Well, ok. So the first questions would be, why rivers and why us. And hot on the heels of those would be ‘Who is us?’It will be tough to separate the first two, they are linked so. We are a part of an NGO called the People’s Science Institute (PSI) that works in the central Himalayas, mainly in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Uttarakhand is the birthplace of many magnificent rivers, chief of which is the Ganga. Rivers are likened to mothers for a very simple reason- they support life. Not only are riparian and freshwater ecosystems dependent upon them, but so are civilizations. The various kinds of life that rivers support, from the iconic Gangetic Dolphin to the humble mayfly, have their roles in keeping our web of life intact. Even if we were to consider it purely from a human point of view, it would be a sad, lonely, inhospitable world if rivers ceased to flow.
Sadly, that is just what is happening in most of the world. Excessive consumption, indiscriminate damming, and unrestricted pollution are all combining forces to kill our rivers. In Uttarakhand and other Himalayan states, the mind-boggling number of dams is killing our rivers and our mountains in one fell swoop.
And that is why rivers and why us.
But ‘us’ is not just this little group of enthusiastic river-lovers, or just PSI. It is everyone who feels a connection to a river, any river, and considers rivers worth protecting.
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1 comment:
The problems with "excessive consumption, indiscriminate damming, and unrestricted pollution," can all be attributed to the tragedy of the commons. It is defined as a situations in which multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen. Now the nature of man is a different argument, in that we are all self-interested, but the question that needs answering here is why this tragedy with the common ownership of property.
Well, who owns this land? The government of India, right. And all government land is "common" land or public property. Now if it is not my property or your property, what incentives do you or I have to protect or conserve it. Would we have to rely on the mere prudence of individuals to preserve that resource?
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