Environmental management for sustainable utilization or otherwise is the prime need of time. Industrial developments with respect to automobiles, chemicals, fertilizers, insecticides, etc., are coming up very fast in India and due to various reasons these are often held responsible for environmental damage.
Lack of environmentally educated society, careless factory workers, inefficient management, weak law enforcement, corporate greed to earn more profit with less investment can also lead to chemical accidents, causing imbalance in sustainable development (Sharma. 2004).
Threats:
a. Lack of proper education to factory workers – unskilled and negligent workers.
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b. Lack of dutifulness among management personnel. Lack of vigilant approach.
c. Lack of on-site and off-site emergency preparedness plan.
d. Improper plan of site selection.
e. Improper maintenance of machinery and infrastructure.
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f. Inadequate monitoring and safety measures.
g. Lack of coordination among interdisciplinary staff.
h. Lack of communication and coordination between management and local administration.
i. Lack of periodical checking by law enforcement agencies.
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Management:
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For environmental conservation, including wetland conservation humans are important. They are dependent upon wetland ecosystem services (material inputs, life-support services such as cool air and water, and wastewater receptor services). Wetland ecosystem serves as a source of resources and a sink for all kinds of wastes. It is important to understand these needs, as development cannot be conceived to have a social meaning, if it is not directed to satisfaction of human needs.
It is felt that decision-makers and planners must take an integrated area development approach to solve today’s environmental (wetland) and human problems.
Following strategies, as policy measures, or management needs, have been suggested for planning process on wetland ecosystem under integrated area development and planning programme.
a. Reduction in population growth rate of user groups/ local communities.
b. Poverty elimination and equitable development of stakeholders.
c. Awareness generation and cultural adaptation to evolve a bio-sensitive society.
d. Ecosystem management approach for ecosystem health, integrity and wise use of wetlands.
e. Eco-regionalism as a viable landscape management system for preservation of keystone species.
f. Restoration of degraded wetland ecosystems to redevelop them into a functioning ecosystem of a wider eco-complex.
g. Accounting of wetland resources and sustainable use of such resources.
h. Integration of economics and ecology as a most important step towards ecologically sustainable development in ecoregion/ecocomplex/wetland complex.
i. Internalization of external environmental costs associated with producing, consuming, and disposing of, goods and services of natural system/ wetland ecosystem.
j. Finding of a ‘reference situation’ for sustainable development and using it through Amoeba and Ecotope approaches towards decision making with reference to economical, ecological, ethical and ideological frontiers.
k. Development of a ‘SMART” (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-related) management plan as a tool for sustainable wetland management.
l. Monitoring and review of management initiatives to achieve ideal objectives/goals.
Legislation:
Several countries have introduced the principle of sustainable development in their laws. The article 5 of the 1997 Constitution of Poland states
“The Republic of Poland shall safeguard the independence and integrity of its territory and ensure freedoms and rights of persons and citizens, the security of the citizens, safeguard the national heritage and shall ensure the protection of the natural environment pursuant to the principles of sustainable development”
In France in 2004, along with the lists of human rights set out in 1789 Declaration of the rights of man and the citizen and in the preamble of the 1946 constitution of the Fourth Republic, an Environmental Charter was added to the Constitution, recognizing among others a duty to preserve environment and the right to live in a “balanced and health-respecting” environment.