CONSERVATION PSYCHOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In Oct 2016, I was at Munnar for a short family holiday. Our first stop was at Cheeyappara waterfalls. The cascade was great to be viewed from within our car. With great excitement we walked towards the falls. There were about 50 tourists at the site. I could identify four languages in the crowd. The seven stepped fall of Cheeyappara was enchanting. 

However, the serenity of the scene was ripped apart in a fraction of a second, when I glanced down. At the bottom, people had carelessly thrown empty water and liquor bottles (photo 1).  The scene under the bridge, across the road was no different (photo 2). Ironically nobody was even remotely upset at the disgusting sight. 

Photo 1. Used bottles discarded carelessly at Cheeyappara waterfalls, Kerala, India.

Photo 2. Careless behavior at Cheeyappara waterfalls, Kerala, India. As seen below the bridge

This is where our system fails. It can safely be assumed that anybody who could afford the bottles discarded carelessly there would be sound and literate enough to have heard about global change and sustainable development. Such behavior only reinforces the premise that our education is not transformative. We are only taught to regurgitate on exam sheets. There ends the learning. It is better to remain illiterate and lead a primitive life, if after spending almost two decades in formal system, our behavior remains uncivilized.

Today the notion of conservation is more valuable than pearls. Like nacre, it  has to be imbued layer upon layer. The seed has to be sown in the mind and raised through the formative years. Only then will such sights disappear from landscape forever. 

Sustainable development ranks next only to defense in terms of international monetary investments. Despite our luminous understanding of consequences of unsustainable consumption pattern, why are we unable to change track? These require paradigm shift in our social outlook that looks down on certain domains. Walking with obtusely tilted head, we have waded into quicksand. 

It is time that we shrug off the social stigma and consider emerging trans-disciplinary domains like conservation psychology. Let us hand over the baton of sustainable development to social scientists and philosophers. They are more likely to rekindle the extinguished fire and sustain mankind.