Environment Problems and Sustainable Development: with Special Reference to Thoothukudi District of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Productive resources, which are vital for economic development of nations, are primarily scarce among nations. Capital being an important productive resource is abundant in industrialized economics. Structural adjustments in developing economics due to the introduction of globalization, since 1991, enabled Indian economy to attract these productive resources in a massive scale. Being the second largest populated nations of the world, India is unable to exploit its labour resources fully, due to the scarce availability of capital. This is one of the main reasons, why India had not achieved the desired level of economic growth, as expected. However the flow of capital movements to India during the post reform period is encouraging. As a result, India has achieved the growth rate of GDP at 7.2% per annum recently. But due to the uncontrolled growth of urbanization and industrialization, expansion and massive intensification of agriculture and the destruction of forests has created heavy pressure on land, forests, water and biodiversity. In the era of globalization, water has considered as an economic goods due to the higher demand. Water quality problem arises due to the extractive industries as well as from various manufacturing and agricultural production processes. Various pollutants are generated as the by product in the production of Pesticides, leather goods, detergent, plastic, pulp and paper. These pollutants have led to major environmental issues such as Forest and Agricultural land degradation, Resource depletion (water, mineral, forest, sand, rocks etc.,), Environmental degradation, Public Health, Loss of Biodiversity, Loss of resilience in ecosystems, Livelihood Security for the Poor. In recent years there has been growing concern about degradation and pollution of environment and climate change as they impact on future development of both the developing and developed countries. In 1992, representatives of over 150 countries met at Rio in Brazil to discuss the environmental issues and their implications for future development of the world. This meeting at Rio is called the ‘Earth summit’ or the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).