By Sanjib Kumar Sarma
Man is an important part of the environment. Man has been taking dynamic roles in the environment from time to time as ‘Physical Man’ and ‘Technical Man’. It is obvious to point out that the works of man influenced the environment up to some extent, Similar, man has been able to modify and influence the environment and create a certain cultural landscape in different areas. After all, there is a mutual interaction between man and the environment which can be interpreted in the following headlines.
- Period of hunting and gathering.
- Age of animal domestication and agriculture.
- Age of science, technology, and industrialization.
During the primitive stages, man was physical, because they have no permanent shelter and gather food from the surrounding nature. Hunting and gathering were the primary function of the people and took shelter in the cave which couldn’t make any change to the environment in the Palaeolithic period.
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Thereafter, the discovery of fire brought about the obvious change in the lifestyle of man. Thereby, people learned to roast the meat. So people required wood for the fire to roast meat. So the people invented the tools to cut the trees as well as made certain weapons to kill the animals. In this way cutting trees and killing animals started from the Neolithic period which was the beginning of environmental degradation, though peoples have used the animals as their food s well as certain fruits, leaves, and roots, etc.
Gradually people began to domesticate few animals. During the Neolithic period, certain animals like dogs, sheep, goats, pigs, etc were domesticated as per the availability in different parts of the world. There were certain environments where people had to shift their place along with the herds in search of pasture and water according to change of season. Important that, a certain geographical environment favors commercial pastoralism in a temperate climate which gradually changed human activities in terms of the environment.
In the early stage when people used fruits berries and roots as their food on their moving route, they have got ideas about the germination of seeds. Thereafter, people speculated about the different plants for agriculture. Therefore, primitive types of agriculture and the sedentary life of people were started. In this way, agriculture started the organization of society and went with the civilization along the river valley in the world.
As time passes, due to the rising population needs the agriculture field to produce the required amount of food grains. This is why; people had to clear the forest’s land by felling and burning of trees. Thus, the diffusion of human settlement towards the new places caused an ecological crisis and destroyed the ecosystem.
During the 19th century, the industrial revolution started and the development of science and technology. The down of the industrial revolution in the 19th century and the development of science and technology initiated the hostile relationship between man and his natural environment. As time passes technological man leads to restless and indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources for industrialization and urbanization which created several environmental and ecological problems of in the world as a hostile.
The rising population of the states increasing their activities occupying the inhabited earth. In this context, continuous human migration creates certain chaos in the environment throughout the world. For example, the Europeans have been migrating to the empty spaces of America, Africa, and Australia since 1500 A.D. The intensive application of technology in the environment has been gradually degrading mainly air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, etc. The global temperature is rising which affected the ice-caps of the polar as well as lofty mountains. Consequently, the sea level rises which will submerge the landmasses or the coast and the island states. There are some of the most serious problems that man faces out of the increasing demands that they are playing on the environment. These demands which are now placing several strains on some areas and resources are caused by the interaction of four main factors. These are population growth, rise in aspiration, advances in technology, and attitude towards the environment.
The population size of the world is growing at an accelerated rate. The amazing volume of the population would be needed more land and natural resources which will discharge huge waste materials. These negative impacts on the soil, air, and water of the environment. In different sectors, the carrying capacity of the earth is shrinkage, for example, food shortest created the famine continuous in Somalia for the last decade.
Due to the advancement of science and technology, the standard of living of the people also increasing day by day which multiplying the environmental problems, because developing states need the overuse of resources if enhance the rate of the economy in comparison to developed nations. So, there is continuous pressure on resources to exploit nature without considering the sighted planning. Certain environmental consequences are the product of the standard of living of the society for example emission of CFC gas towards the ozone hill fill again.
No doubt that technological change is ex potential in the world as a whole. This sort of change was needed to meet up the crisis of the states in almost every sector. Technology affects the environment in two ways that are the ability of man directly to cause environmental change increases and the development of steam-driven ships enabled all species of the whole to be haunted.
Secondly, technology presented certain non-decomposed materials in nature, for example, plastics, radioactive waste, etc which are very harmful to nature.
In the field of man-environmental relationships, men should be more rational in their work and decision. The attitude of man towards the environment should be positive whenever the move in nature in terms of resources. Man thinks about short-term economic progress than the long-term environmental consequences. Therefore, certain people are very much alert to long time effects on society. This is why an environmental awareness program is required among the common people’s attitudes for example traditional Jhum cultivation, and terrace cultivation in the hilly dwellers which causes frequent large-scale soil erosion and even landslides also happening from time to time North East India.
