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In addition to the exchange of energy, ecosystems are characterized by several other cycles. Elements such as carbon and nitrogen travel throughout the biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem in processes known as nutrient cycles. For example, nitrogen traveling in the air may be snatched by tree-dwelling, or epiphytic, lichen that converts it to a form useful to plants. When rain drips through the lichen and falls to the ground, or the lichen itself falls to the forest floor, the nitrogen from the raindrops or the lichen is leached into the soil to be used by plants and trees. Another process important to ecosystems is the water cycle, the movement of water from ocean to atmosphere, to land and eventually back to the ocean. An ecosystem such as a forest or wetland plays a significant role in this cycle by storing, releasing, or filtering the water as it passes through the system.
Every ecosystem is also characterized by a disturbance cycle, a regular cycle of events such as fires, storms, floods, and landslides that keeps the ecosystem in a constant state of change and adaptation. Some species even depend on the disturbance cycle for survival or reproduction. For example, longleaf pine forests depend on frequent low-intensity fires for reproduction. The cones of the trees, which contain the reproductive structures, are sealed shut with a resin that melts away to release the seeds only under high heat.
ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
Humans benefit from these smooth-functioning ecosystems in many ways. Healthy forests, streams, and wetlands contribute to clean air and clean water by trapping fast-moving air and water, enabling impurities to settle out or be converted to harmless compounds by plants or soil. The diversity of organisms, or biodiversity, in an ecosystem provides essential foods, medicines, and other materials. But as human populations increase and their encroachment on natural habitats expand, humans are having detrimental effects on the very ecosystems on which they depend. The survival of natural ecosystems around the world is threatened by many human activities: bulldozing wetlands and clear-cutting forests – the systematic cutting of all trees in a specific area – to make room for new housing and agricultural land; damming rivers to harness the energy for electricity and water for irrigation; and polluting the air, soil, and water.
Many organizations and government agencies have adopted a new approach to managing natural resources –naturally occurring materials that have economic or cultural value, such as commercial fisheries, timber, and water, in order to prevent their catastrophic depletion. This strategy, known as ecosystem management, treats resources as interdependent ecosystems rather than simply commodities to be extracted. Using advances in the study of ecology to protect the biodiversity of an ecosystem, ecosystem management encourages practices that enable humans to obtain necessary resources using methods that protect the whole ecosystem. Because regional economic prosperity may be linked to ecosystem health, the needs of the human community are also considered.
Ecosystem management often requires special measures to protect threatened or endangered species that play key roles in the ecosystem. In the commercial shrimp trawling industry, for example, ecosystem management techniques protect loggerhead sea turtles. In the last thirty years, populations of loggerhead turtles on the southeastern coasts of the United States have been declining at alarming rates due to beach development and the ensuing erosion, bright lights, and traffic, which make it nearly impossible for female turtles to build nests on beaches. At sea, loggerheads are threatened by oil spills and plastic debris, offshore dredging, injury from boat propellers, and being caught in fishing nets and equipment. In 1970, the species was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
When scientists learned that commercial shrimp trawling nets were trapping and killing between 5000 and 50,000 loggerhead sea turtles a year, they developed a large metal grid called a Turtle Excluder Device (TED) that fits into the trawl net, preventing 97 percent of trawl-related loggerhead turtle deaths while only minimally reducing the commercial shrimp harvest. In 1992, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) implemented regulations requiring commercial shrimp trawlers to use TEDs, effectively balancing the commercial demand for shrimp with the health and vitality of the loggerhead sea turtle population.
ECOLOGY & ENVIRONMENT
The three elements namely earth, water and space constitute the whole cosos therefore it re-affirms to work with people towards creating awareness and as a movement for perseverance, sustenance of flora and fauna and cosmic elements and to usher ecology and environment of this earth where integrity of creation will be a cherished value.
AIR
• Air pollution has now become a major killer with three million people dying of it every year.
• Carbon emissions doubled in three decades. Global warming is now a serious threat.
• US Carbon emissions are 16 % above 1990 levels making it a major polluter.
WATER
• Forty percent of world population now faces chronic shortage of fresh water for daily needs.
• Half the world’s wetlands have been lost and one-fifth of the 10,000 freshwater species is extinct.
• Contaminated water kills around 2.2 million people every year.
LAND
• Since 1990, 2,4 % of the world’s forests have been destroyed. The rate of loss is now 90,000 sq. km.
every year.
• Now two-thirds of the world’s farmlands suffer from soil degradation.
• Half the world’s grasslands are overgrazed. India is 25 % short of its fodder needs.
WILDLIFE
• 800 species have become extinct and 11,000 more are threatened.
• Almost 75 % of the world’s marine captures is over fished or fully utilized. In North America, 10 fish species went extinct in the 1990s.
• Of the 9,946 known bird species, 70 % has declined in numbers.
PEOPLE
• The world added 800 million people since 1990. In 2000, global population was 6 billion, up from 2.5 billion in 1950.
• In 10 years, the world will have to feed and house another billion
CARING FOR THE NATURE
"Nature has everything for man’s need but not his greed", – said once Mahatma Gandhiji. A large-scale deforestation that is taking place around the globe is causing tremendous ecological and environmental imbalances throughout the world. The resultant fury of the nature is witnessed all around through drastic change in the climate, flash, floods, failure of rain and many more, causing damage to thousands of lives and livestocks throughout the world.
THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: THE WAY OF THE WORLD
"The Economist", the famous magazine of the United Kingdom, has analyzed the trend of the world in the twentieth century. The environment of the past 100 years has not been as bad as the people have thought. On the contrary, the environment of the world has been good and will be so until the next century. Although the population of the world has been increasing quickly during the last century, it has not caused any serious problems as world production has also been highly increased. The environment of the world has not been a disaster (like the prophecy of many others) because of the changes of many factors. There is the change of resource prices and society. The development of democracy and the planning of environment are to meet the pressure from the people.
It is seen that when there are more people, more consuming, more production, the use of natural is increasing. The price goes up when there is the need. There is then the force of being economical in use, the need to find new resource sites, new kinds of resources, new technology, and new ways for humanity. The mechanism of prices has been quite efficient in solving the problems of natural resource.
However, we need to accept that marketing mechanisms have not been quite satisfactory in solving environmental problems, particularly, where there is something in nature, which does not belong to any one. There-fore, there is the tendency that resources will be used inconsiderately. There is no one to care for conservation.
There is the example that resources in the sea and the ocean will continue being in hazard in the next century.
Moreover, in some cases, the hazard in the environment has not been reflected in the way we can see like "price". There is the case that pollution is setting into air and water. The pollution occurs to the ecology and community. However, the price does not reflect any of these damages. It is because private business wants to decrease the capital amount and want to continue getting the highest profit. They let the disasters happen.
Communities, society and nature meet danger from the environment as we see in the developing countries all over the world
"The Economist" points out that in a country with advanced industry, pollution is not a big problem because they have developed democracy, which then has the checking, there is always the pressure from the people. The democratic government has answered the people’s needs with the awareness that something needs to be done and some things have already been done. We can see that air pollution in industrial society, which had been increasing for 300 years, is solved satisfactorily. This will be continued for a long time. In a developing country, this problem may continue to the next century.
THE CRISIS OF ECOLOGY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
In the analysis, "The Economist" may be too positive in assessing the environmental problem and regarding only one aspect like pollution in industry. There is the conclusion that the incidence of pollution in the air has been decreasing. Nothing is said about the pollution of toxic waste, which has been left, and keeps piling up in the environment for so long in the world of industry. This tendency will continue until the next century as the government in industrial countries like America, Japan and Germany have not been successful in solving the problems of toxic waste, which has been accumulating for so long. It is because the main environmental policy emphasizes only the problems, which are visible and can be felt. The emphasis is on short-term pollution, which has an immediate effect to on people’s health. The accumulating pollution cannot be seen easily, it is then neglected.
Besides, the analysis of the population of the world overlooks one main fact – although the growth rate is not as high as before the population of the world in this turn of the century will increase by approximately 80 million a year. (The amount is equal to the number of people in Germany.) It means that this amount of population among the impoverished and the deterioration of rural environment will heighten the environment crisis, which will have an effect on the production system and the ways of living of the people in developing countries. The very high increase of the population has affected the development in city and the living in urban areas. At present, there are 2.6 billion people living in cities. 1.7 billion of that amount live in the cities of developing countries. There is the prediction that the ratio will accelerate until the year 2015. Three quarters of the world population is in developing countries, which are very crowded, and the health problems are serious.
When we adopt the well-known "environmental formula" of Anne and Paul Ehrlich as the base on considering problems, we get the conclusion that the environment crisis has the tendency to become very critical. This formula says:
"Environment crisis (I) is settled by the amount of the population (P), the economic growth (A) and Production
Technology (T), that is I = P × A × T".
Economic growth is also another main variable. The more development, there is the more the increase in production. It heightens the ecology system. Moreover, the production of one unit may cause a large quantity of pollution because of the use of unclean (unhealthy) technology, which endangers the environment. It is worrying that the trading, the production and the consuming will enhance the squandering of resources and the environment will be seriously destroyed.
DEMOCRACY AND ENVIRONMENT
We can give the main conclusions for the future of the developing world as follows.
1. The worst pollution may occur among the poor countries. It reflects some basic problems. These countries hardly have democratic development, their people have no rights, no vote, they do not get information on the environment, and they are unable to force their government to be against the businesses threatening environmental conditions. The lack of democracy is then the main factor causing environmental crisis.
2. The seriousness of pollution has not occurred because of the over development of the economy. It is because the first part of the development by government and private business emphasizes only the economic enlargement (to increase population income and the export). After a certain period, people in various fields started to develop their conscience of "Green" and there is a large cry for the awareness of "Sustainable Development". During this time, the government has to respond to the starting of environmental planning with the aims of economic development along with environmental protection. However, there needs to be "Democracy of the environment" as the main base.
3. Regarding the long 100 years of experience of the West, we may look further ahead that in the 21st century the developing countries may be trying to solve environmental crises by themselves. However, there are many other factors for their success, particularly, the following:
– there needs to be information which is quite complete for the comparison of capital for the controlling of environment and the benefits from which society will gain;
– there are efficient criteria, which is the mixture of the standards of marketing and the price, and the criteria in setting up the environmental standards.
Finally, the solving of the crisis of the environment is not only the economic problems (e.g. the promulgation of Green Tax) but also the political problem. If there are too strict standards, it may not be accepted politically. The people may criticize. The business world may be against it and react (by decreasing the investment in employee’s wages or increasing the price so high that it causes people to be in trouble.) In a democracy, the politicians who plan the policy on environment do not usually like strict standards. There is no one being concerned about how much the standard and the policy on environment will be affected.
It is predicted that in the twenty-first century the green power group in developing countries will increase.
The movement will be in a wider scope and there will be the call for solving the problems down to the root.
This is because the environment problem is becoming serious while the reaction from the government is quite slow. It is because the government has the tendency not to have strict standard that they may have to be concerned with private business and the national economy.
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