Their Share of the Environment

Environmental awareness grows when ecology connects to daily lives, livelihoods

- Rajshekhar Pant

In this reflective and deeply grounded essay, Rajshekhar Pant examines the widening gap between academic environmental discourse and the lived realities of ordinary people in the Himalayan hill regions.

Moving beyond the rhetoric of climate change and global ecological debates, the essay explores how issues such as reckless hill-cutting, drying water sources, invasive species, excessive pesticide use, and unregulated tourism continue to reshape fragile mountain ecosystems. Through vivid local examples from Bhimtal, the piece argues that meaningful environmental awareness can emerge only when ecological concerns are connected to everyday lives and local livelihoods. June 5 comes and goes every year. A few articles appear in newspapers and magazines, panel discussions are held, and environmental concerns briefly find a place in the headlines. Then comes another day, another date—June 6—and an entirely new set of concerns. Before long, newspapers and television channels are once again stripped of the heavy rhetoric loaded with statistics and imposing terms such as ‘ozone depletion,’ ‘carbon footprints,’ and ‘global warming.’ The urgency fades almost as quickly as it arrives.

One often feels that the unnecessary ritualism surrounding such a sensitive issue, along with an excessive dependence on complex scientific terminology and intimidating data, has made the subject of the environment far more distant from ordinary people than it ought to be.

Within academic discussions on the environment, one often encounters the familiar slogan: Think Globally, Act Locally. The “globally” part of this phrase largely belongs to the academic world. It concerns those who engage with environmental issues as scholars, researchers, or commentators. Many among them are remarkably well informed about the latest ecological developments across the world.

The “act locally” part, however, belongs to ordinary people.