From molds to man, the entire living world lives off just a thousandth of all the energy that pours down to the earth from its
central star, the Sun. This tiny fraction of the Solar energy is trapped by the green plants in the most massive of biochemical reactions, photosynthesis, and foods are elaborated. The-foods so built sustain the myriad variety of the living species.
Some of them straight draw their sustenance from the green plants so benefited by the Sun and others, indirectly. The earth itself supplies the water and the mineral requirements of the living world, contributing to the framework as well as the working of the body. In other words, the biological and the physical worlds from an inextricable integrated whole.
This understanding of Nature has led biologists to look for the inter-relationships that ramify through the different forms of life: the increase in numbers within one species has its own impact upon the numbers of other species. As long as Nature worked unmolested by man, proper balance among the constituents of the living world was maintained.
But when man began to bend Nature to satisfy his needs and, worse still, his fancy, he introduced an element of imbalance into its working. When forests yielded place to farms, it was not the landscape alone that suffered. The trees no doubt disappeared but with them also disappeared the deer, the tiger, the beetles, the birds, the lichens, the mosses, the mushrooms and a host of other forms of the living world.
Rodents and sparrows that feed upon the grains found a new haven in this new set-up. And that is not all. With the large trees also disappeared the great up-take of the soil water and its release into the atmosphere through transpiration. Consequently, rainfall suffered.
Subtle changes in the climate set in. Where in the beginning, the land yielded rich crop, over the years the farmer found to his chagrin his land was not as good a proposition as it used to be. He found it increasingly necessary to augment the water and mineral supplies. Pests that he did not suspect appeared and began to reap his harvest.
The tragic part of it was that it was all his own doing. Not that he was not aware of the great danger that was building up but he was too pre-occupied with his immediate gains to pay heed to the warnings. It took the disappearance of several species of animals and the near extinction of quite many others for him to wake up. The frightening increase in this depletion in the numbers of other species lent a new perspective. Ecology, the environmental science, acquired a new importance.
What is Ecology? The word, ecology, is coined from two Greek words, oikos, meaning home, and logos, meaning science. Understanding of the home environments of each plant and animal species is the subject-matter of ecological studies.
Understanding the mutual impact of the various species living in a given locality is also the subject-matter of ecological studies. It is hoped that with this understanding, there would grow a greater consciousness which would bring man and his technological civilisation in tune with Nature’s schemes.
The ecologist protests against the release of factor effluents into a nearby stream for it is not the fish alone that is affected but also the cattle and the men that drink this water and eat that fish. At Malapadu in Andhra Pradesh, the cattle-heads suffered initially paralysis of limbs and finally death due to the lead-poisoning caused by the effluents led into a nearby stream from a factory that extracted copper from the rich copper ore of a neighbouring hillock. It is feared that men living in the area are in real danger of suffering a similar fate if they continued to draw their water supply from this stream.
The stately palmyrah palms of Ennore in Chennai have almost disappeared, thanks to the sulphurous fumes that keep pouring out of the chimney of the fertiliser factory there. So often, the effects are not this visible. They tend to be subtle and insidious. The ecologist warns us against these and his warnings can be ignored only at the peril of the human species.
Nature works in ecosystems. An ecosystem comprises a group of living organisms and their physico-chemical environment. A system is an entity in its own right.
Disturbance at one point is sure to have repercussions all over the system and if not repaired on time, the system is liable to disintegrate. In every ecosystem, there is a balance naturally attained in which each component is in perfect harmony with the rest. When man clears a forest or builds a dam, he interferes with the ecological balance that has been there.
Without intending it, he disturbs the ecological balance of the area and is seeking to establish a new ecosystem. A new system can come only in the place of an old one. In the bargain, the component inhabitants of the old system disappear. When older ecosystems are upset over a large area, the migratory, the adaptive and such other limitations cause the total disappearance of a few species.
This is undesirable not only because the richness of the flora and fauna suffer but more so because in the new dispensation, there might be unforeseen and disastrous consequences. For instance, the rich American’s fancy for money purses made of snakeskin let loose a ruthless rampage “on rat snakes in south India”.
The near elimination of this variety of snake has caused a burst in the numbers of field rats in our paddy areas and I wonder what it cost the Indian exchequer! It occurs to me that the acute frog-hunting indulged in by our money-crazy exporters is responsible for the resurgence of malaria, for with the diminishing numbers of frogs that feed on them, the mosquitoes multiplied and that may be the reason why we have a National Malaria Eradication Programme again on our hands. Far fetched, you might say, but quite probable, I say!
All this, however, is not to say that man should give up his technology orientation or that he should go back to primeval conditions fighting his inter-specific battle with the rest of the living world, unaided by adjuncts of civilisation. It is only to remind ourselves that much as we might wish we were not, we are part and p
arcel of a natural ecosystem and that our survival, if it should be comfortable, depends very much on the preservation of this ecosystem. We disturb this ecological balance that Nature worked out through ages and handed down to us, only at our own peril.
central star, the Sun. This tiny fraction of the Solar energy is trapped by the green plants in the most massive of biochemical reactions, photosynthesis, and foods are elaborated. The-foods so built sustain the myriad variety of the living species.Some of them straight draw their sustenance from the green plants so benefited by the Sun and others, indirectly. The earth itself supplies the water and the mineral requirements of the living world, contributing to the framework as well as the working of the body. In other words, the biological and the physical worlds from an inextricable integrated whole.
This understanding of Nature has led biologists to look for the inter-relationships that ramify through the different forms of life: the increase in numbers within one species has its own impact upon the numbers of other species. As long as Nature worked unmolested by man, proper balance among the constituents of the living world was maintained.
But when man began to bend Nature to satisfy his needs and, worse still, his fancy, he introduced an element of imbalance into its working. When forests yielded place to farms, it was not the landscape alone that suffered. The trees no doubt disappeared but with them also disappeared the deer, the tiger, the beetles, the birds, the lichens, the mosses, the mushrooms and a host of other forms of the living world.
Rodents and sparrows that feed upon the grains found a new haven in this new set-up. And that is not all. With the large trees also disappeared the great up-take of the soil water and its release into the atmosphere through transpiration. Consequently, rainfall suffered.
Subtle changes in the climate set in. Where in the beginning, the land yielded rich crop, over the years the farmer found to his chagrin his land was not as good a proposition as it used to be. He found it increasingly necessary to augment the water and mineral supplies. Pests that he did not suspect appeared and began to reap his harvest.
The tragic part of it was that it was all his own doing. Not that he was not aware of the great danger that was building up but he was too pre-occupied with his immediate gains to pay heed to the warnings. It took the disappearance of several species of animals and the near extinction of quite many others for him to wake up. The frightening increase in this depletion in the numbers of other species lent a new perspective. Ecology, the environmental science, acquired a new importance.
What is Ecology? The word, ecology, is coined from two Greek words, oikos, meaning home, and logos, meaning science. Understanding of the home environments of each plant and animal species is the subject-matter of ecological studies.Understanding the mutual impact of the various species living in a given locality is also the subject-matter of ecological studies. It is hoped that with this understanding, there would grow a greater consciousness which would bring man and his technological civilisation in tune with Nature’s schemes.
The ecologist protests against the release of factor effluents into a nearby stream for it is not the fish alone that is affected but also the cattle and the men that drink this water and eat that fish. At Malapadu in Andhra Pradesh, the cattle-heads suffered initially paralysis of limbs and finally death due to the lead-poisoning caused by the effluents led into a nearby stream from a factory that extracted copper from the rich copper ore of a neighbouring hillock. It is feared that men living in the area are in real danger of suffering a similar fate if they continued to draw their water supply from this stream.
The stately palmyrah palms of Ennore in Chennai have almost disappeared, thanks to the sulphurous fumes that keep pouring out of the chimney of the fertiliser factory there. So often, the effects are not this visible. They tend to be subtle and insidious. The ecologist warns us against these and his warnings can be ignored only at the peril of the human species.
Nature works in ecosystems. An ecosystem comprises a group of living organisms and their physico-chemical environment. A system is an entity in its own right.
Disturbance at one point is sure to have repercussions all over the system and if not repaired on time, the system is liable to disintegrate. In every ecosystem, there is a balance naturally attained in which each component is in perfect harmony with the rest. When man clears a forest or builds a dam, he interferes with the ecological balance that has been there.
Without intending it, he disturbs the ecological balance of the area and is seeking to establish a new ecosystem. A new system can come only in the place of an old one. In the bargain, the component inhabitants of the old system disappear. When older ecosystems are upset over a large area, the migratory, the adaptive and such other limitations cause the total disappearance of a few species.
This is undesirable not only because the richness of the flora and fauna suffer but more so because in the new dispensation, there might be unforeseen and disastrous consequences. For instance, the rich American’s fancy for money purses made of snakeskin let loose a ruthless rampage “on rat snakes in south India”.
The near elimination of this variety of snake has caused a burst in the numbers of field rats in our paddy areas and I wonder what it cost the Indian exchequer! It occurs to me that the acute frog-hunting indulged in by our money-crazy exporters is responsible for the resurgence of malaria, for with the diminishing numbers of frogs that feed on them, the mosquitoes multiplied and that may be the reason why we have a National Malaria Eradication Programme again on our hands. Far fetched, you might say, but quite probable, I say!
All this, however, is not to say that man should give up his technology orientation or that he should go back to primeval conditions fighting his inter-specific battle with the rest of the living world, unaided by adjuncts of civilisation. It is only to remind ourselves that much as we might wish we were not, we are part and p
arcel of a natural ecosystem and that our survival, if it should be comfortable, depends very much on the preservation of this ecosystem. We disturb this ecological balance that Nature worked out through ages and handed down to us, only at our own peril.This caution administered, I would like to wind up narrating to you a natural chain that Julian Huxley mentioned. He was talking to an audience on how England fought to the last man and woman, including widows and old spinsters, in that catastrophic war of 1939-1945.
Those old ladies were considered non-essential and ordered to villages where they moved along with the kittens. The kittens roamed in the surrounding fields for their nocturnal predations, feeding upon field rats. With the decline in the population of field rats, there was a spurt in the bumble bee population and with that there was increased pollination in clover, the fodder for the English cattle. Well-fed, the English cattle yielded more beef and the English soldier who had more beef to eat, grew stronger and fought better. You may not believe it but I would like to think that the Second World War was won on the strength of this ecosystem!
Those old ladies were considered non-essential and ordered to villages where they moved along with the kittens. The kittens roamed in the surrounding fields for their nocturnal predations, feeding upon field rats. With the decline in the population of field rats, there was a spurt in the bumble bee population and with that there was increased pollination in clover, the fodder for the English cattle. Well-fed, the English cattle yielded more beef and the English soldier who had more beef to eat, grew stronger and fought better. You may not believe it but I would like to think that the Second World War was won on the strength of this ecosystem!
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