How to build a culture to preserve our nature?

Few years back I wrote a column in  Ys Men International a social organisation bulletin on the importance of loving the nature with title “Am I in love with her?“. Even my wife had a shock when she saw the heading J . Since our topic of discussion is around preserving nature, let me take few leafs from that article. If you love / has a potential to love nature, you will surely like this piece of share. By her, I was mentioning about the nature around me. Its also heartening to know that Ys Men International this year has taken up “Be with nature” as its project. 

I have a small beautiful garden on my roof top as well as portico. It gives me lot of pleasure when I see a new flower / fruit / vegetable grow. This erases the many a pressure / trouble you have in life. It gives a new energy for the day to live. May be the oxygen you get at that time, plays the trick. Who knows? Stop your never ending run behind money and fame for a while and think, see the nature around you. How beautiful its. Have we done anything to make it more beautiful? Have we helped to make it clean? Have we benefited from it?

There are many ways in which we can benefit and we can give back to We can. If we decide so. What are the ways in which we can bring a difference? Here are some simple things that we can do to make a habit to retain our nature and build it better.

Garden – have some good plants that has multi colored leaves and flowers. That add color to your life. After having small, but beautiful garden, I have started meeting like minded people and funny thing is that we exchange seeds and saplings on old age barter system. The fragrance of the flowers wipes out the bad breath in the polluted environment. Keep a simple objective that I will add one species every month. I even give saplings as gift to my dear ones.

Trees – plant a tree on every special occasion (like birthdays, wedding anniversaries etc in your family). It will provide pure oxygen for you. It also prevents soil erosion and conserves water. We could have controlled most of the flood impact recently, had we got enough forestation. Once grown up sufficiently, it can be used for furniture as well. I have a bit of land which I maintain like a man made forest with lots of teaks, coconut trees etc.

Vegetables and fruits – a bit of back yard or terrace space can give you your day’s fibrous food, free from chemicals, yet cut down on your monthly budget. Collect different coloured vegetables and fruits. That gives us all the body wants. Make it a habit to eat seasonal fruits and vegetables.  Fruits like Papayas, planton, banana, water apple, custard apple, lemon, mango, jack fruit, chikku, guava, tomato, pine apple etc are easy to be cultivated. So is eatables like tapioca, yam, chembu etc. vegetables like spinach (cheera) – that too different variety like chaya manza, normal keera, green / red spinach etc grow very fast. A bit of lady finger, chillies, cabbage, cauli flower, beans, brinjal, palaks are easy to maintain. I even have a rare collection of medicinal plants. Plants such as thulsi, muyal cheviyan, pani kuruka etc are easy grow able bushes and really good medicines for fever etal.

Solar energy saurorjam (not sarithorjam) – tapping energy from non-conventional energy will help sort out the power scarcity and no need to fear power cuts. Also can save a bit of money on electricity charges as well. We can run any kind of devices like even fridge, iron box, television, computer and AC also with solar energy. Now a day there is provision to give back power to state power grid, which will be equivalent to an income to us. We can have solar water heater also implemented. Wind energy and tidal energy also are good options, if there is provision to invest more. Solar lanterns are very common since thirty years. We keep thinking of investment since we have conventional energy available, but soon (within twenty years) there will be severe power scarcity and its better we switch to non-conventional energy earlier.

Rain water harvesting – why curse the water authority and old poor pipes when you can benefit from natural rain water. Collect the water from roof top to a tank and use it as needed. This is comparatively less costly affair. No need to do any additional overhead pipe fittings. Just let the rain water flow and be diverted to a sump / tank. From there it can be used. Common uses like watering plant, washing car, cleaning floor etc can be easily managed with this water.

Building ground water – now a day, when rain comes, we see water gushing through streets and it all flows to ocean. It takes lot of manure and soil also along with that. We can control this if we plant trees. Not only that, we need to go for the step cultivation or have small bunds which will reduce the flow of water. Then the water will percolate into earth, which will add to ground water strength. We need to go for digging small holes in between, which will be water storage. Its known as “mazha kuzhi”. Digging wells, where possible will be good to retain the natures normalcy.

Waste management – implementing pipe / ring compost can help in better waste management. This is cost effective and the manure can be used for plants as well. If we invest a bit, we can have a gas plant implemented which work on waste. The slurry can be used as manure for plants.

Handling non degradable – keep it a habit to carry bags to shopping, this way we can reduce usage of plastic bags. Don’t throw don’t degradable just like that. When we do some excavation in land, it’s a pity we find plastic and electronic items there. By throwing ti like that, we are creating a menace to the environment.

Pets– pets like cat, dog, hen etc also help in better waste management.  Hens give good natural fresh eggs. There excretion also is manure.

Through such small and simple, yet powerful and result oriented habits, we can have our living from nature itself, thereby giving back to nature. If you need any more information / guidance or help on any of the above things, please feel free to reach out to me. I am happier to help out be it through giving saplings or seeds or tips on setting up of these.