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I was never an environmentalist. I never advocated those clean and green projects some concerned folks would reiterate at seminars time and again. Issues of pollution just made me tired. Nitrogen loading reports didn’t ring a bell. Distress about biomass burning didn’t stop me from absorbing every detail of an exhilarating flick I was watching. When scientists were under discussions on how to counter incessant ozone layer depletion, I was probably inside the confines of my room – scanning the pages of my favorite novel.
With all these accounts worth thousands of dismay, people might think I was a complete environmental dope – an excess ecological cargo. Maybe I was just another passive citizen, like the majority of the earth’s inhabitants. Sad to say, that fact is exactly what the problem is. Nothing could be worse than that – being passive, I mean.
My trivial concern for our environment was so alarming that it made me cling to introspection and eventually do something dynamic for this generation. I did some researches, compounded by the things I already knew but had been taking for granted. With these, the quest for unpolluted air, clean waters and majestic surroundings began…
For everybody else’s knowledge, the remarkable biodiversity of the country is directly threatened by deforestation. Water pollution, in addiction, has damaged the fragile marine ecosystems of the nation’s coastal wetlands, mangrove swamps and coral reefs. Aside from this, serious air pollution is another environmental concern.
Certainly, many of us know how at risk our lives are these days due to the innumerable problems facing the environment alongside its hazardous effects. Are we just going to sit back idly until such dilemmas reach critical proportions? An astute answer? No!
Indeed, we are blessed to live in a country well-suited to fit our needs. Consequently, we are inclined to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible. Then again, this is not so. The mineral wealth of the country – copper, gold, silver, nickel, lead, chromium, and the like, does not reproduce itself. These are firmly believed to be exhausted ultimately. Failing to address the problems today means that our descendants will feel the exhaustion a generation or two before they actually would.
In response to the increasing rate of deforestation, I recently joined a tree-planting scheme led by a friend. The thought that a single tree that I plant could create an immense difference in the earth’s biodiversity thrilled me. It took me less than a minute to plant a single tree. But it took me seventeen long years before I finally took part in the planting. Nevertheless, it was gratifying to have one brief liaison with nature that could possibly guarantee our environment’s immortality.
Mother Nature is a picture of a patient nearing death. Definitely, we could not just watch her hurried demise for it is the human race that would be drastically affected. With this regard, is it too much to for us to unite and take actions to nurse her?
Really, I was never an environmentalist. But I could be one! In our own right, we could all be!
by Anjenelle Amante
