The presence of beautiful and attractive environment around us is called nature. Nature is our mother, it nourishes and nurtures us. All basic necessities of life are provided from nature. Nature provides vital basic services to support human survival, such as food to eat, the water to drink, air to breathe and land to live. It is mother nature which nurtures us never harms us. It saves us from many deadly diseases which can cause our death. Those who live close to nature enjoy a healthy and peaceful life. Nature presents sweet sounds of birds that touches our ears, sound of running fresh air which rejuvenate us, rattling of the breeze enlivens our soul, sounds of running water in the rivers makes us move within. All the great poets and writers write when they encounter any attractive, charming and heart rendering scene of the nature. He earned name and fame being with nature. Nature is the greatest teacher, it teaches the lesson of immortality and mortality.Close contact with nature broadens our vision and makes our sight penetrative enough to penetrate into the mysteries of the world. Those who are away from nature, can’t fathom the beauty that it holds.The nature is a force that takes us into the world of imagination and produces lofty ideas and feelings if those emotions and feelings are caged and utilized will change the world.Words worth is known as the poet of nature, he had been in close communion with nature and wrote everything on Nature.Our planet earth is rich in nature. Nature is the most precious gift of God. All natural things make nature more attractive like flowers, birds, plants, animals, rivers, lakes, valleys, seas, hills, forests, land and sky are all components of nature. The scenic beauty around us is nature. The natural cycle of our ecosystem is very necessary for the survival of organisms. We all must take care of all components that make our nature complete. We should not pollute air, water because they are gifts of nature. Human activities are harming and damaging the natural components which promotes life on earth.Nature conservation is the moral philosophy and conservation movement focused on protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protecting biological diversity. A range of values underlie conservation, which can be guided by biocentrism, anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, and sentientism There has recently been a movement towards evidence-based conservation which calls for greater use of scientific evidence to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts. As of 2018 15% of land and 7.3% of the oceans were protected. Many environmentalists set a target of protecting 30% of land and marine territory by 2030. According to Gifford Pinchot, “Conservation means the wise use of the earth and its resources for the lasting good of making”. Earth’s natural resources include air, minerals, plants, soil, water, and wildlife. Conservation is the care and protection of these resources so that they can be preserved for future generations. It includes maintaining diversity of species, genes, and ecosystems, as well as functions of the environment, such as nutrient cycling. Conservation is similar to preservation, but while both relate to the protection of nature, they strive to accomplish this task in different ways. Conservation seeks the sustainable use of nature by humans, for activities such as hunting, logging, or mining, while preservation means protecting nature from human use. Conservation goals include conserving habitat, preventing deforestation, halting species extinction, reducing overfishing, and mitigating climate change. Different philosophical outlooks guide conservationists towards these different goals. The principal value underlying many expressions of the conservation ethic is that the natural world has intrinsic and intangible worth along with utilitarian value – a view carried forward by parts of the scientific conservation movement and some of the older Romantic schools of the ecology movement. Philosophers have attached intrinsic value to different aspects of nature, whether this is individual organisms (biocentrism) or ecological wholes such as species or ecosystems (ecoholism). More utilitarian schools of conservation have an anthropocentric outlook and seek a proper valuation of local and global impacts of human activity upon nature in their effect upon human wellbeing, now and to posterity. How such values are assessed and exchanged among people determines the social, political and personal restraints and imperatives by which conservation is practiced. This is a view common in the modern environmental movement. There is increasing interest in extending the responsibility for human wellbeing to include the welfare of sentient animals. Branches of conservation ethics focusing on sentient individuals include ecofeminism and compassionate conservation. Every major religion of the world explains the purpose of nature. In Islam the purpose of nature is for man ‘to study nature in order to discover God and to use nature for the benefit of mankind’. Nature can be used to provide food for mankind and its bounty is to be equally distributed among all peoples. All activities that cause harm to mankind and in turn destroy nature are forbidden. Destruction of the natural balance is discouraged, for example, unnecessary killing of animals or removal of vegetation may in turn lead to starvation due to lack of food. Modern-day Muslims scholars advocate that scientists and scholars are best motivated by these underlying values when undertaking scientificendeavours. The Islamic view of nature has its roots in the Quran, the very word of God and the basis of Islam. The following passages from the Quran illustrate the relationship between nature and man and how this relationship inspires Muslim scholars to study natural phenomenon, in order to understand God. The following verses also show the way the Quran presents the whole universe: We created not the heavens, the earth, and all between them, merely in (idle) sport; we created them not except for just ends. But most of them do not understand (Surah Al-Dukhān 44: 38-39). Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth; In the alternation of the night and the day; In the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; In the rain which Allah sends down from the skies And the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; In the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; In the change of the winds and the clouds which they trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth – (here) indeed are Signs for a people that are wise (Surah Ad-Baqarah 2: 164). Thus mankind is inspired to study, understand and mould the natural forces for its own purposes. This view of nature influenced the scholars of the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ to undertake scientific activities that resulted in the vast corpus of scientific works of that era. One must read Plato, Aristotle, Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Charles Darwin etc to know about origin of life in scientific perspective. It is clear that nature provides us with all the essentials for our daily needs. Due to overpopulation and human negligence we started to over-exploit our resources. If this continues, there will be no resources left for our future generations.
The need to conserve the resources are: (i) To support life by supporting ecological balance (ii) To ensure that the future generations will be able to access the resources (iii) To preserve the biodiversity (iv) To ensure human race survives. It is believed that current COVID-19 pandemic is the cause of increased human activities. There are two main ways in which the change in environment is increasing the threat of pandemics such as the current coronavirus outbreak: First, with growing human settlements and land-clearing for agriculture, the transition zonesbetween different ecosystems have grown. This leads species from different habitats to mixing and interacting with each other in new ways. These new contacts provide new opportunities for diseases to jump between species, as coronavirus did. The second important driver for theemergence of zoonotic diseases is biodiversity loss. With decreasing biodiversity, disease vectors – those animals that carry and transmit an infectious pathogen – are more likely to feed on vertebrates than other species which are no longer as abundant. Those other species then become the primary reservoir of the pathogen. The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem, it will avail us little to solve all others. The terms conservation and preservation are frequently conflated outside the academic, scientific, and professional kinds of literature. The US National Park Service offers the following explanation of the important ways in which these two terms represent very different conceptions of environmental protection ethics: ″Conservation and preservation are closely linked and may indeed seem to mean the same thing. Both terms involve a degree of protection, but how that protection is carried out is the key difference. Conservation is generally associated with the protection of natural resources, while preservation is associated with the protection of buildings, objects, and landscapes. Put simply, conservation seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks protection of nature from use. During the environmental movement of the early 20th century, two opposing factions emerged: `conservationists and preservationists. Conservationists sought to regulate human use while preservationists sought to eliminate human impact altogether. ″Nature conservation is very important for the future generations, if we will damage the nature our future generations will suffer. The technological advancement is adversely affecting our nature. The man is inclined to seek the progress and prosperity, in the quest and search of success they man has forgotten the value and importance of nature around. The ignorance of people is the biggest threat to nature. It is our duty to aware people and make them understand the importance of nature so that they do not destroy it in the search of progress. The selfish activities of humans have destroyed forests, polluted water bodies, used land for industries and factories, burning of fossil fuels is polluting air and above all hunting birds and animals have become their hobby. Everything that we are damaging, destroying and killing is the part of our nature. This continuous depletion of natural resources is a threat to our lives. Reduce use of fossil fuels to conserve nature.World Nature Conservation Day, July 28, 2021 is celebrated internationally to increase awareness about the best practices to protect our natural resources. Nature conservation is the moral philosophy `and conservation movement focused on protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protecting biological diversity. The Earth is supplied a limited amount of properties that we all rely upon each day like water, air, soil and trees. Nature is facing huge problems like deforestation and illegal wildlife trade on the rise. Everyone must promote environment-friendly activities in their daily life to lead a Green Lifestyle. Swachh Bharath Abhiyaan, Project Tiger, Mangroves for the future (MFF) is some initiatives that India has undertaken to conserve nature. World Nature Conservation Day acknowledges that a healthy environment is the foundation for a stable and healthy society. Earth’s natural resources include air, minerals, plants, soil, water, and wildlife. In brief, nature is our mother, it blesses us healthy life. We should not disturb the cycle of nature by polluting water, air and land. We should worship nature instead of cursing it.
( While Bilkees Nazir, Research scholar in the department of zoology, University of Kashmir Hazratbal Srinagar, Dr Bilal A Bhat is Associate Professor at S K University of Agriculture Sciences & Technology-SKUAST Srinagar. Views are their own)
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