By Dr.T Tiakaba Jamir
Environmental ethics consider the moral relationship between humans and the environment. It concerns not only the needs of each person today, but also those who will come after us. It also concern with the right of other living creatures that inhibit our earth. With environment ethics, you can ensure that you are doing your part to keep the environment and its resources safe and protected.
Today every individual needs to understand and realize the significance of environmental ethics. This should be a guiding principle for every individual to sustain for the future generation.
Can an individual justifiably use resources many times more lavishly than other individuals who have barely enough to survive? Can we use up all the resources of the world leaving nothing for our future generation? Within our world there are variety of living beings, species, the plants and animals that share our earth’s resources and living spaces with us. All these variety of living beings have a right not only to live but a dignified life. The present generation does not own the world’s resources to do whatever we please with them. Just because we are in possession of all the natural resources does not mean that we can use those resources in any manner in which we choose without keeping anything for the future generations. Today human being boast as being superior and the most intelligent species living on earth but what is the use of such great intelligence when environmental ethics are not followed. We only hold the world as trustee and it is our duty and responsibility to preserve species and natural undisturbed ecosystem for the future generation.
Perhaps the most important concern today for the trustee is to create an ethos that will support a sustainable life style in society. Every individual be it a rural or urban dweller be exposed to a pattern of environment education within their sphere of life expression. Every individual be exposed not only to awareness of environmental issues, but also to bring about pro environmental action. Creating a love for nature brings about strong pro environmental action. And the best way to do is to make people appreciate the beauty of nature and valuing nature as resources. A visit to a wilderness area, a forest, lakeside, waterfall or seashore where man’s hand has not made drastic change to the ecosystem perhaps can make one to begin to value its beauty. Yes, the problem is how much of the wilderness can we preserve in the presence of an ever-growing hunger and greed for land and resources for its utilization values. Yet, unless we begin to see the ecological values of wilderness, an ethic for its conservation cannot become part of our daily lives. And without the wilderness the earth will eventually become unlivable.
