Ch 15Environment and Sustainable Development — Class 11 Economics, concept-first.

"The environment, left to itself, can continue to support life for millions of years. The single most unstable and potentially disruptive element in the scheme is the human species" — so runs an old,…

The environment can be thought of as the entire planetary inheritance — the whole stock of resources handed down to us — together with everything that lives and does not live within it.

India is richly endowed by nature — fertile soils, hundreds of rivers and tributaries, dense forests, large mineral deposits, a long coastline on the Indian Ocean, and extensive mountain ranges.

Environment and economy depend on each other. Development that ignores its effects on the environment ends up destroying the very natural base that supports all life.

Because ignoring the environment ultimately destroys it, India needs practical strategies that let development continue while protecting nature. Several such approaches are being pursued.

Economic development, aimed at producing more goods and services for a growing population, steadily increases the pressure on the environment.

The environment and its functions. The environment is the total planetary inheritance — all its biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) elements together.