A Critical Look at Environmental Destruction and Man

Posted by Law Article on July 14th, 2009 at 10:37am

A Critical Look at Environmental Destruction and Man

by

A. J. Uisso (Research Officer)

Tanzania Forestry Research Institute (TAFORI)

P. o Box 1854 – Morogoro Tanzania

(uissoaj@yahoo.com)

Introduction

Environment is an encompassing phenomenon, which include a lot of things like land, water, air and human being among other things. There are always interactions between these individual components. Over the course of this century, the relationship between man and the environment that sustain it has undergone a profound change. When the century began, neither the human numbers nor technology had power to radically alter the systems of the planet. As the century closes, not only the vastly increased human population and their activities have hat power, but major unintended changes are occurring in the atmosphere, soils, in waters, among plants and animals and in the relationship among all of these. This article, however, discusses the relationship between environmental destruction and man, and the way forward to rescue our deteriorating environment.

Environment destruction and man

In the course of our development activities, our natural capital stocks continue to suffer considerable depletion and digression. Much of what are called natural disasters such as floods, area result of our mismanagement of the environment.

Industrialization and poor management and utilization of natural resources surrounding human being plays key roles in causing environmental damages and degradation. It is apparent that environment has a role to play in our day to day life in that it forms one of the components leading to basis and foundations for our lives. Therefore, its deterioration affects our very lives. It is a reality that in a bid to search for development and ensure natural resources in an uncontrollable manner man in turn, either knowingly or unknowingly adversely affects the environmental base.

The growing urban population is largely depend on fuelwood or charcoal for energy, on local water supplies and is directly affected by growing urban environmental problems of land, water, air and noise pollution. Urban industries have little pollution control, waste disposal is organized only for a few, and unplanned urban growth now occurs in several parts of the country.

In these ways the whole world particularly developing countries are directly affected by the environmental issues which have now assumed proportions that threaten the foundations of human life and development. Among the environmental issues due to human activities are, land degradation, air pollution, solid and liquid waste management, deforestation, wetland degradation, fresh water access and quality, loss of biodiversity and introduction of alien species.

Way forward

From this line of argument therefore, it remains upon the man himself to have sense of responsibility and see an utmost importance of protecting the environment. Needless to emphasize, our lives depend much on the environment surrounding us. Hence we are forced to utilize the natural resources obtaining there from properly. As such we have the same time to conserve, promote and protect it. Conclusively, there should be a controlled system of harvesting the resources and these should be enforced by environmental laws. For effective enforcement of environmental laws /policies, the following areas must be improved:

• Ensure fairness (avoid biases) of the laws.

• Use appropriate language to ensure maximum communication, thus making it easier to understand.

• Create laws that emphasize decentralization of powers to local leaders, which may be used to report any intention and give power to coordinate all functions and activities geared towards the protection of environment within their areas.

• Promote compliance through education and incentives.

• Ensure consistency of environmental laws with any existing laws in other sectors.

• Ensure that environmental laws requirements are enforceable and that there are adequate funds for their implementation.

• Provide the authority necessary for to enforce environmental laws.

Tags: Destruction, Environment, man