World Environment Day is the day to unite and declare our commitment to protect the environment. Celebrating this day just on July 5 and doing nothing for the rest of the year is a no-no. This year’s Environment Day is being celebrated with the theme “Green Economy: Does it include you?” to enhance the sustainable management of world’s natural resources in order to improve quality of life on the earth, protect its environment and maintain social harmony among the communities.
Realising the global economic recession since 2007, the concept of green economy has been emerging as an alternative to the present profit-oriented economy. And ultimately to sustain the economic growth of the countries that complement with environmental protection and natural resources conservation. In other words, green economy can be achieved through the adoption of approaches that contribute to low emission of greenhouse gases to efficient management of resources and are socially inclusive.
In the context of green economy in Nepal, especially the community-based organisations, farmer groups and their cooperatives as well as youth clubs are following the principles of green economy to produce and market their products. For instance, Rupa Lake Rehabilitation and Fishery Cooperative of Kaski makes an annual income of around Rs 60 million through the management of Rupa Lake, of which they provide 25 percent funds to upstream communities for watershed management. Activities such as reducing siltation in the lake, construction of green belt around the lake area and conservation corners for various plants, animals and birds are being undertaken by the communities in Rupa.
In addition, the scholarship schemes are provided to the students coming from marginalised families and some communities like Jalhari and other disadvantaged groups are made shareholders of the cooperative. It has also helped the members from the disadvantaged communities by providing job opportunities such as fishing and lake management.
There are several other examples at the community-level that are based on the principles of green economy, be it related to community forestry user groups, buffer zones management committees and cooperatives. At the household level, especially the smallholder farmers are adopting the practices that contribute to low emission of carbon and mobilisation of local resources. The typical example can be garden-based farming system, agro forestry-based farming system, livestock-integrated farming system, community-based biodiversity and watershed management, among others.
However, in our context, despite the clean technologies and approaches of resources conservation and social equality, government, non-government and private bodies are still grappling with lack of vision to design, define and realign their policies and programmes in the path of green economy.
Green economy is relevant and important for Nepal to as it ensure proper use of natural resources and promotes use of clean technologies that are affordable to the poor people of the country. These strategies must consider the reduction of vulnerability of the Nepali society to the impacts of climate change. So it is needed that the local level, national policies and private sectors to sufficiently integrate green economy principles in their operation to sustain our economy that is not only defined by our gross domestic product (GDP) but also by environmental indicators such as cleanliness, industrial emissions, walkabality status, use of natural resources and biodiversity, among other things.
Hence, it is our urgent need to follow the path of green economy to boost and sustain our national economy. However, as stated by the theme, we have to ask ourselves first “Green economy: Does it include you?” and then work for promoting green economy.
(This article was published in The Kathmandu Post Daily of Nepal on 07 June 2012)
http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/06/07/capital/green-economy/355189.html
