Drivers of Environmental Change and Development

According to World Commission on Environment and Development, the environment is where we live; and development is what we do to improve our well-beings. Both are inseparable. Major human driving forces of environmental use include
(a) Demographic change of environment in which there is relationship between population growth and other demographic factors such as migration; (b) Land use and land cover change includes biophysical and social dimensions of rapidly changing land use, human settlement and land cover patterns; (c) Urbanization and industrialization transformation highlights the linkage between dimensions covering environmental services and infrastructures for regulating the environment; (d) attitude and behavior and their role in driving environmental responses and the potential role of alternative development paths; (e) decentralized decision making process promoting the linkages between national, regional and local skills and the constraints to the transfer of policy instruments from one region to another. In recent years, dimensions of environmental change has encompassed a full range of social sciences disciplines necessary to analyze and understand people’s role as both the possible cause and target of environmental change as well as recognizing the local issues and use of local field based geographical studies supplemented by national and regional data. This should provide an indispensable contribution to analyze the key driving forces of land use maintenance and change and especially reflects the wide diversity of economic, social, cultural and institutional
practices and traditional knowledge at the local level (Phagocyte and Chanda, 2004).
This promotes interaction between local and regional communities, conflict prevention and resolution in critical environmental situations. This has direct implications for policy development and implementation in order to develop strong links between research community, policy makers and environmental management experts.

Culture, Ethics and Unity in Diversity

A grand synthesis of cultures, religions and languages of the people belonging to different castes and communities has upheld its unity and cohesiveness. It is this synthesis which made India a unique mosaic of cultures. People belonging to severalfaiths-Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism and Christianity have coexisted forcenturies in a shared space. Diversity in India is not merely confined to racial, religiousand linguistic distinctions but also permeates deep into patterns of living, life styles, landtenure systems, occupational pursuits, inheritance and succession law, together with localpractices, rites and rituals related to social norms and values. The Indian cultural tradition is unique. The notions of dharma (normative order), karma (personal moral commitment) and jati (caste) as the hierarchical principle of social stratification are basic to Indiansociety. Twenty three Indian languages are listed in our constitution and more than 544

dialects are spoken in the country. Pali language was prominent in ancient India. Sanskritenjoyed the status of carrying Hindu Sanskritic culture throughout the country. Thesewere followed by the modern Indo-Aryan languages. The institutional basis of socialorder and socio-economic interaction among communities like Jajmani system remainedunchanged to a large extent. A plural and multi-ethnic society like India would have an overlapping of ethnic, caste and class groupings. There are more than 285 ethnic tribalcommunities in India accounting for over 8 per cent of her population. The tribesthemselves are not a homogenous group, but display remarkable heterogeneity in theirracial, linguistic, religious composition as also in their modes of living and levels ofdevelopment as well as in the level of socio-cultural integration. In spite of this great diversity, India continues to swear by its commitment to secularism and practicesdemocratic form of governance. The federal principle of governance has provided a senseof identity to most people.

Forests, Biodiversity and Land Use

Great variation in climatic conditions has given appearance to variety of forest types including tropical and sub-tropical forests in the Western Ghats and eastern Himalaya, temperate and alpine forests in central and western Himalaya and desertforests in the arid and semi-arid regions of the country. According to Forests Survey ofIndia (2003), about 6, 78,333 km2, constituting 20.64 per cent of its geographical area isunder forest cover in the country. Very dense forest (VDF) however accounts for only

1.56 per cent while the moderately dense forest (MDF) and open forest account for 10.32
per cent and 8.76 per cent respectively. The total forest and tree cover of the country isestimated to account for 23.68 per cent of the country’s land.
India contains a great wealth of biodiversity in its forests, wetlands and marine
areas. The country has 7 per cent of the mammals, 12.6 per cent birds, 6.2 per centreptiles, 4.4 per cent amphibians, 11.7 per cent fishes and 6 per cent flowing plants of theworld. Among plants, endemism is estimated as 33 per cent. India contains 172 species

Physical Landscape

The geological history of India started with geological evolution nearly 4.57 billion years ago. Indian geological formations consist of the Deccan trap, the Gondwanaland the Viviyan and those that originated in Pleistocene, Tertiary and Pr-Cambrian periods. Conventionally the country is divided into three physio graphic regions viz., the Himalaya and associated mountain chain, the Indus-Ganga-Brahmaputra plains and the Peninsular plateau including the coasts and the islands. The Himalayan Mountain covers about 5, 00,000 sq kms of land and extends over 2500 kms from the Karakorum in thewest to the Myanmar in the east. Its width is about 240 kms. World’s 14 highest peaksand few large rivers are located in the Himalaya. Indus-Ganga-Brahmaputra plains located in the northern part of the country, extends for 3200 kms from the River Indus in the west to Brahmaputra in the east. Its width varies between 150-300 kms. The senile peninsular plateau in the south is triangular in shape and has some of the oldest mountains of world with elevation varying between 600 and 800 mts. The Islands includethe Lakshwadeep (36 coral Islands) and the Andaman (200 Islands) and Nikobar (19
Islands). The soils in India fall into seven categories, namely the alluvial soils, Black soils, Red soils, Literate soils, Forests soils, Mountain soils and Desert soils.

Administrative Geography

There has been world over, a significant increase in the expression of concern for the neglect of policy-relevant research in human geography. Only a few geographers in India have evinced interest in this vitally important area in which geographers should contribute significantly with their skills of understanding the ‘natural’ and ‘human’ in synthesis rather than in isolation.

Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System

During the last decade urgency has been shown by geographers for an increased application of remote sensing techniques and GIS not only as part of the curriculum butalso in the researches conducted mostly confined, though not restricted to physical geography. Such techniques are crucially dependent on computer as a tool. Only a fewelitist centres have been able to introduce such courses and are increasingly using these techniques in their researches.

Geography of Health

As a branch, Geography of Health has made significant strides in the period underreview. It has progressed from studies in ecological associations of diseases and attemptsat disease mapping, to investigations into a wider perspective of health and health carewith a focus on human welfare. Cultural and the structural approaches to address theproblems of health and place are dimensions that distinguishes this field of enquire fromits past. However, many, if not all studies stop at a cartographic representation of diseasesshowing inter-state or inter-district variation in the prevalence pattern and hardly movebeyond the level of description.

Cultural Geography

The post-modern discourse has certainly given a new meaning to studies in cultural geography and cultural geography in India has become a shadow of its western incarnation. But, this branch has mostly been used as a way and approach narrating oranalyzing landscape and culture, putting aside the theoretical construction and critique ofthe philosophical ideas as popular in the West. More western scholars than Indian haveevinced interest in cultural forms, mostly of its mythical dimension. The geographical implication of cultural pluralism has hardly received any attention. While ancient Indiantraditions have been overemphasized, few talk about contemporary cultural developmentincluding globalization of culture and its impact.