People plant saplings in Guwahati. Picture by S.H. Patgiri

In the Northeast, many of the environmental issues which need to be prioritised in the coming years will be aggravated forms of today’s issues, issues that currently exist and are known. With time, they will become more severe and are bound to pose major local and regional/global challenges.

Time is running out and if they are not addressed even now, they will snowball into major environmental crises. Interestingly, in many cases, the crisis is emerging due to lack of preventive measures. Such issues continue to evolve and broaden and intensify due to changing socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions. Unfortunately, due to a chronic lack of scientific and technical knowledge, they still remain least understood.

An example is the severity of natural hazards and the incidence of biological invasions by non-indigenous species. Invasive species are the second leading cause of bio-diversity loss after habitat destruction. The other important cause of environmental degradation of the Northeast is the lack of an environmental consciousness in the society.

Future action can thus be focused on four key areas, which are cross-cutting, such that actions required to address one area are likely to benefit other areas as well.

• Filling up the knowledge gaps

• Tackling root causes

• Taking an integrated approach

• Mobilising action

Information on the current state of the environment in the Northeast is lacking. There is no mechanism to know whether the actions already undertaken have achieved the desired results. So far, environment has not been taken as seriously as the social, economic and other components of regional planning. Critical gaps exist between macro-economic policy-making and environmental considerations. Data sets on environmental quality are severely lacking or non-existent. There is a dearth of relevant socio-economic data as well. This weakness needs to be addressed urgently.

Several root causes of environmental problems in the Northeast evades action, notwithstanding broad environmental policies already being in place. For example, to address the process of excess and indiscriminate resource consumption, a key factor of environmental degradation, it is essential to reduce population growth, reorient consumption patterns, increase resource-use efficiency and make structural changes in the region’s economy.

Such measures, ideally, need to simultaneously meet other requirements, such as maintaining living standards of the wealthy, upgrading living standards of the disadvantaged, and increased sustainability. Often it means a shift in values away from material consumption.

For integration of environmental thinking into the mainstream of decision-making related to agriculture, trade, investment, research and development, infrastructure and finance, it is now the best chance for effective action. For example, environmental economics can be put to good use to stress the high economic value of environmental goods and services, and the high costs of poor environmental management or inaction. Environmental policies that encompass broad social considerations are most likely to make a positive and lasting impact in the case of the Northeast, particularly when issues like water, land and other forms of natural resources management and forest conservation are considered.

A better integration of local and regional actions, with the efforts undertaken by international and other agencies engaged in the region, is also necessary. It, however, should be kept in mind that integrated management requires an understanding of the inter-linkages involved with an issue and an assessment of the results and risks that the actions may have.

Time for a rational, well-planned transition to a sustainable system in the Northeast is running out fast. Understanding of the socio-economic causes of environmental depredation and sustainability issues is needed in order to define the priority issues and suggest ways of addressing them.

Solutions to environmental issues must come from co-operative action between all those involved -- individuals, NGOs, industry, local and national governments, and international organisations. Of all these groups, individuals are vitally important as their cumulative lifestyles make huge impacts. The general public’s knowledge of the environment is the foundation on which environmental policies build. While there are instances of many tribal communities of the Northeast traditionally having strong environment-friendly skills and practices, this knowledge is generally seriously deficient among the urban community.

Over the last century, the state of the environment in the Northeast has declined in virtually all aspects. Environmental degradation and resource depletion have escalated over the recent decades due to cumulative impact of rapid growth in population, intensive agriculture, mining, oil-exploration and urbanisation. Often, the main cause of most of these problems is the persistence of economic, agricultural, energy, industrial and other sectored policies that have largely neglected and failed to avoid harmful impacts on the environment and natural resource base of the region.

Forests are shrinking, air pollution is emerging as an issue of growing concern, urbanisation rate is accelerating, and above all, the rich bio-diversity is in need of greater protection than ever. Some losses are irreversible and the cost of remedial action is always far greater than preventive action. Thus, regular monitoring, assessment and public reports on the state of the environment are becoming particularly crucial for timely measures. Data on environmental conditions and trends need to be improved as well as combined with existing socio-economic data to provide a better basis for sustainable planning and decision-making. As far as the Northeast is concerned, it is possible that re-consideration of some conservation practices and community-based approaches prevailing in some indigenous societies may provide us with vital clues for a modern environment management plan for the region.

As regards the role of the industries in the Northeast, the somewhat improved environmental performance of a few large-scale industries has not been echoed by small-scale and medium-sized firms, which need both help and encouragement. The few large industries must co-ordinate and exchange information with other industries and between the sectors for more widespread action. They must also help small and medium-sized industries with voluntary action, by implementing the “triple bottom line” (social, economic and environmental accountability, or people, profit and planet). It is clear that environmental management, particularly in the Northeast, cannot be separated from the improved management of human society. The large majority of the inhabitants of the region still lives in dire poverty and projected trends indicate increasing discrepancies between those that benefit from economic and technological development and those that do not.

This unsustainable progression of extremes of wealth and poverty threatens the stability of the whole social system of the region, and with it, that of the environment. All the partners involved, government, inter-governmental organisations, the private sector, the scientific community and NGOs need to work together to resolve the economic, social and environmental challenges, which are perhaps more complex in the Northeast than anywhere else, in the urgent interest of sustainable future for the region and its people.