ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT - Unit 4&5

UNIT' 4

THE 'GREENING' OF INDUSTRIES

4.0 INTRODUCTION

Environmentally friendly (also eco- friendly, nature friendly, and green) are synonyms used to refer to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies considered to inflict minimal or no harm on the environment. /to make consumers aware, environmentally friendly goods and services often are marked with eco-Iabels. However, because there is no single international standard for this concept, the International Organization for Standardization considers such labels too vague to be meaningful.

In this unit, you will learn about the ways of managing industrial pollution and the sources of industrial waste. You will learn about the process of developing recycling technologies and the reasons behind maintaining biodiversity. Government and many institutions support businesses that are environment-friendly. The government does this through NGOs, etc. The unit will discuss the reasons for such governmental policies in detail.

4.2

MANAGING INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION

4.2.1 Sources of Urban and Industrial Wastes

Urban and industrial wastes consist of medical waste from hospitals, municipal solid waste from homes, offices, markets (commercial waste) small cottage units, and horticultural wastes from parks, gardens and orchards.

The urban solid waste materials that can be degraded by micro-organisms are called biodegradable wastes; for example, vegetable wastes, stale food, tea leaves, eggshells, peanut shells, dry leaves, etc., are solid wastes.

Wastes that cannot be degraded by micro-organisms are called non­biodegradable wastes, e.g., polyethylene bags, scrap metal, glass bottles, etc.

Industrial waste consists of a large number of materials, including factory rubbish, packaging material, organic waste and acids. There are large quantities of hazardous and toxic materials which are also produced during industrial processing.

Effects of solid wastes

Municipal solid waste heap up on the roads due to improper disposal system. People clean their own houses and litter their immediate surroundings, which affect the community, including themselves. This type of dumping allows biodegradable materials to decompose under uncontrolled and unhygienic conditions. This produces foul smell and breeds various types of insects and infectious organisms, besides spoiling the aesthetics of the site.

Industrial solid wastes are sources of toxic metals and hazardous wastes, which may spread on land and can cause changes in the physiochemical and the biological characteristics, thereby affecting the productivity of soils. Toxic substances may leach or percolate and contaminate groundwater.

4.2.2 Managing Industrial Waste

It takes a lot of valuable energy and materials to create and manufacture products and the resulting industrial waste can be difficult to manage. New laws have been brought into effect by many cities and countries into place to heavily tax companies that produce excess amounts of waste or create potentially harmful effects on the air and ecosystem. The extra taxes help to offset the environment damage by going towards environmental restoration, protection and spreading information to increase knowledge on these issues. People and companies need to educate themselves about the environment. Smog alerts in many cases result from not only harmful transportation emissions, but also from the output of factories into the air we breathe.

Companies need to be responsible with their industrial waste management and specifically their hazardous waste management. Many local governments provide counseling, consulting and recommendations to organizations on what they can do to manage their waste in a better way and plan for a more environmentally friendly production processes. More than ever, disciplinary actions need to be taken against companies that do not take waste management seriously. Part of this includes reducing harmful emissions into the environment over a period of time and correctly disposing of waste materials.

Countries have terms and conditions about what is acceptable in terms of waste management. Today, more than ever, industries know their impact of manufacturing on smog levels and the escalating cost of managing their waste. More industrial leaders are showing their accountability for the environment. Citizens need to support companies whose business practices include environmentally conscious and responsible conditions. Using energy more efficiently, reducing the hazardous waste they output into the air and to the landfills and practicing composting and recycling are key factors in improving the way waste is managed.

Companies that have no choice but to continue creating hazardous industrial waste due to the nature of their business need to ensure that they properly dispose of that material and are up front and honest about the contents of their vehicles, their facilities and management of the waste. Environmental protection acts encourage and reward companies who do their part to more effectively manage waste and work with environmental agencies to maximize efforts to minimize the impact on the environment. Industrial waste producers need to pay for the disposal of their materials and in particular, need to take caution in the way they dispose of hazardous materials. There have been cases documented of companies mislabeling goods and of irresponsible practices leading to contamination of local watersheds. The more that citizens and government push for reform, the more companies will realize that they are accountable for their industrial waste.

4.3 DEVELOPING RECYCLING TECHNOLOGIES

Environmental pollution not only creates health hazards and causes deterioration of the quality of the surroundings, but also affects overall production and, thus, the economy, when examined in a larger perspective.

Since pollution generation is a combined result of population, industrialization and specific technological developments, it is difficult to estimate exactly how fast the exponential curve for total pollution air, water, etc., is rising. We might estimate

that if? billion people living in the year 2000 have a GNP per capita as high as that of present day Americans, the total pollution load on environment would be at least ten times of its present value.

Before adopting any "measure to control pollution, both the capital and energy expenditure involved should be studied; the quality of the commodity obtained or service provided, examined, and an assessment made to see whether it is indeed' a

good measure' or not. For this, the concept of resource should be clarified, the rate of

its depletion determined. The lifestyle, as reflected in the waste we produce and its composition should be analysed to assess what can be reclaimed/recovered from it. A detailed examination of the refuse will, then, enable assessment to be made of the recovery or conversion potential.

One of the most economical methods of controlling pollution seems to be the recycling arrangement, i.e., one in which the pollutants are, by and large, processed at the place of their generation itself, and converted into products which could be used there or as raw material for more useful products.

Recycling is a much abused term, generally taken to mean getting something back from waste, e.g., newspaper recovery by de-inking, followed by repulping, to make more newsprint.

In fact, recycling falls into three main categories: 1. Re-use

2. Direct recycle

3. Indirect recycle

Reuse is typified by the returnable bottle or tin; it means several steps from the bottler to the consumer and back again, where it is cleaned and refilled. Once it is unfit for reuse, it may be cleaned and broken down for cullet, i.e., glass which is remelted at the glass works and used to make new bottles. The latter process comes under the heading of direct recycling, which is dependent on the quality of recycled material and on its cost, which should not exceed that of the fresh raw material. It is quite probable that the bottle may eventually end up in domestic refuse, where it can be extracted by screening and separation in conjunction with other bottles. These bottles will probably be of different colours, and at varying degrees of cleanliness, which might render them unsuitable for cullet, unless optical sorting is opted which would, however, raise costs. The bottles may, however, be ground and used for a I highly skid-resistant and durable road surfacing material. This is an example of indirect

recycling. Other examples are: (i) the conversion of refuse to combustible gases by I pyrolysis (ii) direct heating by means of incineration with heat recovery.

Energy resource conservation

Increasing use of energy by mankind is also related to pollution. The process of economic development, is, in fact, the process of utilizing to increase the productivity I and efficiency of human labour. In fact, one of the best indicators of the wealth of a human population is the amount of energy it consumes per person. Per capita energy consumption, in the world, is increasing at a rate of 1.3 per cent per year, which means a total increase, including population growth, of 3.4 per cent per year.

          At present, 97 per cent of industrial energy production comes from fossil fuels,  i.e., coal, oil and natural gas. Current global production of oil is tending to flatten out at around 20 billion barrels/year at the moment, due to energy economy measures  adopted following the major 1972 price increase. However, viewed against man's life-time, this curve is cause for anxiety as it means that the industry has to find 20 billion barrels/year just to maintain the current production rates. Should the finding rate fall further, the reserves will be consumed and eventually decline to zero. Now, the current finding rate is 18 billion barrels/year and proven reserves total 600 billion barriers. Thus, the global problem is likely to become serious before the turn of the century. Coal reserves have a cycle of production, which tails off around the year 2300. India has only 0.8 per cent of the total world coal reserves.    I

For extracting energy out of fossil fuels, they are burned. In the process, they release, among other substances, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Currently, 20 billion tonnes of CO2 are being released from fossil fuel combustion every year. Figure 4.1 shows that the amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere is increasing exponentially, at the rate of 0.2 per cent per year. One half of this CO2 actually appears in the atmosphere, while the other half is apparently absorbed, mainly by the surface waters/oceans.

The reserves of oil, natural gas and coal have started depleting. Their use as the source of energy will not only create a pollution problem, but also complicate the growth of petrochemical industries. Already, cases are being made for reservation of these resources for chemical synthesis, in order to prolong the time-span available for the construction of synthetic oil and gas plants using the still abundant coal reserves as raw material.

Efforts are being made to develop technology for large-scale power generation, especially fast breeder nuclear reactors. The use of nuclear energy will decrease the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and abolish other complexities which arise when fossil feels are used. Nuclear reactors produce unused fissionable material as waste, the reprocessing of which is always superior to the direct disposal of spent fuel in terms of economy, material conservation and environmental protection. Recycling of unused fissionable material, through reprocessing, is very important as the process of reusing can be repeated until forty times as much energy has been extracted from the raw material as can be done in conventional reactors. Recycling and reprocessing permit the use of synthetic fissionable material, and conserves natural fissionable material. Nuclear energy can also be converted into electrical energy, which is pollution free. Another side effect of the use of this energy which is independent of fuel sources, is its dissipation as heat. If the energy source is something other than incident solar energy (e.g., fossil fuel or nuclear energy), that heat results in warming the atmosphere. Locally, waste heat or thermal pollution in stream causes disruption in the balance of aquatic life. Thermal pollution may also have serious worldwide climatic effects, when it reaches some appreciable fraction of energy, normally absorbed by the earth from the sun. The natural sources of energy, prime amongst which is the sun, can also be considered as one of the future energy sources.

Therefore, it is obvious that energy resources vis-a.-vis the current rate of consumption are finite. Growth cannot continue forever and strategies must be adopted for a more economic use of energy and for the abatement of the pollution caused thereby

Conservation of material resources

Resources, when looked at in a perspective, fall into two categories: renewable and non-renewable. Renewable materials do not pose too much of a problem both :from the point of view of conservation as well as pollution. Non-renewable materials, however, create problems of pollution. Their conservation through recycling could reduce such problems and also make them available for longer periods of time. Material recycling can, thus, substantially aid in the conservation of energy which would be spent on its extraction.

The harmful effects of metals, e.g., lead, mercury, chromium, arsenic, copper, zinc, etc., are well known. These metals are ejected :from various industrial units into the environment, thus, polluting air, water and soil as well. The other sources of their release into waterways and into the atmosphere are automobiles, incinerators and agricultural pesticides.

The mercury pollution of water because of the use of mercury cells in caustic soda manufacture is responsible for reduction in the application of these cells in spite of their many advantages over diaphragm cells. Japan has had serious problems of mercury pollution, which ultimately resulted in the issual of an ordinance for discontinuation of the use of mercury cells.

The world's known reserves of chromium are about 775 million m. tonnes, of which 1.85 million m. tonnes are mined annually at present. Thus, at the current rate of use, the known reserves would last about 420 years. The actual world consumption of chromium is increasing at the rate of 2.6 per cent annually. If the exponential

relationship in an increased rate of consumption is assumed, the reserves would last for only 95 years. If the undiscovered reserves increase the present reserves by five times, this would extend the life time of reserves only from 95-150 years. The lifetime of aluminium is estimated to be 100 years using a static index, 31 years with an exponential index, 55 years with a five-fold increase in reserves.

Copper, with a life time of 36 years at the present usage rate, would actually last only 21 years at the present rate of growth, and 45 years if reserves are multiplied by five. Table 4.1 gives the position of reserves of non-renewable natural resources and their life time rising static and exponential indices.

Table 4.1 Non-renewable Natural Resources

Resources	Known global	Static	Average	Exponential	Exponential
	reserves	index *	rate of	index	index ** using
		(yrs)	growth	(yrs)	5 tonnes known
			% ver year		reserves
Nickel	147 x 1091bs	150	3.4	53	96
Chrop1ium	7.75 x 10'tonnes	420	2.6	95	154
Aluminium	1.17 x 109 tonnes	100	6.4	31	55
Copper	308 x 106 tonnes	36	4.6	21	48
Lead	91 x 10' tonnes	26	2.0	21	64
Iron	I x 10' tonnes	240	1.8	93	173
Mercury	3.34 x 104 flasks	13	2.6	\3	41
Tin	4.36 x 106 tOImes	17	1.1	15	61
Zinc	123 x 106 tonnes	23	2.9	18	50

Total reserve

                * Static index =        Total Reserves

           Current annual consumption

                                         In(rs)-1   

** Exponential index = ­           r

                                               r

                     where, r = average rate of growth

                            s = static index

Taking into account economic factors, such as increased prices with decreased availability, it would appear at present that the quantities of platinum, gold, zinc, lead, etc., are not sufficient to meet demand. At the present rate of expansion, silver, tin and uranium may be in short supply even at higher prices by the turn of the century. By the year 2050, several more minerals may be exhausted if the current rate of consumption continues. Taking the example of lead, in 1960 global demand had risen to 4.5 m tonnes/year, but reserves had risen to 90 million tonnes due to further discoveries. However, extrapolation as a paper exercise show that by the year 2020 there would be a demand of 25 m tonnes/year, which if an R: P ratio of 20 were the norm would require 500 m tonnes of reserves which are just not there.

The consumption of these minerals, in a more efficient manner, would help in minimizing pollution and conserving materials as well as the energy spent on them. Recycling appears to be one of the best ways to meet this end. This is illustrated by

            the following relationship:

Demand on reserve = P(1 - R)

Let annual production P be constant and the Recycled fraction be R. Thus, the

life time of reserves is extended by

                P                 I

              P(I-R)     =      1-R

i.e., for a recycling factor of 50 per cent, the life time is doubled; for a recycling factor of99 per cent, the life time is extended by 100.

The production curves being exponential to reserves, depletion would be faster and the effect of recycling will have less impact due to the time lag between raw material production and its arrival back to scrap cycle. the adoption of recycling in an exponential growth situation can only mildly assist the inexorable march of resource depletion. Obviously, a static consumption situation is required with maximum recycling to conserve resources in on long-term and not short-term basis.

The problems associated with adopting recycling may be the cost factor, obtaining of proper know-how, etc., which could be overcome by proper planning. The problems of cost could be tackled by legislature, tax relief, cash incentives, development rebate, etc. This would encourage industries to even invest in setting up of plants for waste processing and encourage conscious industrialists to come forward with new ideas of controlling pollution. The chain reaction, so started, will go a long way in conserving energy and materials, minimizing pollution and providing a better environment to mankind to live in.

4.4

MAINTAINING BIODIVERSITY

If we divide the whole earth into 10 billion parts, it is only one part where life exists and the 50 million species are all restricted to just about a kilometre-thick layer of soil, water and air. It is indeed wonderful to see that so much diversity has been created by nature on this earth from so little physical matter. Biodiversity refers to the variety and variability among all groups of living organisms and the ecosystem complexes in which they occur. In the Convention of Biological Diversity,

1992, biodiversity has been defined as the variability among living organisms from all sources including inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part of. Biodiversity means the variety and variability of all living organisms. Biodiversity constitutes the biological wealth. Biodiversity is at three levels, genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity.

Genetic biodiversity

Genetic biodiversity is the "basic source of biodiversity. Genes found in organisms can fom1 enormous number of combinations, each of which gives rise to some variability. Genes are the basic units of hereditary information, transmitted from one generation to other. When the genes within the same species show different versions, due to new combinations, it is called genetic variability; for example, all rice varieties belong to the species Oryza sativa, but there are thousands of wild and cultivated varieties of rice which show variations at the genetic level and differ in their colour, size, shape, aroma and nutrient content of the grain. This is genetic diversity of rice.

Genetic biodiversity means the variation of genes within a species. In a species, each variety has its own genes or genetic make-up. Diversity of genes within a species increases its ability ~o adapt to disease, pollution and other changes in environment. When a variety of a species is destroyed, genetic diversity gets diminished.

Species biodiversity

This is the variability found within the population of a species or between different species of a community. It represents broadly the species richness and their abundance in a community.

Till now, only about 1.5 million living and 300000 fossil species have been actually described and given scientific names. It is quite likely that a large fraction of these species may have become extinct even before they were discovered and enlisted.

Species biodiversity means a variety of species within a region. Such diversity can be measured on the basis of species in a region. More the species biodiversity means more the biological wealth.

Ecosystem biodiversity

This is the diversity of ecological complexity showing variations in ecological niches, tropic structure, food webs, nutrient cycling, etc. Ecosystems also show variations with respect to physical parameters like moisture, temperature, altitude and precipitation. Thus, there occurs tremendous diversity within the ecosystems, along these gradients.

We mainly consider diversity in forest ecosystem, which is supposed to have a dominance of trees. However, while considering a tropical rainforest, a tropical deciduous forest, a temperate deciduous forest and a boreal forest, the variations observed are too many and they are mainly due to variations in these physical factors.

Ecosystem diversity is of great value that must be kept intact. This diversity has developed over millions of years of evolution. If we destroy this diversity, it would disrupt the ecological balance. We cannot replace the diversity of one ecosystem with that of another. Coniferous trees of boreal forests cannot take up the function of the trees of tropical deciduous forest lands and vice versa, because ecosystem diversity has evolved with respect to the prevailing environmental conditions with well regulated ecological balance.

Ecosystem biodiversity refers to the variety of ecosystem in a particular region or zone, for example, various ecosystems include forests, wetlands, arid zones and deserts. All these have their own fauna and flora (biodiversity).

4.4.1 Biogeographical Classification of India

India has different types of climate and topography in different parts of the country and these variations have induced enormous variability in flora and fauna. India has a rich heritage of biological diversity and occupies the tenth position among the plant. rich nations of the world.

It is very important to study the distribution, evolution, dispersal and environmental relationship of plants and animals in time and space. There are ten different bio-geographic habitats in India. These are as follows:

1. Trans-Himalayan: Upper regions.

2. Himalayan: North-West Himalayas, West, Central and East Himalayas.

3. Desert: Kutch, Thar and Ladakh.

4. Semi-Arid: Central India, Gujarat-Rajwara.

5. Western Ghats: Malabar Coast, Western Ghat Mountains.

6. Deccan Peninsula: Deccan Plateau South, Central, Eastern, Chhota Nagpur.

7. Gangetic Plain: Upper Gangetic Plain, Lower Gangetic Plain.

8. North-East India: Brahmaputra Valley, North Eastern Hills.

9. Islands: Andaman Islands, Nicobar Islands, Laskhadweep, etc.

10. Coasts: West Coast and East Coast.

4.4.2 Value of Biodiversity

Biodiversity in terms of its commercial utility, ecological service, social and aesthetic value has enormous importance. We are benefited by other organisms in innumerable ways. Sometimes, we come to know and appreciate the value of an organism only after it is lost from this earth. Very small, insignificant, useless looking organism may play a crucial role in the ecological balance of the ecosystem or may be a potential source of some invaluable drug for dreaded diseases like cancer or AIDS. The multiple uses of biodiversity is classified as follows:

Consumptive use value

These include direct use values where the biodiversity product can be harvested and consumed directly, e.g., fuel, food, drugs and fibre.

Food: A large number of wild plants and shrubs are consumed by human beings as food. About 80,000 edible plant species have been reported from the wild. About 90 per cent of present day food crops have been domesticated from wild tropical plants. Even now, our agricultural scientists make use of the existing wild species of plants that are closely related to our crop plants for developing new hardy strains. Wild relatives usually possess better tolerance and hardiness. A large number of wild animals are also our sources of food.

Drugs and medicines: About 75 per cent of the world's population depends upon plants or plant extracts for medicines. The wonder drug penicillin used as an antibiotic is derived from a fungus called penicillium. Likewise, we get tetracyclin from a bacterium. Quinine, the cure for malaria is obtained from the bark of the cinchona tree, while digitalin is obtained from foxglove (digitalis) which is an effective cure for heart ailments. Recently, vinblastin and vincristine, two anti-cancer drugs, have been obtained from periwinkle (catharanthus) plant, which possesses anti-cancer

alkaloids. A large number of marine animals are supposed to possess anti-cancer properties, which are yet to be explored systematically.

Fuel: Our forests have been used since ages for fuel wood. The fossil fuels coal, petroleum and natural gas are also products of fossilized biodiversity. Firewood collected by individuals are not normally marketed, but are directly used by tribals and local villagers; hence, falls under constructive value.

Productive use values

These are the commercially usable values, where the product is marketed and sold. It may include lumber or wild gene resources that can be traded for use by scientists for introducing desirable traits in the crops and domesticated animals. These may also include animal products like tusks of elephants, musk from musk deer, silk from silkworm, wool from sheep, fur of many animals and lac from lac insects, all of which are traded in the market. Many industries are dependent upon the productive use of values of biodiversity, e.g., paper and pulp industry, plywood industry, railway sleeper industry, silk industry, textile industry, ivory-works, leather industry, pearl industry, etc.

Despite international ban on trade in products from endangered species, fur, hide, horns, tusks, live specimen, etc., worth millions of dollars are being sold every year. Developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are the richest biodiversity centres and wildlife products are smuggled and marketed in large quantities to some rich western countries and also to China and Hong Kong, where export of animal skins and snake skins is a booming business.

Social value

These are the values associated with the social life, customs, religion and psycho­spiritual aspects of the people. Many of the plants are considered holy and sacred in our country like tu/si (holy basil), peepa/, mango, lotus and bael. The leaves, fruits or flowers of these plants are used in worship or the plant itself is worshipped. The tribal people are closely linked with the wildlife in the forest. Their social life, songs, dances and customs are closely woven around the wildlife. Many animals like cow, snake, bull, peacock and owl, also have significant place in our psycho-spiritual arena and thus, hold special social importance. Thus, biodiversity has a distinct social value attached with different societies.

Ethical value

It is also sometimes known as existence value. It involves ethical issues like 'all life must be preserved'. It is based on the concept of 'live and let live'. If we want our human race to survive, then we must protect all biodiversity, because biodiversity is valuable.

Ethical value means that we mayor may not use a species, but knowing the fact that these species exists in nature gives us pleasure. We all feel sorry when we learn that 'passenger pigeon' or 'dodo' is extinct. We are not deriving anything directly from the kangaroo, zebra or giraffe, but we all strongly feel that these species would exist in nature. This means, there is an ethical value or existence value attached to each species.

Aesthetic value

Great aesthetic value is attached to biodiversity. None of us would like to visit vast stretches of barren lands with no signs of visible life. People from far and wide spend a lot of time and money to visit wilderness areas, where they can enjoy the aesthetic value of biodiversity and this type of tourism is now known as ecotourism. The 'willingness to pay' concept on such ecotourism gives us even a monetary estimate for aesthetic value of biodiversity. Ecotourism is estimated to generate about US $12 billion of revenue annually, this roughly gives the aesthetic value of biodiversity.

Option value

These values include the potential of biodiversity that are presently unknown and need to be explored. There is a possibility that we may have some potential cure for AIDS or cancer existing within the depths of a marine ecosystem or a tropical rainforest.

Thus, option value is the knowledge that there are biological resources existing on this biosphere that may one day prove to be an effective option for something important in the future. Thus, the option value of biodiversity suggests that any species

may prove to be a miracle species someday. Biodiversity is like precious gifts of nature presented to us. We should not commit the folly of losi'1g these gifts even before unwrapping them.

Option value also includes the values, in terms of the option to visit areas where a variety of flora and fauna, or specifically some endemic, rare or endangered species exist.

Ecosystem service value

Recently, a non-consumptive use value related to self maintenance of the ecosystem and various important ecosystem services has been recognized. It refers to the services provided by the ecosystems like prevention of soil erosion, prevention of floods, maintenance of soil fertility, cycling of nutrients, fixation of nitrogen, cycling of water, their role as carbon sinks, pollutant absorption and reduction of the threat of global warming, etc.

Different categories of biodiversity value clearly indicate that ecosystem, species and genetic diversity all have enormous potential, and a decline in biodiversity will lead to huge economic, ecological and socio-cultural losses.

4.4.3 Global Biodiversity

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development at Rio in 1992, put biological diversity on the international agenda by signing the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This convention addresses many issues ranging from forests, agriculture to Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).

India is a signatory to CBD and ratified it in 1993. The Government of India has finalized the National Policy and Action Strategy for Biodiversity. A legislation was finalized and the Indian Parliament passed the Biodiversity Bill in 2002.

The objective of the convention was 'the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.' It also covered the ecological, economic and social aspects of biodiversity.

The success of the convention can be evaluated in following two main ways:

(i) By ana1ysing the changes in biodiversity components (i.e., species and ecosystems ).

(ii) By measuring the effectiveness of the measures taken to implement the convention.

According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, scientists have identified about 1.4 million species. Of these, around 1.03 million are animals and 2,48,000 are higher plants. But, human knowledge of the world's biodiversity is still not complete. Higher plants have also been fairly well studied, but it is possible that 15 per cent more may still be discovered. Numerous insects, invertebrates, lower plants and micro-organisms exist, but have yet to be identified and described. One recent estimate put this figure as high as 30 million.

Human impact on nature has reached such high proportions that the world is today witnessing an extraordinary rate in loss of species. Many thousands of species will disappear even before they are found and described by biologists. In 1988, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed 4,589 threatened animals. Scientists at the Kew Gardens in Britain listed around 20,000 plant species as threatened. According to an estimate by the IUCN's Threatened Plants Unit, by the year 2050 up to 60,000 plant species will become extinct or threatened. These estimates show that the current rate of extinction is at least 25,000 times greater than the extinction that took place during evolutionary times. The rate of extinction of mammals alone has risen from one species every five years in the seventeenth century to one every two years in the 20th century.

Biological diversity at national level

Every country is characterized by its own biodiversity depending mainly on its climate. India has a rich biological diversity of flora and fauna. Overall, 6 per cent of the global species are found in India. It is estimated that India ranks tenth among the plant rich countries of the world, eleventh in terms of the number of endemic species of higher vertebrates and sixth among the centres of diversity and origin of agricultural crops.

The total number of living species identified in our country is 1,50,000. Out of the total twenty-five biodiversity hot spots in the world, India possesses two, one in the north-east region and one in the Western Ghats. Indian is also one of the twelve mega-biodiversity countries in the world.

India as a mega-diversity nation

India is one of the twelve mega-diversity countries in the world. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India (2000) records 47,000 species of plants and 81,000 species of animals which is about 7 per cent and 6.5 per cent respectively of global flora and fauna. These major groups of species include endemism, centre of origin, marine diversity, etc.

A large proportion of the Indian biodiversity is still unexplored. There are about ninety-three major wet lands, coral reefs and mangroves which need to be studied in detail. Indian forests cover 64.01 million hectares which has rich biodiversity of plants in the Trans-Himalayan, north-west, west, central and eastern Himalayan forests, Western Ghats, coasts, deserts, Gangetic Plains, Deccan Plateau and the Andaman, Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands. Due to its diverse climatic conditions, there is a complete spectrum of biodiversity in our country.

Hot spots of biodiversity

Areas which exhibit high species richness as well as high species endemism are , termed as hot spots of biodiversity. Species which are restricted only to particular areas are known as endemic. India shows a good number of endemic species. About 62 per cent of amphibians and 50 per cent of lizards are endemic to India. Western Ghats are the site of maximum endemism. The term 'hot spots' was introduced by Myers (1988). There are twenty-five such hot spots of biodiversity on a global level, out of which two are present in India, namely the Eastern Himalayas and the Western Ghats.

These hot spots covering less than 2 per cent of the world's land area are found to have about 50 per cent of the terrestrial biodiversity. According to Myers, an area is designated as a hot spot when it contains at least 0.5 per cent of the plant species as endemics.

(i) Eastern Himalayas: They display an ultra-varied topography that fosters species diversity and endemism. Recent studies have shown that North East

India along with its contiguous regions of Burma and Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Schezwan is an active centre of organic evolution and is considered to be the cradle of flowering plants. Out of the world's recorded flora, 30 per cent are endemic to India of which 35000 are in the Himalayas.

(ii) Western Ghats: It extends along a 17,000 km2 strip of forests in Maharashtra, Kamataka, Tamil N adu and Kerala and has 40 per cent of the the total endemic plant species. The major centres of diversity are Agastyamalai Hills and Silent Valley-the new Amambalam Reserve Basin. It is reported that only 6.8 per cent of the original forests are existing today, while the rest have been deforested or degraded, which raises a serious cause of alarm, because it means we have already lost a huge proportion of the biodiversity.

4.4.4 Threats to Biodiversity

Extinction or elimination of a species is a natural process of evolution. In the geologic period, earth has experienced mass extinctions. During evolution, many species have died and have been replaced by others. However, the rate of loss of species in the geologic past has been a slow process, keeping in view the vast span of time going back to 444 million years. The process of extinction has become particularly fast in the recent years of civilization. In the recent times, the human impact has been so

severe that thousands of species and varieties are becoming extinct annually. One of

the estimates puts the figure of extinction at 10,000 species per year or 27 per day. These figures raise an alarm regarding the serious threat to biodiversity. Over the last

150 years, the rate of extinction has escalated more dramatically. If the present trend continues, we would lose one-third to two-third of our current biodiversity by the middle of the 21st century.

The following are the major causes and issues related to threats to biodiversity:

(i) Loss of habitat

Destruction and loss of natural habitat is the single largest cause of losing own biodiversity. Billions of hectares of forests and grasslands have been cleared over the past 10,000 years for conversion into agricultural lands, pastures, settlement areas or development projects. These forests and grasslands were the homes of thousands of species, which perished due to loss of their natural habitat. Severe damage has been caused to wetlands, thinking them to be useless ecosystems. The unique and rich biodiversity of the wetlands, estuaries and mangroves are under serious threat today. The wetlands are destroyed due to draining, filling and pollution, thereby causing huge loss of biodiversity.

The habitat is divided into small and scattered patches, so that the complete loss of habitat can be put at bay. This phenomenon is known as habitatfragmentation. There are many wildlife species such as bears and large cats that require large territories to subsist. They are threatened as they breed only in the interiors of the forests. Due to habitat fragmentation, many song birds are becoming extinct.

There has been a rapid disappearance of tropical forests in our country, at the rate of about 0.6 per cent per year. With the current rate of loss of forest habitat, it is estimated that 20-25 per cent of the global flora would be lost within a few years. Marine diversity is also under serious threat due to large-scale destruction of the fragile breeding and feeding grounds of fish and other species.

 (ii) Poaching

Illegal trade of wildlife products by killing prohibited endangered animals, i.e., poaching is another threat to wildlife. Despite international ban on trade in products from endangered species, smuggling of wildlife items like furs, hides, horns, tusks, live specimens and herbal products worth millions of dollars per year, continues. The developing nations in Asia, Latin America and Africa are the richest source of biodiversity and have enormous wealth of wildlife. The rich countries in Europe and North America and some affluent countries in Asia like Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong are the major importers of wildlife products or wildlife itself.

The trading of such wildlife products is highly profitable for the poachers who smuggle them to other countries mediated through mafia. The worst part is that for every live animal that actually gets into the market, about fifty additional animals are caught and killed.

If you are fond of rare fishes or birds, please make sure that you are not going to harm the endangered species or wild-caught species. Doing so will help in checking further decline of these species. Also, do not purchase fur coat, purse or bag, or items made of crocodile skin or python skin. You will certainly help in preserving biodiversity by doing so.

4.4.5 Man-Wildlife Conflicts

We have discussed the need to preserve and protect wildlife. However, sometimes we come across conflicting situations when wildlife starts causing immense damage and danger to man and under such conditions it becomes very difficult for the forest department to pacify the affected villages and gain local support for wildlife conservation.

Instances of man-animal conflicts keep on coming to limelight from several states in our country. In Sambalpur, Orissa, 195 humans were killed in the recent past by elephants. In retaliation, the villagers killed ninety-five elephants in the border region of Kote-Chamarajanagar belt in Mysore. The man-elephant conflict in this

region has arisen because of massive damage done by the elephants to the cotton and sugarcane crops. The villagers electrocute the elephants and sometimes, hide explosives in the sugarcane fields, which explode as the elephants intrude into their fields. In fact, more killings are done by locals than by poachers. In early 2004, a man-eating tiger was reported to have killed sixteen Nepalese people and a four-year old child inside the Royal Chitwan National Park, 240 km South-west of Kathmandu. The park, once renowned for its wildlife conservation effort has become a zone of terror for the locals. Similar incidents were reported near Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivali, Mumbai where similar incidents of human killings, especially of small children was reported. At times, such conflicting situations have been reported from the border regions of Corbett, Dudhwa, Palamau and Ranthambore National Parks in our country as well.

Recently, in June 2004, two men were killed by leopards in Powai, Mumbai.A total of fourteen people were killed during nineteen attacks since January by the leopards from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai which has triggered a panic among the local residents.

Causes of man-animal conflicts

1. Dwindling habitats of tigers, elephants, rhinos and bears due to shrinking forest cover are compelled to move outside the forests. Human encroachment into the forest areas has rendered all forest living animals to trespass the borders of human civilizations. This is because the conflicts between man and the wildlife have increased since it is an issue of survival of both.

2. Usually the ill, weak and injured animals have a tendency to attack man. Also, the female tigress attacks humans if she feels that her newborns are in danger. But, the biggest problem is that if human-flesh is tasted once, then the tiger prefers having human flesh than the flesh of any other animals. At the same time, it is very difficult to trace and cull the man-eating tiger and in the process many innocent tigers are also killed. The Sunderbans in Wt . t Bengal, are noted for the existence of man-eating tigers.

3. Earlier, the forest department used to cultivate paddy, sugarcane, etc., within the sanctuaries, when the favourite staple food of elephants, i.e., bamboo leaves were not available. Now, due to lack of such practices the animals tent to move out of the forest in search of food. It may be noted that, one adult elephant needs 2 quintals of green fodder and 150 kg of clean water daily and if it is not available, the animal strays out.

4. Very often, the villagers put electric wiring around their ripe crop fields. The elephants get injured, suffer in pain and turn violent.

5. Earlier, there used to be wildlife corridors through which the wild animals used to migrate seasonally in groups to other areas. Due to development of human settlements in these corridors, the path of wildlife has been disrupted and the animals attack the settlements.

6. The cash compensation paid by the government in lieu of the damage caused to the farmers' crop is not enough. In Mysore, a farmer gets compensation of ~ 400 per quintal of expected yield, while the market price is Rs 2,400 per quintal. The agonized farmer, therefore, gets vengeful and kills the wild animals.

Remedial measures to curb the conflict

1. Tiger Conservation Project (TCP) has made provisions for making available vehicles, tranquillizer guns, binoculars and radio sets, etc., to tactfully deal with any imminent danger.

2. Adequate crop compensation and cattle compensation schemes should be introduced, along with substantial cash compensation for loss of human life.

3. Solar-powered fencing should be provided along with electric current proof trenches to prevent the animals from straying into fields.

4. Cropping pattern should be changed near the forest borders and adequate fodder, fruit and water should be made available for the elephants within forest zones.

5. Wildlife corridors should be provided for mass migration of big animals during unfavourable periods. About 300 km2 area is required for elephant corridors for their seasonal migration.

6. In Similipal Sanctuary, Orissa, there is a ritual of wild animal hunting during the months of April-May for which the forest is burnt to flush out the animals. Due to massive hunting by people, there is a decline in the prey of tigers and they start coming out of the forest in search of prey. Now, there is WWF - TCP initiative to curb this ritual of 'Akhand Shikar' in Orissa.

4.4.6 Conservation of Biodiversity

Due to the tremendous importance of biodiversity it is considered an asset of a region or a nation. Due to its multiple advantages of commercial value, consumption value, medicinal value, social, cultural, religious and optional values, biodiversity needs to be conserved. The need for its protection and conservation has become more important due to overexploitation and the subsequent depletion. There are two types of methods of conservation of biodiversity, which are as follows:

1. Ex-situ

2. In-situ

Ex-situ conservation means off-site protection of biodiversity. It is the process of protecting an endangered species of plant or animal by removing it from an unsafe or threatened habitat and placing it under human care.

While Ex-situ conservation is comprises some of the oldest and best-known techniques known to and created by man, it also involves newer techniques like laboratory method.

Ex-situ conservation

Creation of zoos, botanical gardens, culture collection centres are the most conventional and traditional methods of ex-situ conservation, all of which house and protect specimens for breeding and reproduction of wild life animals and plants. Endangered plants may also be preserved in part in such botanical garden through seed banks and germplasm banks.

         Endangered animals are preserved using similar techniques through preservation

in gene bank.

In the gene banks, which consist of cryogenic facilities, live sperms, eggs or embryos can be stored. Some countries have established frozen zoos to store such samples from more than 366 species, which consist of mammals, reptiles and birds.

Drawbacks of ex-situ conservation

Though ex-situ conservation is helpful to man's effort to sustain and protect biodiversity, is rarely enough to save a species from extinction. It can be used as a last resort or as a supplement to in-situ conservation. It cannot re-create a habitat. Furthermore, ex-­situ conservation techniques are often costly.

In-situ conservation In-situ conservation means to conserve the biodiversity within the habitat and on site. It is a process of protecting an endangered species of plant or animal in its natural habitat, either by protecting or preventing the habitat itself from being depleted.

The benefit of in-situ conservation is that it maintains the natural surroundings of the population of the animals or plant in its natural distinctive property.

In-situ conservation should be preferred to ex-situ conservation, the latter opted only in case where in-situ conservation is either too difficult or impossible. Wildlife conservation is mostly based on in-situ conservation through protection and recreation of the wildlife habitat.

4.5 GOVERNMENTAL AND INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR ESTABLISHING AND MAINTAINING ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY BUSINESS

4.5.1 The Role of N GOs in Business Activities

National and international commitments for protection of environment by entering into agreements/protocols made at the international level are meaningless without their enforcement. The reasons for poor implementation may be many. They are as follows:

. Lack of political will

. Scarcity of fund

. Decisions taken in regard to environmental issues may not be very sound .

·         Implication of such decisions could not be properly visualized

 Against this background, some spirited citizens put pressure either on their own or through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the implementation of the policies of the agreements.

      It has been seen that the services rendered by the environmental NGGs are commendable. They exert all sorts of pressure on the national government, the I international agencies and the business corporations for furthering the cause of ; environment-related issues. They become the mediators between the government and the citizens. They work at the grassroots level as also with the poor or socially disadvantaged people and provide them the necessary support.

NGOs like the Worldwide Fund (WWF), Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth  operate at the global level. NGOs work very hard to gather public opinion. Their efforts have brought changes in the policy of some companies, e.g., Shell, Germany's oil giant, was planning to dump its worn out oil ship, the Brent Spar in the North Sea. Greenpeace organized a boycott of the service stations of Shell, Gennany, and thus prevented this trom happening.

In 1990, the World Trade Organization (WTO) organized a meeting in Seattle, Washington, which was attended by about 5000 delegates including the environment ministers of various countries. But WTO was not willing to consider the environmental and poverty issues adequately which resulted in a big demonstration. The protestors disrupted the meeting, and the situation became so serious that the US authorities had to use teargas, arrest hundreds of protestors and impose curfew. The talks at the Seattle meeting failed.

In another case, the government of Taiwan wanted to buy a piece of land in North Korea to dump its nuclear wastes. The Korean Federation of Environment Movement opposed this move and prevented it from happening. Thus, NGOs can confront the government that do not act rationally.

The Indian scenario

Safe and hygienic human waste disposal

Dr Bindeshwar Pathak founded a non-profit society named Sulabh International Social Service Organization. Dr Pathak and his team of engineers, scientists, architects and planners have developed two methods for safe and hygienic disposal of human waste. One of the methods, popularly know as 'Sulabh Shouchalaya' is affordable and can be adopted by the poor, middle class and the upper class people. It requires only two litres of water for flushing, resulting in the economy of water use. There is no vent pipe for the exit of the gas and hence it is eco- friendly. Finally, in this method, human excreta get converted into manure onsite, which works as good fertilizer to raise the productivity of the fields. This can help in increasing financial support for agro-based industries. This method also removed the problem of sanitation and environment pollution by installing such toilets around the country.

Narmada Valley Project

Another example of non-governmental efforts for the cause of environmental protection and other related problem is the Narmada Valley Project for generation of hydroelectricity and irrigation of lands.

This Project included the construction of two large dams ( the Sardar Sarovar and the Nannada Sagar projects) and making of small dams to generate electric power. It would also irrigate million hectares of agricultural land in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and make available drinking water. From 1989, the activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), has been holding demonstrations, courting arrests, led by Medha Patkar with the support of other N GOs. The main objective of NBA is to resist the government's efforts to build  the dams which would result in the destruction of the environment and bring miseries to people, especially to the tribal population.

4.5.2 Role of Governmental Support

The government has come up with many environmental policies to help the environment and to minimize the damages caused by many businesses. Environmental policy is

any course of action deliberately taken, or not taken, to manage human activities with a view to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on nature and natural resources, and ensuring that man-made changes to the environment do not have harmful effects on humans.

Environmental policy instruments are tools used by governments to implement their environmental policies. Governments may use a number of different types of instruments. For example, economic incentives and market-based instruments such as taxes and tax exemptions, tradable permits, and fees can be very effective to encourage compliance with environmental policy.

Voluntary measures, such as bilateral agreements negotiated between the government and private firms and commitments made by firms independent of government pressure, are other instruments used in environmental policy. Another instrument is the implementation of greener public purchasing programs.

Often, several instruments are combined in an instrument mix formulated to address a certain environmental problem. Since environmental issues often have many different aspects, several policy instruments may be needed to adequately address each one. Furthermore, instrument mixes may allow firms greater flexibility in finding ways to comply with government policy while reducing the uncertainty in the cost of doing so. However, instrument mixes must be carefully formulated, so that the individual measures within them do not undermine each other or create. a rigid and cost-ineffective compliance framework. Also, overlapping instruments lead to unnecessary administrative costs, making implementation of environmental policies more costly than necessary In order to help governments realize their environmental policy goals, the OECD Environment Directorate studies and collects data on the efficiency of the environmental instruments governments use to achieve their goals as well as their consequences for other policies. The site www.economicinstruments.com serves as a complementary database detailing the experiences of countries with the application of instruments for environmental policy.

It will be interesting to consider the following example, according to the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), 'The Ministry of MSME is operating various programmes and schemes for promoting eco- friendly technology and processes for micro, small and medium enterprises.'

The schemes for technology up gradation including eco/environment-friendly technology and modernization of micro and small enterprises were Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (CLCSS), Promotion of Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) and Technology and Quality Up gradation Support to MSMEs under National Manufacturing Competitiveness Programme (NMCP).

Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (CLCSS) is facilitating technology upgradation of micro and small enterprises by providing capital subsidy for induction of well-established and improved technology. During the year 2007-08, subsidy amounting to the tune of,Rs 76.3 crore, in the year 2008~09, subsidy to the tune of

'Rs 108.8 crore, and in the year 2009-10, subsidy amounting to the tune of,Rs 150.4  crore was disbursed to the Nodal agencies under Credit Link Capital Subsidy Scheme.

UNIT 5

ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT AND CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

5.1 INTRODUCTION

Environment management is not, as the phrase could suggest, the management of the environment as such, but rather the management of interaction by the modem human societies with, and impact upon the environment. The three main issues that affect managers are those involving politics (networking), programs (projects) and resources (money, facilities, etc.). The need for environmental management can be viewed from a variety of perspectives.

In this unit, you will be familiarized with the process of environment impact assessment, environment accounting and audit and the environment management systems. You will learn about the EMS standards in detail along with ISO 14000. The unit will also discuss the international initiatives for the management of the environment and the international treaties on environment. The unit will also discuss the WTO provisions and finally the issues and challenges for environment management in the globalized world.

5.2 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDIES AND ASSESSMENT

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the possible impact­ positive or negative-that a proposed project may have on the environment, consisting of the natural, social and economic aspects.

The impact of anthropogenic activities on the use of environmental resources or the natural environment is termed as environmental impact. The assessments or evaluations of this impact are collectively called environmental impact assessment (EIA).

EIA is required to understand the detrimental environmental changes like the degradation of environment, ecological imbalance, etc., and take proper measures to make the earth environmentally sound for our existence.

The ultimate objective of EIA is to provide information to the decision-makers so that proper programmes and plans can be made, and new projects can be implemented. The ElA is very important as its results helps to implement appropriate procedures or measures in various countries keeping in view their national laws and processes related to decision-making, exchange of information and consultation.

The steps involved in EIA study are as follows:

(i)                 Screening of the project

(ii)                Projects that need EIA or do not need it are identified.

(ii) Impact identification of the project

 The significant impact of the project is identified and if required, alternatives are suggested.

(ill) Impact prediction

The magnitude and duration of the impacts on the environment are predicted through various models, laboratory experiments and judgement by experts.

(iv) Impact evaluation

The impacts so predicted are scientifically evaluated by comparing the values against

set standards.

(v) Participation of stakeholders

For improving quality, comprehensiveness and effectiveness, stakeholders' opinions are considered adequately.

(vi) Specification of monitoring and auditing measures

Impacts that require continuous monitoring are identified and their auditing is undertaken.

 (vii) Documentation of EIA study

                        Draft record along with non-technical summary containing the methodology, number of steps involved, results and discussions, interpretations and conclusions are prepared.

(viii) Review of report

Drawn up reports are reviewed by experts to evaluate the efficiency and quality of the EIA. Suggestions are made by the experts. If some items are missing, they are modified as required or accepted by the reviewers in order to facilitate the process of decision­ making.

(ix) Decision-making

In the end, decision-makers decide the future prospects of the proposed project based on the comments and recommendations of the reviewers through the EIA report.

5.3 ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING AND AUDIT

5.3.1 Environmental Accounting

Environmental accounting is an important tool for understanding the role played by the natural environment in the economy. Environmental accounts provide data which highlight both the contribution of natural resources to economic well-being and the costs imposed by pollution or resource degradation. For this reason, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has launched a new program, the Green Accounting Initiative, to help its members understand how this tool can help them improve environmental management. Therefore, environmental accounting is sometimes referred to as 'green accounting', 'resource accounting' or 'integrated economic and environmental accounting'. All of these refer to modification of the System of National Accounts to incorporate the use or depletion of natural resources.

The System of National Accounts (SNA) is the set of accounts which national governments compile routinely to track the activity of their economies. SNA data are used to calculate major economic indicators including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP), savings rates, and trade balance figures. The data underlying these aggregate indicators are also used for a wide range of less publicized, but equally valuable policy analysis and economic monitoring purposes. These economic accounts are calculated by all countries in a standard format, using a framework developed, supported, and disseminated by the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSTAT). The fact that all countries make these calculations in more or less the same way is crucial to the value of the data for national and international decision making, because it makes international comparisons possible and thus allows us to place individual countries in the context of world trends. Similarly, the fact that the accounts are calculated routinely, rather than just once, lets us use them to understand how the world is evolving, and where each country fits within that pattern of change. This provides a valuable basis for defining public policies designed to move individual countries and the world towards desired patterns of growth and development.

Drawbacks of System of National Accounts

The movement to reform the SNA has arisen because the accounts as now defined do not include the full economic value of environmental resources or the role which they play in productive activity. Some of the elements missing from the accounts include the following:

. Environmental expenditures: Expenditures to protect the environment from harm, or to mitigate that harm, cannot be identified from the data in the accounts. Such expenditures include the costs incurred to prevent environmental harm, such as pollution control equipment purchased by factories or catalytic converters in cars. They also include the costs of remedying that harm; medical expenses, replacement of property destroyed in landslides caused by deforestation, or drinking water filtration required because intake water is highly regimented. These expenditures are already included in the income accounts, along with all other intermediate or [mal consumption. However, they cannot be disaggregated to highlight the costs incurred to prevent or mitigate environmental degradation.

. Non-marketed goods: The environment provides many goods which are not sold, but which are nevertheless of value; e.g., fuel wood and building materials gathered in forests, meat and fish captured for consumption, and medicinal plants. Some countries do include these in their national income accounts, estimating total consumption, and then using market prices for comparable products as a proxy to calculate the value of non-marketed goods. However, such estimation is incomplete, and cannot always be disaggregated from products which are sold.

. Non-marketed services: Similarly, the environment provides unsold services, such as Watershed protection by forests or water alterations by submerged vegetation. These are not included in the SNA. It can be very difficult to estimate their economic value; this is sometimes done by calculating the cost of obtaining equivalent services from the market.

. Consumption of natural capital: The SNA treats the gradual depletion of physical capital-machines and other equipment-as depletion rather than income, in accordance with conventional business accounting principles. However, the depletion of natural capital-forests, in particular-is accounted for as income. Thus the accounts of a country which harvests trees very quickly will show quite high income for a few years, but nothing will show the destruction of a productive asset, the forest. Most experts on environmental accounting agree that the depletion of natural capital should be accounted for in the same way as other productive assets.

What is environmental accounting?

Environmental accounting is a set of aggregate national data linking the environment to the economy, which will have a long-run impact on both economic and environmental policy-making. It is not a valuation of environmental goods or services, social cost­ benefit analysis of projects affecting the environment, or disaggregated regional or local data about the environment. There are, however, close links between environmental accounting and these three activities, which is why they are frequently discussed together and occasionally confused. It can be summarized as follows:

. Valuation of environmental assets, goods, or services: Valuation refers to the process of deriving a monetary value for things which are not sold in a market; for example, biodiversity resources which could provide new medicines in the future. Valuation is an essential input into both social cost-benefit analysis and some approaches to environmental accounting. However, valuation is only one element in the construction of environmental accounts; it is not the same as the construction of the accounts.

. Social cost-benefit analysis: Social cost-benefit analysis tallies up all of the costs and benefits of a proposed project, including its impacts on environmental quality or on the availability of environmental goods and services. It relies on the same valuation data that may be used in environmental accounting, though the different estimated values are aggregated differently. Thus the valuation work entailed in implementing environmental accounts may also provide data for analyzing the impacts of specific projects.

. Disaggregated regional or local data about the environment: It is sometimes linked to a geographic information system. Questions often arise about the scale of environmental data; do they pertain to a village, a province, a watershed, or the whole country? Because the SNA is national, and most countries maintain their economic data at the national (rather than the regional or local) level, environmental accounts are primarily national accounts. For example, they might tell us how much energy was consumed nationwide, not how much was consumed in each village or province. Sometimes national figures are obtained by aggregating local data, though; for example, national data timber harvests might originate with a survey of individual logging camps. Thus, accounts sometimes can provide local as well as national data. Where local data are not available, however, it is often easier to estimate national data directly than it is to collect local data and sum them. For this reason, the accounts will always provide national figures, but only sometimes will the data underlying them tell us about local areas as well.

In subsequent years, the focus of the accounting work will be determined by the outcome of the first cycle of accounts. It will be important routinely to update the accounts, so that they begin to present a record of how the economy-environment linkages are evolving over time. In addition, areas where environmental costs or impacts are found to be particularly large may warrant further work or additional primary data collection. Emerging policy concerns may be introduced into the accounting framework. Special studies may be undertaken on particular questions of policy importance.

5.3.2 Environmental Audit

Environmental audit is a review of activities affecting the environment to determine the status of ,-: corporation's compliance with central, state and local environmental laws and regulations. It also provides the corporation with data and other information on which environmental decision and planning could be based.

The environmental compliance audit can be company-wide and comprehensive, or it can be limited either to particular facilities owned by a corporation or to determining compliance with specific regulatory programmes. Whatever the audit's scope, the basic principles and considerations related to the conduct of an audit will remain the same.

An environmental audit is a management tool for taking inventory of a company's environmental assets and liabilities. As such, the audit provides information on a company's compliance status at a given point in time, analysis of the perceived implications of the information gathered and, if management so chooses, options that arise from this information and analysis. In short, an audit provides a snapshot of one segment of managements’ responsibility.

Responding to enforcement actions

Understanding a company's actual compliance status not only enables corporate management to take steps to avoid being the target of litigation, it also renders the company better prepared in the event of an enforcement action. When an action is brought, ready knowledge of the company's overall environmental situation may be a key element in responding. Without an orderly and usable reporting system and access to the broad data-base that the audit procedure provides, a period of chaos may ensue, disrupting the company's business activity and impairing its ability to assess its position.

The term 'snapshot' should not be misunderstood. While the data collected will focus on compliance status at a given point in time, an effective and useful audit must look back to past particles in some areas, e.g., waste management and should also identify potential liabilities arising from past or current practices. The audit should also establish the basis for continued reporting and making management systems to ensure rational, responsive decision-making in the future. To accomplish this, the audit should be designed to present information in a format that will allow efficient integration with subsequent compliance monitoring activities.

The audit itself does not necessarily entail development of management reporting systems or engineering drawings for construction of new pollution control equipment. Nor need it entail developing cost estimates for such construction or equipment. These actions may be appropriate management responses after completion of an initial audit.

Reasons to undertake an environmental audit

There could be a number of reasons for undertaking an audit and the benefits associated with the audit process are described below.

Determining compliance status

A fundamental reason for undertaking an environmental audit is to determine the status of a company's compliance with central, state, and local environmental laws and regulations. More than a decade of major environmental legislation regulating air and water pollution, chemicals, hazardous substances and waste disposal has imposed a complete scheme of obligations on business, industry and local bodies. Environmental compliance represents a significant aspect of doing business both, in terms of the effort and cost, necessary to achieve compliance and in terms of the fines, penalties and liabilities that may be incurred as a result of noncompliance.

Understanding the applicability and impact of environmental regulation has become necessary for informed corporate planning and decision making. The audit is a vehicle to help management identify environmental problems that could adversely affect an otherwise normal business activity, and avoid or minimize liability for cost. remedial work, fines or damage claims before enforcement actions are brought.

Where corporate management does not know of a problem until it becomes serious, of substantial duration, and difficult to clean up, enforcement actions, involving substantial sums, may result. Some cases involving substantial civil and criminal penalties have developed because of concealment of problems, sometimes, by lower­ level employees, acting-usually erroneously-from the belief that management did , not want to hear the bad news. Possible enforcement actions can be avoided by an I environmental audit that identifies 'skeletons in the cupboard', thereby, enabling the  company to take steps, in advance of government action, and to focus its efforts on I specific problem areas of plant operations.

                   An environmental audit can also help in maintaining a corporation's compliance status in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Frequently, facilities can be control technologies including equipment, and management practices may be available to

I control a particular waste or discharge. The capital and operating costs associated : with the different options may vary substantially. By identifying the applicable  regulatory requirements, an environmental audit can assist the business manager in focusing on potential problems and selecting, in a timely and organized fashion, the most efficient and cost-effective approach. An audit can also help management recognize if there is a need for change in operating of administrative procedures to improve the company's system for compliance assurance and internal reporting.

I Crisis management

Information obtained in an audit can be of enormous value in crisis situations. Such information can help a company respond quickly to a spill or other release of a hazardous substance or to other pollution incidents the impacts of which may have  been exaggerated by the press or others. Conversely, such information can help. companies avoid making claims or assertions that, upon further investigation, prove to be understatements by saying nothing, but this course may subject it to significant negative publicity. Generally, a far better approach is to understand one's compliance status from the beginning, and, thus, to be able to make informed, sensitive judgements about how to handle problems when they arise. It is absolutely essential in the environmental area to be prepared for emergencies. Failure to respond promptly and appropriately to a spill of a hazardous substance, for example, can result in loss of life, damage to property, contamination of drinking water, fire or explosion, or other injuries. Further, the costs of cleaning up a spill after it has been initially mismanaged can often be many times greater than the cost of initial containment and removal.

Planning and conducting the audit

An environmental compliance audit should be tailored to fit the company's circumstances and needs. Though each corporation is different, the basic elements of a successful audit are the same. These elements include the following:

. Defining the purpose and scope of the audit, resolving policy issues and

         establishing priorities

     . Assigning departmental responsibility for the audit function and ensuring in­ house cooperation

. Choosing the audit team

. Reviewing central, state and local laws and regulations to identify regulatory programmes applicable to company operations

. Selecting elements of analysis on which to base data collection

. Beginning the audit

. Preparing compliance profiles

. Conducting a site visit

. Analyzing and presenting the results of the audit. Evaluating the audit

Establishing the authority for the audit purpose, scope and policy issues

Before a company begins an environmental audit, its Board of Directors or senior management should issue a resolution or directive to initiate and legitimize the audit. This step is necessary to achieve the maximum level of cooperation from within the corporation. Such cooperation is essential in providing the information senior management needs to obtain a clear picture of the company's compliance status.

This directive should authorize the creation of the audit team and state clearly the nature and purpose of the audit as well as any limitations on the audit due to legal considerations or internal management policy.

Conducting the audit

Once the regulatory programmes, potentially applicable to company operations, have been identified and the elements on winch to base data collection and analysis have been selected the audit may begin. Collection of audit data should be organized into two stages: preliminary data collection prior to the site visit, and data collection at the site.

Preliminary data collection

The following three questions must be addressed in designing the preliminary data gathering process:

. Who should collect the information?

. How should it be collected?

. What basic information does the audit team need about the site to determine whether a specific audit element is subject to regulation?

5.4

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGING SYSTEMS

Environmental impact is an important issue across the globe, with pressure to minimize that impact coming from many sources, including governments, trade associations, supply chains and other social and financial stakeholders. An Environmental Management System (EMS) provides with a framework for managing environmental responsibilities efficiently in a way that is integrated into your overall operations.

An environmental management system is relevant to all organizations, from single site to large multinationals and from high risk companies to low risk service organizations. Managing environmental impacts is relevant to manufacturing, process and service industries, including local and central governments, equipment manufacturers and suppliers.

Environmental management system (EMS) refers to the management of an organization's environmental programs in a comprehensive, systematic, planned and documented manner. It includes the organizational structure, planning and resources for developing, implementing and maintaining policy for environmental protection. The features of an environmental management system (EMS) are as follows:

. It serves as a tool to improve environmental performance.

. It provides a systematic way of managing an organization's environmental affairs.

. It is the aspect of the organization's overall management structure that addresses immediate and long-term impacts of its products, services and processes on the environment.                                                     .

. It gives order and consistency for organizations to address environmental concerns through the allocation of resources, assignment of responsibility and ongoing evaluation of practices, procedures and processes.

. It focuses on continual improvement of the system.

EMS model

Policy         Management  .                     planning Checking Corrective  Action                              Implementation

      Fig. 5.1 The EMS Model

An EMS follows a plan-do-check-act cycle (PDCA). Figure 5.1 shows the process of first developing an environmental policy, planning the EMS, and then implementing it. The process also includes checking the system and acting on it. The model is continuous because an EMS is a process of continual improvement in which an organization is constantly reviewing and revising the system.

This is a model that can be used by a wide range of organizations-from manufacturing facilities to service industries to government agencies. The key elements of an EMS are as follows:

. Policy statement: A statement of the organization's commitment to the environment.

. Identification of significant environmental impacts: Environmental attributes of products, activities and services and their effects on the environment.

 . Development of objectives and targets: Environmental goals for the organization.

. Implementation: Plans to meet objectives and targets.

. Training: Instruction to ensure employees are aware and capable of fulfilling their environmental responsibilities.

. Management review.

5.4.1 EMS Standards

As with all management functions, effective management tools, standards and systems are required. An environmental management standard or system or protocol attempts to reduce environmental impact as measured by some objective criteria. The ISO

14001 standard is the most widely used standard for environmental risk management and is closely aligned to the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). As a common auditing standard, the ISO 19011 standard explains how to combine this with quality management.

The ISO 14000 family addresses various aspects of environmental management. The very first two standards, ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 deal with environmental management systems (EMS). ISO 14001 :2004 provides the requirements for an EMS and ISO 14004:2004 gives general EMS guidelines.

The other standards and guidelines in the family address specific environmental aspects, including: labeling, performance evaluation, life cycle analysis, communication and auditing.

ISO, ISO 14000, and ISO 14001

ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization, located in Geneva, Switzerland. ISO is a non-governmental organization established in 1947. The organization mainly functions to develop voluntary technical standards that aim at making the development, manufacture and supply of goods and services more efficient, safe and clean.

ISO 14000 refers to a family of voluntary standards and guidance documents to help organizations address environmental issues. Included in the family are standards for Environmental Management Systems, environmental and EMS auditing, environmental labeling, performance evaluation and life-cycle assessment.

In September 1996, the International Organization for Standardization published the first edition of ISO 14001, the Environmental Management Systems standard. This is an international voluntary standard describing specific requirements for an EMS. ISO 14001 is a specification standard to which an organization may receive certification or registration. ISO 14001 is considered the foundation document of the

entire series. A second edition of ISO 14001 was published in 2004, updating the standard.

Development of ISO standards

All the ISO standards are developed through a voluntary, consensus-based approach. ISO has different member countries across the globe. Each member country develops its position on the standards and these positions are then negotiated with other member countries. Draft versions of the standards are sent out for formal written comment and each country casts its official vote on the drafts at the appropriate stage of the process. Within each country, various types of organizations can and do participate in the process. These organizations include industry, government (federal and state), and other interested parties, like various non-governmental organizations. F or example, EPA and States participated in the development of the ISO 14001 standard and are now evaluating its usefulness through a variety of pilot projects.

5.5 ISO 14000

The ISO 14000 series of standards are the first international standards on environmental management systems. The major objectives of these series is to promote more effective and efficient environmental management in organizations and to provide useful and usable tools which are effective, system based and flexible.

The subject matters covered under various ISO numbers are represented in Table 5.1.

ISO Number Range	Subject Matter
ISO 14000-14009 ISO 14010-14019 ISO 14020-14029  ISO 14030-14039 ISO 14040-14049 ISO 14050-14059 ISO 14060	Environmental management systems Environmental auditing Environmental labelling Environmental performance evaluation Life cycle assessment Terms and definitions Environmental aspects in product standards

Table 5.1 Various ISO Numbers

ISO 14000 series of standards provides an opportunity for industrial or generations and enterprises in developing countries for transfer of technology to the developed as well as within the developing countries.

ISO 14000 series on environmental management systems admires the need of people from all sections of the society to protect the environment and the various requirements specified under ISO 14000 including the following:

              (i) Environment policy

             (ii) Planning

            (iii) Implementation and operation

            (iv) Checking and corrective measure

            (v) Management review

          The overall aim of the ISO 14000 environmental management standards is to protect the environment without ignoring the socio-economic needs.

ISO 14001

ISO 14001 is the standard of the ISO 14000 series. It is the reference framework of control of environmental management system (EMS). In the whole series of ISO 14000, various standards are set over supporting or guidance documents. ISO 14001 is the only standard in the whole series to which an organization/company registers for an EMS with an independent third party for evaluation and finally confirmation that the EMS of the organization company is in accordance with ISO 14001 specifications.

ISO 14001 explains the requirements specified under ISO 14000 giving details of what should be done but not on how it should be done. ISO 14001 standard is applicable to any organizations may be private enterprise, public enterprise, company, institution or a fill. The main objective of ISO 14001 is: (i) implementing, maintaining and improving an environmental management system; (ii) ensuring the specified

environmental policy; (iii) demonstrating the confonnance of environmental policy adopted by a party to other parties through an independent, third party registrations or certification of its EMS or through self declaration or confonnance with the standard.

5.6 INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

5.6.1 International Treaties on Environment

Antarctica is deeply covered with ice with an average thickness of about 1800 metres. With increase in distance from the sea, the thickness of the ice increases and reaches up to about 4200 metres. The ice in this continent constitutes about 90 per cent of the world's fresh water reserve. The ice gradually moves outwards from the centre in the form of glaciers such as Lambort and Blardnoce glaciers. After reaching the plateau edge, the large masses of ice break off forming icebergs, also known as ice mountains; which are about 20-60 metres in height and from a few hundred metres to about 50 km in length.

Antarctica, the vast plateau-continent, along with many scattered groups of islands, has an area of about 14 million sq. km. It is assumed that Antarctica initially was a part of a single great landmass called Gondwanaland which also included Australia, South Aftica, SouthAmerica and the Indian subcontinent. About 200 million years ago, Gondwanaland began to break up and all the parts got scattered. Antarctica has an extremely long (about 30,000 km) coastline and is about 2000-2400 metres high. Since the continent is highly elevated, it is also known as the highest continent.

Antarctica is the driest, windiest and coldest of all the continents. It is almost always in fruition state and air is always very dry. Wind reaches here roughly at a speed of about 200 km per hour and frequent blizzards occur in autumn and winter. The average temperature nearer to the coast varies between 273K and 262K while the interior plateau has an average temperature of about 185K. In winter, the land remains in darkness and in summer the sun bathes the continent with the oblique rays during the daytime.

There are no living creatures including plants or trees in the interior of the Antarctica. Mosses and lichens in small numbers are found only in the coastal areas during the short summers. Small fishes, seeds and whales are found in the sea around the continent. There are birds like gulls, terns, petrels and the flightless penguins which live in rookeries in the coastal areas. Nature abounds in krills which are the prey of seals and whales. The krills, on the other hand, survive on microscopic plants called diatoms. The continent is a storehouse of minerals. It is a vast reserve of off­shore oil and natural gas, coal, copper, gold, etc.

Different parts of Antarctica were claimed by seven countries, namely Argentina, Chile, France, United Kingdom, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. However, the Antarctic Treaty signed in 1959 froze all political claims. The Treaty which came into force in June 1961 granted that the continent would only be used for peaceful purposes. The later treaties, such as the Madrid Agreement in 1991, and the Protocol on Environmental Protection in 1998, strengthened the Antarctic Treaty further and imposed a ban on exploitation, prohibited future territorial claims and preserved itI only for non-military scientific research for all the countries in the world and declared the continent as a 'natural reserve'. There are about thirty-six odd permanent research stations in the Antarctica and the United States station on the Sofs Island can be termed as a town and has the only Jet airport of the continent. The population here is only that of the scientists of different scientific stations numbering 900 in winter, which rises to about 11,000 in summer due to arrival of tourists and personnels in the summer research sites. India has set up two manned research stations on Queen Maud in north-east Antarctica after her first expedition in 1982. The two research stations are Dakshin Gangotri and Maitri. The fourteen short articles of the treaty are summarized by Martin Glannere and can be given as follows:

Antarctica is to be used for peaceful purposes only; no military activities of any I kind are permitted, though rnilitary personnel and equipment may be used for scientific I purposes. Freedom of scientific investigation and cooperation shall continue and results of investigation shall be freely exchanged. No prior territorial claim is recognized, disputed or established and no new claims may be made while the Treaty is in force Nuclear explosions and disposing of radioactive wastes are prohibited.

The Basel Convention on minimizing hazardous wastes.

Industrialization has brought about modernization of lifestyle and its associated benefits. Health-giving medicines, labour-saving household appliances, automobiles and ships, paints and detergents, synthetic fibers and polythene packaging, personal computers and TV s-the list of useful manufactured goods is almost endless. But with the goods come the bad effects. Industrial production results in hundreds of millions of tonnes of wastes every year. These wastes include chemical by-products that are hazardous to human health and the environment because they are poisonous, eco-toxic, explosive, corrosive, flammable, or infectious. Too often these wastes pour out of smokestacks and outtake pipes or lie abandoned in dumps or leaky storage drums. Sometimes wastes are shipped off illegally to faraway places, exposing unsuspecting communities to terrible dangers. The cross-border transport of hazardous wastes caught the public attention in the late 1980s. The misadventures of 'toxic ships', such as the Karin B and the Pelicano, sailing from port to port trying to offload their poisonous cargoes, made front page headlines around the world. These tragic incidents were motivated in good part by tighter environmental regulations in the industrialized countries. As the costs of waste disposal skyrocketed, 'toxic traders' searching for cheaper solutions started shipping hazardous wastes to eastern Europe and Africa and other regions.

Once on shore, unwanted shipments are typically dumped indiscriminately, spilled accidentally or managed improperly, causing severe health problems--even death-and poisoning the land, water and air for decades or centuries. These criminal shipments must be stopped and their perpetrators brought to justice. But toxic ships are just a symptom of a much more fundamental problem. If the production of goods did not generate so much hazardous waste, if this waste were not so dangerous, if wealthier communities did not resist new treatment plants and dumps, and if the costs of detoxifying wastes were not so astronomical there would be less financial incentive to cheat and dump wastes illegally. .

Recognizing the gravity of the problem and understanding that the industrial society must fix this major flaw in their system, governments and many forward. looking companies started exploring solutions as early as the 1970s. By the 1980s, the international community launched treaty negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme. In March 1989, they adopted the Basel Convention on the Control of Trans boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. The treaty entered into force in 1992 and now boasts over 160 parties.

Drawing on the principles of environmentally sound management (ESM), the Convention seeks to protect human health and the environment from the dangers posed by hazardous wastes. This will require changing the economic equation for wastes in order to motivate the producers of hazardous wastes and people who benefit from the associated goods to take action. To do this, the Convention sets out a three. step strategy, the steps are as follows:

          (i) Minimize the generation of wastes

(ii) Treat wastes as near as.possible to where they are generated (iii) Reduce international movements of hazardous wastes

          Step one: Minimize the generation of hazardous wastes

The less waste there is to start with, the less money and work and risk is involved in cleaning it up. Cleaner production processes can lower costs for manufacturers while reducing damages to the environment. The most successful industries of the future will include those that become better and better at minimizing unwanted by-products and designing products with fewer hazardous components and become increasingly adept at recycling or reintegrating leftover materials back into the manufacturing cycle. The Basel Convention seeks to hurry this trend along.

All the efforts of the Basel Convention to push responsibility for treating wastes further up the supply chain are geared to promote environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes. ESM involves taking all practical steps to protect human health and the environment from hazardous wastes. In an ideal world, this would mean reducing the generation of hazardous wastes to zero. In practice, ESM means strictly controlling the storage, transport, treatment, reuse, recycling, recovery and final disposal of wastes that, despite best efforts to minimize their generation, occur nevertheless. Also dubbed as the 'integrated life-cycle approach', this strategy provides incentives to companies to monitor and control every step in their production processes, thereby gaining a more realistic understanding of the true costs of generating hazardous wastes. Many companies have already demonstrated that eliminating or reducing hazardous by-products can be both economically efficient and environmentally safe. Some are starting to internalize the costs of their waste generation. The United Nations Environment Programme is working closely with businesses to identify and disseminate 'best practices' as part of its efforts to promote the goals of the Basel Convention. The Convention seeks to encourage this kind of innovation by strengthening its partnerships with industry. The industry shares the responsibility for the wastes that are generated, and only industry has the tools, technologies and financial resources for minimizing these wastes, managing them better, and helping to destroy old stocks. It is time to engage the industry-especially those companies that are effectively tackling their own hazardous waste generation-more comprehensively in solving the global problem of hazardous waste. Leading companies can and are contributing a great deal to develop a vision, a strategy and a programme of action to deal with these issues. Consumers, of course, also have a vital role to play. One of the most critical aspects of ESM is lowering consumer demand for products and services that result in hazardous by-products. Consumers need to educate themselves about the methods used in the production processes and to think about what they buy every day. Everyone who consumes manufactured goods must consider himself or herself as part of the problem, and as a vital part of the solution.

Step two: Treat and dispose off hazardous wastes as close as possible to where they are generated

With the current production technologies, generating at least some hazardous wastes cannot be avoided. So, the preferred option for disposing off these wastes is to do so locally. Local disposal has two important benefits. First, it reduces the risks of accident or spillage during transport. Second, it ensures that the costs of hazardous wastes disposal are borne by the generators of these wastes. Faced with this truer cost equation, factory managers and workers and the communities they live in are more motivated to find safe and innovative solutions. Of course, local solutions are only possible if the necessary legislation and infrastructure are in place. Waste management facilities need to be of a high technological standard. Site operators must be highly qualified and trained. Monitoring must be sophisticated enough to detect any leaks or emissions above acceptable standards. Emergency procedures must be in place in the event of spills or other accidents. There must be safe storage facilities for residues from waste recovery or incineration.

To ensure that these technical requirements are in place, the parties to the Convention have produced a series of technical guidelines. These guidelines detail the environmentally sound management of organic solvents, waste oils, persistent organic pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), household wastes, clinical wastes, pneumatic tires, and other types of hazardous wastes. They also address disposal methods relevant to a range of wastes, notably specially engineered landfills, high temperature incineration, physicochemical and biological treatments. Together, the guidelines provide governments the tools and information they need to ensure environmentally safe management of hazardous wastes.

Plastics are an integral part of the modem economy and are used in automobiles and other consumer goods, buildings, containers, and numerous other products. Many countries manufacture plastic materials, and all countries import plastic products.

          In some countries, plastics are disposed off through open, uncontrolled burning.and landfills. Open burning releases pollutants into the air-including in some cases cancer-causing furan and dioxins-that can cause various health problems for the nearby communities.

The Convention offers various guidelines for ensuring environmentally sound management of plastic wastes. The guidelines address a range of waste management issues, such as sorting for mechanical recycling, health and safety, shipping and transport, feedstock recycling, compaction, energy recovery and final disposal.

Lead-acid batteries offer another sort of challenge. Secondary lead is valuable and is therefore, recycled rather than sent for disposal. The safe recycling of lead-acid batteries-used in automobiles, industrial facilities and portable tools-requires strict environmental and occupational standards that can only be ensured by specialized firms, of which only a few are found in the developing countries. As a result, damaged batteries are often broken up manually. This is extremely dangerous to the workers. Inhaling dust, fumes or vapour dispersed in the workplace air can lead to acute lead

poisoning. The more common problem, however, is chronic poisoning from absorbing low amounts of lead over long periods of time.

The technical guidelines of ESM on waste lead-acid batteries offer managers a set of best practices and principles for setting up effective systems for recycling batteries. They describe how to collect, transport and store used batteries; give specifications for the storage chambers and transport facilities; describe how batteries delivered to the recycling plant should be drained of their electrolytes, identified, segregated, and stored; explain how the recovered lead must be refined in order to remove unwanted contaminants; and address medical issues and public awareness. The guidelines conclude that the most effective approach to collection is to rely on the manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and service stations to retain the old batteries at the time new ones are provided to the customer.

By improving the safety and effectiveness of the local treatment of hazardous wastes, the Basel Convention's technical guidelines will help reduce pressure for transporting these wastes elsewhere. Meanwhile, governments must also address the toxic wastes created by the unsafe procedures of the past. Old landfills and barrels stored in the developed and the developing countries alike continue to contaminate ground water, soil and human health.

It will take decades or centuries, and a huge amount of money and work, to rehabilitate these old sites (some cannot be cleaned up and must be cordoned off). The Convention operates a major worldwide programme for disposal of large quantities of obsolete pesticide stocks and to prevent any further accumulation.

Step three: Minimize international movement of hazardous wastes

The Basel Convention seeks to minimize the movement of waste materials across international borders through an agreed regime of rules and procedures. This regime starts by rigorously identifying the types of wastes that are considered hazardous and are thus subject to the rules of trans-boundary movement.

The Convention currently addresses twenty-seven specific categories of waste and eighteen waste streams that make hundreds of waste materials. This List A wastes exhibit one or more carefully defined hazardous characteristics. Radioactive wastes and wastes from normal ship operations are excluded because they are covered by other international agreements. A second list, List B, contains wastes that are normally considered to be non-hazardous.

Drawing up these lists is not as easy as it might seem. National definitions vary, some chemicals are hazardous in some circumstances and sometimes not, and may contain only very small amounts of toxic chemicals.

The Convention requires every company or broker wishing to export hazardous wastes to ask the Government of the exporting state to provide prior written notification to the competent authorities in the state of import and in the transit States. The importing and the transit States must then give prior written consent before any export can take place.

Each approved shipment must be accompanied by a 'movement document' with a detailed description of the contents and their disposal requirements, from the point at which the export begins to the point of disposal. Hazardous waste shipments made without such documents are illegal. Thanks to the Basel Convention, legal cross ­border movements of hazardous wastes are now fully transparent for all involved and are better justified from the point of view of environmental safety and economic efficiency.

Some hazardous wastes must be treated using highly sophisticated technologies, and shipping them to high-tech plants that have invested in equipment designed to detoxify specific substances can make sense, as not every country can afford to build and maintain specialized plants for every substance. Other wastes are sent to recycling plants in countries where the market demand for that material is sufficiently high to ensure proper recycling. Of course, unscrupulous traders still try to bypass the Convention system now and then. Some try to trick customs officers by diluting hazardous wastes or deliberately mixing them with non-hazardous wastes. And every once in a while a toxic ship can still be seen wandering the seas looking for a port it can enter through trickery or bribery, or for a discrete opportunity to dump its cargo in the open ocean. The Convention, therefore, provides guidance on how to draft and implement national legislation to prevent and punish illegal traffic. When a shipment is judged to be illegal as a result of the exporter's or generator's conduct, the state of export must ensure that the wastes are taken back, or if this is no longer practical, disposed off in an environmentally sound manner. If the illegality results from actions taken by the state of import, that state becomes responsible for ensuring that the wastes are disposed off in an environmentally sound manner by the importer, disposer or by the government itself. In cases where responsibility cannot be assigned, the States concerned, perhaps with the help of others, must cooperate on finding an environmentally sound solution.

In 1995, the parties to the Convention gave the developing countries yet another tool for protecting themselves against unwanted imports of hazardous wastes. Under the so-called Ban Amendment, the countries listed in Annex VII (EU and OECD members, plus Liechtenstein) shall not export hazardous wastes intended for recovery, recycling or final disposal to countries not listed in Annex VII. The ban reflects the concern that many countries not listed in Annex VII lack the financial, technical, legal, and institutional capacity for monitoring trans-boundary movements, managing these wastes in an environmentally sound way and preventing illegal imports. The Ban Amendment, however, has not yet entered into force.

Yet another tool was developed four years later, when the parties adopted the Protocol on Liability and Compensation for damage resulting from the trans-boundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal. The Protocol describes how to determine liability and to ensure adequate and prompt compensation for any damage

in the event of an accidental spill from a legal shipment or dumping by an illegal

trader. It considers each phase of a trans-boundary movement, from the generation of

wastes to their export, international transit, import, and final disposal. It also established an emergency fund, financed with an initial US $500,000, that promises to finance immediate action in the event of an emergency, allowing more time to establish liability.

In December 2002, the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties established a mechanism to promote the identification, as early as possible, of implementation and compliance difficulties encountered by the parties (e.g., in dealing with illegal traffic, meeting reporting obligations, etc.), and to recommend solutions to these difficulties. A Compliance Committee, consisting of fifteen members drawn in equal numbers from the five regional groups of the UN, was established to administer this facilitative mechanism.

The Committee can receive and consider submissions from the parties (about their own or other parties' inability to comply with or implement the provisions of the Convention) and the Secretariat. The Committee can also review the general issues of compliance and implementation as directed by the Conference of the Parties.

At the seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2004, the Compliance Committee was directed to consider the identification and analysis of difficulties relating to reporting obligations, designation and functioning of the national competent authorities and focal points, and the development of a national legislation to effectively implement the Basel Convention under its general review powers.

Taken together, the various tools and procedures all seek to ensure that trade is no longer a cheap and an easy outlet that countries can use to avoid addressing their domestic hazardous waste problems. They have enabled the Basel Convention to achieve during its first ten years of existence its aim of reducing transboundary movements of hazardous wastes, in particular, for final disposal.

The next ten years

Today, the problem of hazardous waste is a global problem that requires not only local and regional, but also global solutions. The Basel Convention promotes these solutions through the exchange of ideas and technologies. It distributes publications that describe ESM. In addition to the various technical guidelines, a manual entitled Model National Legislation for the Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes advises governments on how to establish an effective regulatory system containing the necessary legal and administrative measures. The Manualfar the Implementation of the Convention describes the process for agreeing to and then overseeing the imports and exports of hazardous wastes.

The implementation of the convention is also promoted through a network of fourteen regional centres for training and technology transfer. The centres provide practical and hands-on support on technical, technological and enforcement issues. They also offer training, disseminate information, and promote public awareness. Another resource available to governments is the Convention's Secretariat. The Secretariat works in collaboration with the national authorities on developing national legislation, setting up inventories of hazardous wastes, strengthening national institutions, assessing the hazardous waste management situation, preparing hazardous waste management plans and policy tools, and strengthening enforcement efforts. In case of a hazardous waste spill or other emergency, the Secretariat contacts governments and international organizations that can assist rapidly with expertise and equipment.

With this inftastructure in place, plus the control system and agreements described earlier, the parties to the Basel Convention are now focusing on the full implementation and enforcement of their treaty commitments. Over the coming decade, governments will further minimize unnecessary movements of hazardous and other wastes, prevent and monitor illegal traffic, promote the transfer of safe and well. tested waste management technologies and improve the institutional and technical capabilities of the developing countries and countries with economies in transition. They will collaborate with the industry and the civil society to seek new solutions for minimizing the generation of wastes.

The parties to the Convention will also have greater collaboration and synergies with other organizations and sister conventions dealing with toxic chemicals. In addition to the Basel Convention, two major United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) conventions tackle key aspects of the chemicals lifecycle. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants seeks to reduce and eliminate the release of a particularly dangerous group of chemicals that persist in the environment and bio accumulate in people and animals. The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in international Trade helps governments to decide whether or not to accept imports of certain hazardous chemicals and to refuse imports if they decide that they cannot safely manage them.

At the seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention, the parties shared concerns regarding the unprecedented increase in the hazardous wastes and the challenges to manage these wastes in an environmentally sound manner. As a consequence, the parties adopted the Ministerial Statement on Partnerships forMeeting the Global Waste Challenge, which builds upon the Basel Declaration and ~ the Strategic Plan of the Basel Convention. The statement sets four priority policy I directions for the future: (i) the regional approach, (ii) waste minimization,

                        I (iii) integrated waste management, and (iv) the life cycle approach. The ultimate goal

of activities resulting from this statement is to make the environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes and other wastes a reality on the ground.

However, much more needs to be done. The development and transfer of cleaner technologies and processes must be accelerated. Without a dramatic increase in such technologies in the next ten to twenty years, the generation of hazardous wastes by an expanding global economy could reach unmanageable dimensions. Only by giving the issue a higher profile on the international agenda can governments ensure that action under the Basel Convention wi11lead to an environmentally sustainable future tree from the dangers of hazardous wastes.

Convention on Biological Diversity

Biological divinity is the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological compels in which they occur.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an international treaty adopted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992 with the following three main objectives: (i) Conservation of biodiversity (ii) Sustainable use of the components arising from it, and (iii) Sharing of benefits of genetic resources in a fair and equitable way.

The Convention was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on 5 June 1992 by 154 countries and entered into force on 29 December 1993.

It is understood that biological diversity (the ecosystem, species and genes) is 'a common concern of human kind' and is an integral part of the developing process. The Convention links traditional conservation efforts to the economic goal of using biological resources in a sustainable manner. The Convention also deals with the 'Cartagena protocol on biosafety'.

It reminds the decision-makers (governments, private organizations) that natural resources are not infinite and can be exploited for the benefits of human at a rate that does not lead to the long-term decline of biodiversity. Substantial investments are therefore required to conserve biodiversity and which inturn will bring about substantial environmental, economic and social benefits.

Issues dealt with in the Convention

Some of the issues dealt with in the Convention include:

     1. Measures and incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of bio­diversity

     2. Fair and equitable ways of sharing results of research and development and the benefits arising from commercial as well as other utilization of genetic resources

3. Access to and transfer of technology including biotechnology to government as well as to local communities

4. Scientific and technical cooperation

5. Provision of financial resources

6. Education and public awareness

7. Impact assessment and implement treaty commitments

The Cartagena Protocol: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Biosafety Protocol) was adopted in January 2000 and entered into force on 11 September 200l The main aim of the Protocol was to protect biodiversity from potential risks posed by living modified organisms which is the gift of modem biotechnology.

Global strategy for plant conservation: The recommendation of Gran Canaria Declaration calling for a global plant conservation strategy was adopted by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and a sixteen point plan with an aim to

slow down the rate of plant extinction by 20 I 0 around the world was implemented.

For an effective way of implementation of the issues under the Convention, an international body was established accordingly. The governing body of the convention is the Conference of the Parties (COP), consisting of all the governments that have ratified the treaty (the US has signed the treaty but not ratified). The COP reviews progress under the convention, identifies new priorities, sets work plans for members and if necessary, makes amendments to the convention, creates expert advisory bodies, review progress reports by any of the member nations and .aborates with other international organizations.

The two main organs of this international body are the Secretariat and Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA).

The CBD secretariat is based in Montreal and operates under the United Nations Environment Programme. The main functions are to organize meetings, draft documents, assist in implementation of programmes, co-ordinate with other international organizations.

The SBSTTA is a committee composed of experts from the member governments competent in their respective fields. The key role of such committee is to make recommendations to the COP on scientific and technical issues.

Convention on Fishing and Conservation of Living Resources of the High Seas

The Convention on Fishing and Conservation of Living Resources of the High Seas is an agreement designed to solve problems involved in the conservation of living resources of the high seas through international cooperation. The Agreement was highly essential because of technological development. Some of these resources are in danger of being overexploited.

The Agreement was signed on 29 April 1958 and come into force on 20 March 1966. There are thirty-eight countries that have signed the Agreement and ratified and twenty countries have signed the Agreement but not yet ratified.

To meet the need for food of the world's expanding population, man has developed new technologies to exploit the living resources of the sea and consequently, has exposed some of these resources to the danger of being overexploited. The overexploitation must be stopped for the benefit of mankind and hence must be solved, whenever possible, on the basis of international cooperation through concerted action of all the countries in the world. The Agreement that was signed is in the form of Articles and the salient features are described below.

. Article 1: All States have the right for their nations to engage in fishing on the high seas, subject (i) to their treaty obligations; (ii) to the interests and right of coastal States involved.

. Article 2: The measures render possible the optimum sustainable yield from those resources so as to secure a maximum supply of food and other marine products.

. Article 3: A state whose nationals are engaged in fishing any stock of fish or other living resources in any area of the high seas where nationals of other States are not engaged, must take measures in that area when necessary for conservation of the living resources affected.

. Article 4: If the nationals of two or more States are engaged in fishing any stock of fish or other living marine resources, these States shall, enter into negotiations by way of agreement and take measures for the conservation of the living resources affected.

. Article 5: If the States do not accept measures as referred in Articles 3 and 4 and if no agreement can be reached within twelve months, any party may initiate the procedure contemplated by Article 9 and the measures adopted shall remain obligatory pending the decision of the special commission.

. Article 6: A state whose nationals are engaged in fishing in any area of the high seas adjacent to the territorial sea of a state shall, at the request of that coastal state, enter into negotiations with a view to prescribing by agreement the measures necessary for the conservation of the living resources of the high seas in that area.

. Article 7: Any coastal state may, with a view to the maintenance of the productivity of the living resources of the sea, adopt unilateral measures of

conservation appropriate to any stock of fish or other marine resources in any area of the high seas adjacent to its territorial sea, provided that negotiations to that effect with the other States concerned have not led to an agreement within six months.

. Article 8: Any state which, even if its nationals are not engaged in fishing in an area of the high seas not adjacent to its coast, has a special interest in the conservation of the living resources of the high seas in that area, may request the state or States whose nationals are engaged in fishing there to take the necessary measures of conservation under Articles 3 and 4 respectively, at the same time mention the scientific reasons which in its opinion make such measures necessary, and indicate its special interest.

. Article 9: Any dispute which may arise between States under Articles 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 shall, at the request of any of the parties, be submitted for settlement to a special commission office members, unless the parties agree

to seek a solution by another method of peaceful settlement, as provided for in Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations.

. Article 10: In case of the prescribed disputes under Articles 4, 5 6 and 8, the special commission shall apply the criteria according to the issues involved in the dispute, such as scientific basis of conservation measures, the practicability of measures.

. Article 11: The decisions of the special commission shall be binding on the States concerned and the provisions of paragraph 2 of Article 94 of the Charter of the United Nations shall be applicable to those decisions.

. Article 12: If the factual basis of the award of the special commission is altered by substantial changes in the conditions of the stocks of find and other living marine resources or in methods of fishing, the States concerned may request the other States to enter into negotiations for modifications in the measures of conservation.

. Article 13: The regulation of fisheries conducted by equipment embedded in the floor of the sea adjacent to the territorial sea of a state may be undertaken by the concerned state where fisheries have been maintained and conducted by its nationals, provided the non-nationals are also permitted to do so except in areas where such fisheries have enjoyed fishing for a long time.

. Article 14: In Articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8, the terms 'nationals' means fishing boats or craft of any size having the nationality of the state concerned, according to the law of that state, irrespective of the nationality of the members of their crews.

. Article 15: This Convention shall, until 31 October 1958, be open for signature by all States' members of the United Nations or of any of the specialized agencies, and by any Other state invited by the General Assembly of the United Nations to become a Party to the Convention.

. Article 16: This Convention is subject to ratification. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

. Article 17: This Convention shall be open for accession by any States' belonging to any of the categories mentioned in Article 15. The instruments

     of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

   . Article 18: This Convention shall come into force on the 30th day following the date of deposit of the twenty-second instrument of ratification or accession with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

   . Article 19: At the time of signature, ratification or accession, any state may make reservations to articles of the Convention other than to Articles 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12.

. Article 20: After the expiration of a period of five years from the date on which this Convention shall enter into force, a request for the revision of this Convention may be made at any time by any contracting party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

. Article 21: The Secretary-General of the United Nations shall inform all the States' members of the United Nations and the other States referred to in Article 15:

(i) Of signatures to this Convention and of the deposit of instruments of ratification or accession, in accordance with Articles 15, 16 and 17;

(ii) Of the date on which this Convention will come into force, in accordance with Article 18;

(iii) Of requests for revision in accordance with Article 20;

(iv) Of reservations to this Convention, in accordance with Article 19.

. Article 22: The original of this Convention, of which the Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who shall send certified copies thereof to all States referred to in Article 15.

5.6.2 International Organizations and their Effects

Greenpeace International is a non-governmental organization for the protection and conservation of environment. Greenpeace International uses direct action, lobbying and research to achieve its goals. Greenpeace International has 2.8 million supporters worldwide. It has national as well as regional offices in forty-one countries.

Origin of Greenpeace International

Greenpeace International originated from the formation of the Don't Make a Wave Committee by a group of Canadian and American expatriate peace activists in Vancouver in 1971. Taking its name from a slogan used during their protests against the United States' nuclear testing in late 1969, the Committee came together with the objective of stopping a second underground nuclear bomb test code, named Cannikin by the United States military beneath the island of Amchitka in Alaska. The test could not be stopped, but the organization of the Committee laid the groundwork for Greenpeace International International's later activities. In 1972, following the departure of one of the early pioneers, Dorothy Stowe, from the chairmanship of the Don't Make a Wave Committee, the fledgling environmental group officially changed its name to Greenpeace Foundation. The focus of the organization later turned from

anti-nuclear protest to other environmental issues: whaling, bottom trawling, global warming, old growth, nuclear power, and genetically-modified organisms.

The mission of this independent, global non-governmental organization is to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by the following:

. Catalysing an energy revolution to address the most important threat faced by earth, i.e., climate change.

. Defending the oceans of the earth by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves.

. Protecting the world's remaining ancient forests on which many animals, plants and people are dependent.

. Working for disarmament and peace by reducing dependence on finite resources and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

. Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in products and their manufacturing.

. Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by encouraging socially and ecologically responsible farming practices.

The organization actively addresses many environmental issues by running campaigns, with their primary focus on efforts to stop global warming and to preserve the biodiversity of the world's oceans and ancient forests. In addition to the more conventional methods of environmental organizations, such as lobbying with the politicians and attending international conferences, Greenpeace International has a stated methodology of engaging in non-violent direct action. Greenpeace International uses direct action to attract attention to particular environmental causes, whether by placing themselves between the whaler's harpoon and their prey, or by invading nuclear facilities dressed as barrels of radioactive waste. Some of Green peace International's most notable successes include the ending of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, a (purportedly) permanent moratorium on international commercial whaling, and the declaration of Antarctica as a global park by the Antarctic Treaty, forbidding possession by individual nations or commercial interests. To back up this latter point, World Park I Base was established in the Antarctica, and ran for five years, from 1987 to 1992.

Following are some of the positive environmental changes that Greenpeace International has directly brought about since they began campaigning in 1971.

In 1987, with the launch of a monthly newsletter called Powerline produced jointly by Greenpeace International and the Friends of the Earth provided the city investors and analysts with a wealth of new information on potential liability issues surrounding nuclear power stations. It was so astoundingly successful that the UK government dropped their plans for privatization oft he nuclear industry.

In November 2004, Greenpeace International launched a campaign against the Kimberly-Clark Corporation because its tissue products, including the popular Kleenex brand, have been linked to the destruction of ancient boreal forests. Greenpear,e International charged Kimberly-Clark for using more than 2.5 million tonnes of virgin pulp from the boreal forests to produce its tissue products, including the Kleenex brand. The Corporation purchases pulp from companies that do clear cutting operations in the ancient forests in Ontario and Alberta in Canada. The forests have existed for over 10,000 years-since the 'last ice age'-and are home to endangered wildlife, such as woodland caribou and wolverine. As part of its international 'Kleercut' campaign, Greenpeace has been educating consumers about the links between Kleenex tissue products and ancient forests, moving shareholders to put pressure on Kimberly. Clark and motivating customers to switch to more environment-friendly tissue product manufacturers.

In February 2009, electronics giant Philips bowed to pressure nom Greenpeace International and consumers and became a leader in environment-friendly take-back policies for electronic waste. Then again in February, following a six-month long Quit Coal campaign by Greenpeace International, the Greek Minister of Development stated that the government was not considering coal or nuclear power as part of Greece's energy future. Instead, the Greek government has made its long-term energy plan to exclude coal and promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Recent activities of Greenpeace International 2

                                                                                                                                                               

          1. Greenpeace International blocks whalers from refuelling in Southern

     Ocean Whale Sanctuary

22 January 2008

On the eleventh day of successfully preventing the Japanese whaling fleet from killing whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, Greenpeace

International's activists today, from the Greenpeace International ship Esperanza, blocked the fleet's factory ship Nisshin Maru from being refuelled in the Antarctic waters by the Panamanian registered vessel Oriental Bluebird. In a non-violent protest against the whaling fleet's activities in the Southern Ocean, the activists placed their inflatable boat between the factory ship and refuelling vessel, thus preventing them from coming alongside to refuel. In a statement radioed to the Oriental Bluebird, in Japanese, Spanish and English, Japan whales campaigner Sakyo Noda said, 'The Oriental Bluebird must leave the Antarctic waters immediately: your presence here is unwanted and a threat to the pristine Antarctic environment which has been declared a particularly sensitive sea area by the International Maritime Organization and a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science by the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty'.

2. Greenpeace International calls on the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) to do more to end tropical forest destruction

7 May 2007

Greenpeace International's activists today abseiled from the top of the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Port Moresby, where delegates were gathering for the start of the 42nd committee meeting of the International Tropical Timber Organization, and unfurled a banner which read' lITO Stop Forest Destruction' . Dutch climber Erik Birkhoff said, 'Greenpeace wants lITO to do more to stop forest destruction in the world's tropical forests.' The protection of large expanses of rainforest has become a global issue and was identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the most cost­ effective ways to mitigate climate change. Greenpeace International is highlighting the issue of destruction of tropical forests as representatives from governments meet at the 42nd ITTO meeting in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, a country with serious illegal and destructive logging issues, to challenge ITTO's members to protect rather than trade away the planet's last ancient forests.

3. Greenpeace International launches first public pirate fishing vessel 'list of shame' and demands governments trans

9 March 2007

Greenpeace International came out with the first global database of black listed , illegal fishing vessels, in an attempt to tackle the problem of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUD) fishing, a US $9 billion rogue industry which is destroying the fish stocks and biodiversity in certain ecologically important areas of the oceans of the world. The Greenpeace International database (http:// oceans.greenpeace.org/blacklist), launched at the meeting of the committee on Fisheries of the Food and Agriculture Organizations (FAO) in Rome, aims at publicly identifying the vessels engaged in the so-called 'pirate fishing' and exposing the lack of action by the authorities from preventing the illegal trade. Greenpeace International also released a report showing that governmental attempts to curb pirate fishing through voluntary measures did not have much significant effect on the levels of illegal fishing in some of the most desperate areas of action in the world, particularly the west coast of Africa. 'The fact that Greenpeace International has to publish a global database of blacklisted illegal fishing vessels demonstrates clearly just how little concrete action States have taken to stop this pillage of our oceans,' said Sari Tolvanen of Greenpeace International.

4. Israel takes a significant step today towards becoming a solar leader 26 February 2007

Greenpeace International welcomed the announcement from the Ministry of Infrastructure that the proposed solar power plant in Eshalim, originally proposed in 2001, will finally be put out to tender to private contractors. Greenpeace Mediterranean has led the campaign for renewable energy power plants to be constructed in the region.

5. Massive police presence as activists occupy Monsanto GE facility

     24 April 2006

Massive police presence as Greenpeace International, Jose Bove from Faucheurs Volontaires and Confederation Paysanne occupied Monsanto's seed facility in Trebes, France.

6. Greenpeace International protests environmental impact of world's longest oil pipeline

1 February 2006

Greenpeace International protested as Russia tried to muzzle its own experts on the environmental impact of its plan to build the world's longest oil pipeline, Greenpeace International's activists, today, held a protest at the headquarters of a Russian government agency, accusing it of trying to silence its own environmental experts who oppose their plan for the world's biggest oil pipeline, scheduled to be built through a World Heritage Site around Lake Baikal. Over 80 per cent of the experts, commissioned for assessing the environmental impact of building the 4,200 km pipe-line, rejected the proposal because of its proximity to one of the world's most fragile ecosystems, Lake Baikal-which has been declared a World Heritage Site since 1996. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the proposed pipeline was commissioned by Russia's Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Atomic Supervision in November 2005.

7. Greenpeace International stops Clemenceau leaving European territory 12 January 2006

Greenpeace International's activists intercepted and boarded the French aircraft carrier, the Clemenceau, raising the stakes in the international row over the decommissioning of the Clemenceau, which has been sent to India for decommissioning despite widespread outrage at the high level of asbestos and I other hazardous materials it contains. This morning two activists boarded the

j

carrier 50 nautical miles from the coast of Egypt in international waters.

8. Greenpeace International demands ship's return to France                                                                                                       '

10 January 2006

The Indian Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCM C) branded the French naval aircraft carrier, the Clemenceau, which is being towed to India for scrapping, as an illegal transport due to the hazardous materials, including 500 tonnes of asbestos, on board.

9. North Atlantic: Destruction and fisheries mismanagement 12 August 2005

The Greenpeace International's ship, Esperanza, returned to Halifax today with evidence of deep-sea destruction by high seas bottom trawlers.

10. Greenpeace International: Sixty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki

4 August 2005

On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Greenpeace International renewed its call to world leaders to make real their decades-old commitments to nuclear disarmament and for the Japanese government to abandon their plans of producing nuclear weapons usable material. 10,000 'Wings of Peace' messages sent to Greenpeace International by people from 155 countries were attached to large dove-shaped balloons and flown in front of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Memorial to remember those more than 300,000 people who died in the atomic bombings. 'To honour those killed and to make sure what happened here in Hiroshima never happens again, we must work together to create peace,' said Kieran Longridge of Greenpeace International.

11. Greenpeace International closes world's largest coal port 27 July 2005

Greenpeace International's flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, closed down the world's largest coal export port in Newcastle today and called on Australia to quit coal and tackle climate change by moving to a clean energy economy. The Rainbow Warrior dropped anchor in the channel leading to the Kooragang and Carrington terminals in the Newcastle harbour.

12. Greenpeace International calls for nuclear-free NATO

       16 April 2005

Greenpeace International will join with Bombspotting activists today to make 'citizen inspections' of three military facilities in Belgium in a symbolic action with the aim of pressurizing NATO member States to renounce their nuclear weapons arsenal. The inspections will take place at Kleine Brogel Airbase which houses nuclear weapons, NATO's Brussels headquarters and its SHAPE military headquarters in Mons/Bergen.

Friends of the Earth3

Friends of the Earth is the world's largest grassroots environmental network. It unites seventy-one different national member groups and some 5,000 local activist groups on every continent. With approximately 1.5 million members and supporters around the world, Friends of the Earth campaigns on the most important and urgent environmental and social issues of the present times. It challenges the current model of economic and corporate globalization, while promoting solutions that will help in creating environmentally sustainable and socially just societies. Friends of the Earth follow a decentralized and democratic structure that allows all member groups to participate in the decision-making process.

Mission

The following are the aims of Friends of the Earth:

     . Protecting the earth against further deterioration and repairing damage inflicted upon the environment by human activities and negligence

. Preserving the ecological, cultural and ethnic diversity of the earth

. Increasing public participation and democratic decision-making, both of which are important for protecting the environment and sound management of the natural resources

. Achieving social, economic and political justice and equal access to resources and opportunities for men and women at the local, national, regional and international levels

. Promoting environmentally sustainable development at the local, national, regional and global levels

Activities of Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth works on various environmental and social issues. Through its programme on Climate Justice and Energy, it is are fighting for justice for the communities affected by climate change and promoting energy sovereignty, the right of the communities in choosing their own sources of sustainable energy. It also advocates a strong agreement within the framework of the UN negotiations, a just agreement on climate finance and an end to deforestation, one of the biggest causes of climate change.

The organization's Food Sovereignty Programme aims to stop the production of genetically modified organisms and corporate control over food. It fights for the right of the people to determine their own food systems.

The Forest and Biodiversity Programme of the Friends of the Earth campaigns against illegal logging and deforestation. It works with various communities and the local people to uphold their rights to manage their forests. It also exposes and opposes the negative impacts of monoculture plantations of crops, such as sugar cane, palm oil and soy for producing agrofuels.

Their programme, Economic Justice - Resisting Neoliberalism challenges the current economic model. It exposes and resists corporate power and the new Global Europe strategy and identifies and promotes initiatives that generate sustainable livelihood.

Climate justice and energy

The world today faces two related challenges that threaten the lives and livelihood of billions of people: climate change and global energy crisis. The main reason of these  challenges is our unsustainable level of consumption, which requires huge quantities of energy for production and transportation.Solutions to these challenges lie in the right of different communities to choose their sources of sustainable energy and to develop a healthy consumption level. There is also a need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for all people to equally share resources within ecological limits. Friends of the Earth works for climate justice and energy access through proactive, community-based campaigns and projects.

Food sovereignty

Traditional food production systems like small-scale farming which aims to produce food grain for the local people, is now getting replaced by large-scale agriculture by transnational agribusiness. The climate crisis puts an additional threat on food production.

It is essential to build global food systems based on diverse, localized agricultural solutions. People should be allowed to determine and control their own food systems. This form of agriculture also helps communities to become more resilient to climate change. Friends of the Earth supports small-scale peasant farmers in resisting the corporate powers. The organization helps in building bridges between those who produce and those who consume food.

Forests and biodiversity

The forests of the world are in trouble. Privatization, increased exports and liberalization of international trade have led to a massive increase in large-scale plantations, which produce and export timber and pulp. This has also led to the increase in demand for exotic timber and crops, such as soy and palm.

All these pressures have led to the disappearance of half of the world's forests. These forests need to be protected as they provide livelihood to many local communities and indigenous people. Forests store carbon and regulate our climate and thus are crucial in our fight against climate change. They are also home to various species of animals and birds on earth. Friends of the Earth member groups work in association with the local communities to preserve forests and uphold their rights to manage forest resources and secure sustainable livelihood. It campaigns against industrial large-scale plantations, monoculture production and commercialization of forests and biodiversity.

Economic justice--Resisting neo-liberalism

Trade and investment, development funding and corporate lobbying are the drivers of the present economic model. This model is based on the belief that economic growth and liberalization will make the world a better place. While this has benefited large corporations, it excludes and even harms the most impoverished people while doing little to protect the environment. .

Friends of the Earth challenges the influential big corporations and questions the neoliberal policies of trade that do not take into account the general people's problems. The organization campaigns to change the course of the economy in a dynamic, creative and constructive way. It shares the inspiration and the positive experiences with old and new, just and sustainable development thinking and practices.

5.7 WTO PROVISIONS

A new WTO Secretariat report argues that international economic integration and growth reinforce the need for sound environmental policies at the national and international level. International cooperation is particularly important in addressing trans-boundary and global environmental challenges beyond the control of any individual nation. This would be true even if nations did not trade with one another.

The WTO Secretariat's Trade and Environment report, to be released on 14 October 1999, addresses the economic and political economy dimensions of the interface between trade and environment. The report argues that there is no basis for the sweeping generalizations that are often heard in the public debate, arguing that trade is either good for the environment, or bad for the environment. The real world linkages are a little bit of both, or a shade of grey.

'Every WTO Member Government supports open trade because it leads to higher living standards for working families, which in turn leads to a cleaner environment. This report underscores that trade and environment need not be contradictory, but can indeed be complementary' , said WTO Director-General, Mike Moore.

Among the questions the report seeks to answer are the following: is economic integration a threat to the environment? Does trade undermine the regulatory efforts of governments to control pollution and resource degradation? How can we ensure that economic growth driven by trade will help us to move towards a sustainable use of the world's environmental resources?

Some of the main findings of the report include the following:

. Most environmental problems result from polluting production processes, certain kinds of consumption, and the disposal of waste products - trade as such is rarely the root cause of environmental degradation, except for the pollution associated with transportation of goods;

. Environmental degradation occurs because producers and consumers are not always required to pay for the costs of their actions;

    . Environmental degradation is sometimes accentuated by policy failures, including subsidies to polluting and resource-degrading activities – such as subsidies to agriculture, fishing and energy;

. Trade would unambiguously raise welfare if proper environmental policies were in place; . Trade barriers generally make for poor environmental policy; . Not all environmental standards should necessarily be harmonized across countries;

. The competiveness effects of environmental regulations are minor for most industries;

    . A good environmental profile is often more of an asset for a firm than a liability in the international market-place, notwithstanding somewhat higher production costs;

    . Little evidence bears out the claim that polluting industries tend to migrate from developed to developing countries to reduce environmental compliance costs;

    . Yet, environmental measures are sometime defeated because of concerns

     about competitiveness, suggesting a need for improved international cooperation on environmental issues;

. Economic growth, driven by trade, may be part of the solution to environmental degradation, but it is not sufficient by itself to improve environmental quality-higher incomes must be translated into higher environmental standards;

. And not all kinds of economic growth are equally benign for the environment;

. Public accountability and good governance are essential to good environmental policy, including at the international level;

. Effective international cooperation is essential to protect the environment, especially in respect of trans boundary and global environmental challenges.

. The cooperative model of the WTO, based on legal rights and obligations, could potentially serve as a model for a new global architecture of environmental cooperation.

Meanwhile, even within its current mandate, the WTO could do a few important things for the environment. The most obvious. contribution would be to address remaining trade barriers on environmental goods and services in order to reduce the costs of investing in clean production technologies and environmental management systems. Another contribution would be to seek reductions in government subsidies that harm the environment, including energy, agriculture and fishing subsidies.

5.8

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES FOR ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT IN THE GLOBALIZED WORLD

Globalization

Globalization is a set of economic processes in which production, marketing and investment are integrated across the borders of nations. The liberalization and opening up of markets to the global economy is leading to the emergence of a single market for goods, capital, technology, services, and information and to some extent labour.

Globalization is also a socio-political process because of its impact on culture, governance and domestic policy. The process of globalization is a convergence, though at differing speeds, of many institutional legal, economic, social and cultural practices and processes across the borders of nations. Globalization as an idea is how we looking at the world and reducing cultural diversity in terms of perceptions and products. The logic of globalization is the expansion of trade and investment in search of new markets and more competitive production sites. Companies can choose where they want to locate and people where they want to work and live, in a global market. The current tendency of Multinational Companies (MNCs) or Trans National Companies (TN Cs) to relocate geographically and set up production units in other areas of the world with cheaper labour, more lenient health and safety requirements, lower environmental protection standards and favourable tax laws in order to maximize profits. The rising power of MNCs is skewing the distribution of gains towards the corporations, undermining the authority of national government and civil society, eroding human rights and environmental protection and also influencing the proliferating laws governing trade and investment.

Globalization trends create challenges on a scale and scope and speed unprecedented in world history. Particularly for developing countries, the challenges are increasingly complex to negotiate because they impact across the sectors and at many levels of society. The challenge for policy makers at the different levels of government is to articulate with the global economy so as to harness the potential benefits for national development and minimize the negative effects, as the global trade system has led to increased environmental damage and violation of human rights. F or the development planners, the challenge is to address the effects of rapid expansion of corporate interests. Measures to protect ecological stability for local communities against the benefits of corporate operation, i.e., measures that promote the sustainable use of the environment.

The process of globalization and the global changes affects the development of the cities. Cities comprise a paradox. They embody the leading centers of development, but they are also a fertile soil for social exclusions and environmental problems.

Environmental challenges under globalization

Globalization generates new challenges in preparing strategies for urban development because globalization threatens to exacerbate urban environmental pollution and natural resource degradation. The strategy is to make cities livable, provide environmental services for the urban people and protect urban people against environmental hazards. The challenges due to globalization are as follows:

(i) The concept of the livable city is defined in terms of a healthy and dignified living environment. Therefore, it is important to address the sources of environmental degradation.

(ii) The environmental services for the urban people are to provide cleaner air, cleaner water and healthier cities.

(iii) Protect urban people against urban environmental hazards like global warming, ozone depletion, etc.

          Urban environment

Urban environment encompasses the interaction of population, growth, city management and the built environment with the natural environment or ecological system in which city is located. Urban environment also links other parameters of the urban puzzle like health, energy, infrastructure and land use. A fundamental dimension of sustainable development is sustaining the growth and development of the city while balancing the benefits with complex ecological systems and the global environment.

Urban environmental issues

Urban environmental problems are threats to people's present or future wellbeing, resulting in human induced damage to the physical environment in or borne into urban areas. Urban environmental issues are raised by urban development initiatives and are related to environmental problems. They are as follows:

(i) Localized environmental health problems like inadequate potable water and sanitation facilities, indoor air pollution and excessive crowding.

          (ii) City regional environmental problems like ambient air pollution, inadequate

          and inefficient waste disposal management, pollution of water bodies and loss

          of green areas.

(iii) Extra urban impacts of urban activities like ecological disruption and resource depletion and emission of chemicals and green house gases.

(iv) The urban impacts of regional or global environmental burden that may arise from activities outside the city's geographical boundaries, but will affect people living in the city.

Urban environmental challenges

There are a number of emerging environmental challenges that cities will need to address. They are as follows:

(i) Providing basic environmental services in a way that most effectively protects health.

(a) Access to safe potable water, sanitation and drainage facilities.

(b) Proper management of solid waste collection and disposal.

(c) Reduction of pollution within the households by providing cleaner fuel for cooking and improved household ventilation.

(ii) Identification and implementing integrated approaches to urban environment to prevent and abate the impacts of pollution and degradation.

( a) Ambient air pollution.

(b) Surface water pollution.

(c) Ground water pollution and depletion.

(d) Land use and ecosystem degradation.

(iii) Proper dealing with accidents and environmental disasters deriving from both natural and man made efforts. Some of the worst sites of ecological disaster are found in and around cities.

(iv) Urban poverty and environmental conditions are interrelated. This poverty is exacerbated by environmental threats that account for a large share of ill health, early death and hardships to human beings.

(i)                 Urban environmental factors are affecting human health, particularly in the field of fertility. In some countries, sperm counts are drastically reduced.

(ii)               (vi) Understanding the influence of urbanization on food system, i.e., food supply,

          marketing and distribution. Due to adulterated food supply in urban areas.

(vii) Urban sprawl; the population is increasing in urban areas, leading to the decline in the amount of open space available and urban poor will take up illegal residence on the periphery of the city. These settlements become slums of the most appalling nature and adversely affect the environment.

(viii) Urban consumption and production patterns are the root cause or main culprit of environmental deterioration. Therefore, better urban environmental management is required.With this backdrop of urban environmental issues and challenges, globalization

generates new challenges in preparing strategies for urban development. The effects of globalization will profoundly affect the future development of the urban centers and cities. Therefore the following must be done:

(i) Use the forces of globalization constructively by assessing the local potential and integrating this into strategies for urban development.

(ii) Co-ordinate strategies for urban development and support partnership between public, private and NGOs.

(iii) Use regional and urban identities in adapting to global change.

(iv) Develop innovative and sustainable long-term perspectives in which cities potential strength's are linked to regional competence and culture.

(iii)             Use the global trends to shape the urban environment.

(iv)               (vi) Good urban governance and management is required in view of globalization.

                  Urban governance and management

The increased pace of urbanization and its linkages to economic globalization have reinvigorated interest in good urban governance and management and its links to economic growth. Good urban governance and management is one of the main pillars of sustainable cities. Good governance is primarily through community participation, private sector involvement and the actions of NGOs. Appropriate policy design, decision making, prompt monitoring and evaluation have all relied on networking among the various stakeholders in the urban environment field. The combined efforts of economic, social, political, cultural and ethical factors to define the fundamental of good governance, i.e., fiscal discipline, fair and transparent resource allocation, effective, and predictable regulatory system, independent and just mechanism for conflict resolution, strategic planning, fiduciary responsibility, participatory decision making, safety and security for all, open information flows and ethical behaviour. Good governance in the backdrop of the effects of globalization on urban environment involves the following:

(i) Provision for basic environmental services like sanitation, solid waste collection and disposal management.

(ii) Provision for better environmental management like preventing ecosystem degradation, ozone depletion.

(iii) Improving environmental quality by imposing emission charges on pollution.

(iv) Provision for environmental justice like access to clean air and water.

(v) Specific laws to deal with environmental deterioration.

(vi) Effective tools to protect urban poor against global market hazards.

  (vii) Community involvement becomes more critical to effectively deal with environmental problems.

(viii) Capacity building initiatives to enable all levels of government and other          stakeholders to implement responsive and sustainable programmes