ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT

In contemporary times, growing industrialization with explosive population growth in several countries has highlighted the problem of protecting the natural environs such as plants, animals, water resources, soils, and metals on a world scale. The interaction between natural environments and the human population is considered an important issue, and is described as the problem of ecology and environment.

Ecology

Ecology as a term was coined in 1869, and is a relatively new science. Till recent times it was treated as a branch of biology but is now considered an independent subject. However, it is closely connected with biology. This subject deals with interaction between various living organisms such as plants, animals, and human beings. With the emergence of humans, the need for food, shelter, and transport came to the forefront. In ancient times, humans lived on wild produce and hunting birds and animals. However, in the industrial age, the relation of humans with plants and animals has undergone a fundamental change, and now many living organisms are preserved through human efforts.

Environment and Human Advance

Environment means surroundings, both natural and man-made. Natural elements comprise soil, air, and water on which animals, plants, and people live. A man-made environment signifies food, shelter, and transport facilities such as roads, bridges, dams, and various types of structures used as dwellings.

Ecology and Environment

This environment also includes rural, urban, socio-economic, cultural, and political conditions. The environment has a direct bearing on human efforts. But it would be wrong to think of environmental determinism, for human efforts substantially affect the natural surroundings. Thus, deforestation followed by the production of cereals led to large settlements. On the other hand, changes in climate and river courses led to the desertion of some settlements and migration of populations. Though there have been no major climatic changes since 9000 BC on a world scale, there have been some important regional variations. Thus, many scholars of ancient climate hold that extreme aridity and freezing temperature prevailed in Central Asia in the third and the second millennia Be. Towards the turn of the second millennium BC it was bitterly cold. This compelled many people of south-Central Asia to move towards the Indian subcontinent in search of a less cold area. This migration is attributed to the speakers of the Indo-Aryan language and the Rig Vedic people.

We cannot think of human advance in ancient times without the exploitation of natural resources. The earliest settlements in; India were generally founded near lakes or rivers in hilly, plateau, or wooded areas where people could make stone and bone tools to earn a livelihood. These tools were used for hunting birds and animals, tilling the soil to grow plants and cereals, and also to prepare the sites for setting up dwellings.

Surroundings and Settlements

It was almost impossible to found large agricultural settlements in the Gangetic plains without deforestation and cultivation of the hard alluvial soil. This could be effectively done only with the use of the iron axe and iron ploughshare from about 500 BC. For this, iron mines had to be discovered and the technology for the extraction and the manufacture of iron artefacts had to be developed in various parts of the country. The hard alluvial soil of the mid-Gangetic plains, the red soil of the Vindhyan zone, and the black cotton soil of the Deccan and western India needed iron shares for effective ploughing. Today, safeguarding the natural environment is emphasized. However, despite deforestation, the doab forests continued until the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries when wild animals were hunted in this area. This ecological change was completed only in modern times. In any case, human society progressed at the cost of plants and animals.