The Environment in India: Episodes 1-3

1: The Lure of Pink Gold

That there is a crisis in the fishing industry in this country is by now pretty well-known. Catches are way down and species such as New England cod are in trouble because of over and indiscriminate fishing.

There's also a crisis in many Third World fisheries. Same symptoms. But not necessarily the same causes.

Prime example: the Kerala prawn fisheries, off India's southwest tip, one of the oldest and richest fishing grounds in the world. Kerala's been exporting most of its prawns to Europe, Japan, and to this country.

Kerala fishermen have got rich fishing prawns for export in this LURE OF PINK GOLD. But many more are hurting, unable to catch enough to make ends meet. These fishermen say the West's responsable. Others say the real vilains are much nearer home.

 

2: The Chipko Movement

Forest cover in India was 30% in 1947. Now it is less than 10% and shrinking daily in the endless search for fuel for cooking.

In parts, the Himalayas are denuded. In the popular mind this causes soil erosion and massive floods in the plains below.

In the 1980s, some villagers decided to take matters into their own hands and fight back against mindless deforestation of their hills, and thus was born the CHIPKO movement.

 

3: The Green Revolution

In the 1950s and 60s, the United States regularly sent millions of food and wheat to prevent starvation in India. But in 1985, how many remember that India sent wheat to the starving in Ethiopia?

In little more than a generation, India had gone from basket case to bread basket, capable of feeding not just its own population, but other, less fortunate countries as well.

In Africa and Latin America, many have since tried, often unsuccessfully, to copy the spectacular success of the GREEN REVOLUTION. But in India itself, attempts to spread the Green Revolution have also often been unsuccessful, and many now question whether the GREEN REVOLUTION was such a revolution after all.