.

The "Nature" is quite aware of it, and thus can very perfectly determine the maximum number of species and the maximum population density an ecosystem can support, and accordingly it (Nature) regulates it. Through a natural cycle of death and birth ecosystem balance is regulated, which maintains dynamism and stability in the ecosystem. This is what is called the Natural Ecosystem and Environment. This ecosystem is highly sensitive because its natural phenomenon, dynamism, stability and balance are seriously affected leading to collapse due to interventions by anybody other than the Nature.

In the ancient time, human ecosystem was more or less like natural ecosystem. Whenever the human population increased beyond the capacity of the ecosystem, various diseases, havocs, famine, drought, cyclone, tornado etc. occurred, which drastically reduced the population and brought natural adjustment between amenities and population. The famous Malthusian theory is founded on this philosophy. But at the advent of civilization various medicines were discovered, which were used to combat diseases. Thus human interventions started to prevent natural death. On the other hand, birth rate increased due to better and protected health. This resulted in many-time increase in human population.Thus amenities produced under natural conditions became too low per capita.

People started various livelihoods using newer technologies to produce increased amenities. These increased production in the farms, water bodies, mills and factories. Thus adequate amenities became available, which again supported higher birth rate. The population again abruptly increased. This consequently caused deficit in amenities, which necessitated for further advanced technologies. More advanced technologies were thus generated. At the same time people started adopting birth control procedures for checking population, which brought reduction in birth rate. But simultaneously death rate also became too low due to more advanced medical technology. As a result, the gap between birth rate and death rate did not widen rather was getting reduced.

But since the human faculty, interactions, exposures, attitudes, culture, knowledge, thoughts etc. simultaneously improved and widened, the demand for amenities also got diversified. This improved the lifestyle, which consequently diversified livelihoods. Although some of these diversified amenity demands were necessity, most of them were just luxury. Moreover, many necessary amenities in many cases are produced and used in much excess and unplanned way. Their per head minimum requirements on equity basis for the whole nation have neither been determined nor organised. Thus while thousands of people are to live below hardcore poverty line having at best a poor meal a day, residing in nasty over-crowded areas and slums, on the other hand, a section of people enjoy highly comfortable and luxurious life.

Thus a lot of amenities are being misused, which is abruptly and rapidly increasing the per capita amenity consumption of course by the wealthy section of population. To meet the increased demand for amenities, we are adopting some technologies improperly, emotionally and irrespective of their adverse effects in many cases. As a result, on the whole, the available limited productive base resources such as soil (land), water and air are subjected to tremendous intolerable pressure.

Bangladesh comprises 56,799 sq miles. The neat cultivable area is 1 crore 92 lac 80 thousand acres. As per the latest statistics, the country's population stands at 14.6 crore, which would stand at 15.3 crore in 2015. Another 25 lac tons of foodgrains would be required for the increased population. But each year 2.03 lac acres of land are being occupied by non-agricultural enterprises. If such loss of agricultural land continues, there will be no land left for agricultural purpose after 50 years. Moreover, yield of crops has attained a plateau right now. Because the soil due to repeated cultivation and improper management has lost its productivity. Other organisms dependent on it have also become victims of such consequences. The entire ecosystem and environment thus presents an imbalance approaching towards disaster.

However, such disaster may be prevented at least for a considerable period if the people's conscience, intelligence, attitude, norm, feelings, knowledge, demands and actions, and above all the state policies and interventions are most appropriately directed towards such objectives. For this, everyone of us must first clearly understand and recognise that in our ecosystem whatever we do must be within the withholding capacity of the basic resources -- soil (land), water and air. So from right now, everyone of us must be economic in amenity use, reduce affinity for luxury items, truncate greediness, and dishonesty in earnings, develop feelings for others, consciously differentiate good from bad. Above all, the whole nation must be economic consistent with the usable domestic natural base resources. Based on critical analysis, only improved acceptable technologies should be utilised to produce amenities from the available base resources.

Anybody violating directives must face defined trials/punishment through justice. For all these, the political leaderships should play the pioneering role. If they have real sense of responsibilities and feelings for the nation, they will invariably become pioneer. If the Cabinet of Ministers along with 330 MPs commit to be such economic and truly devote to implement the same, and accordingly the National Development Plan is prepared, approved and implemented, then it would be possible to correct the imbalances in the ecosystem so far created.

The whole human world is part of the same biosphere. Every country although has a geographical boundary but virtually there is no natural wall among the countries. If any country of the biosphere uses the harmful technologies for its survival, the bad impact may be transferred, transmitted to other parts of the world. As a result, developed countries may also suffer gross natural imbalance and disaster. Therefore, the people of some areas of the biosphere have responsibilities for the people of other areas, they also do have rights on the natural resources of those areas. So the world community do also have the responsibility to protect each area otherwise the whole world may suffer a natural disaster. In such context, a country rich in resources should also be economic in their use so that it can provide the excess to countries poor in such resources. This is the responsibility of the donor countries and right of the recipient countries. Adopting such a global plan is the duties and responsibilities of the world community to make the world relatively long-lasting by maintaining the balance world-wide through exchange of resources based mainly on economy of consumption.

Dr Md Mahbubar Rahman is Professor, Department of Entomology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University.