This giant sphere which consists of 71% of water and rest of mountains, plateaus, and plains is referred to as the goddess earth or our Mother Nature. And why wouldn’t we refer her as such prestigious terms? She provides us with everything we need for our existence. She cares for us all living being as a mother takes care of her own child. Out of all her children, no matter what their habitat is, no matter whether they exist in water, on the mighty mountains, in forests or in man-made domes we call cities, we the humans have paved to be the most dangerous for their mother.
We have besmirched the providing hand, gave her wounds like a hole on the poles of the earth and degraded its protective shield called ozone. And if this wasn’t enough, pushed other species from their own land. The greed rose to such an extent that we started pushing the mighty sea so that we can acquire more pieces of the land, polluting all sources of land and water, cutting trees and destroying what we were meant to inherit and also leave for our future generations to enjoy. Metaphorically speaking, out Mother Earth has been compromising quite a lot.
Under threat of violence, an environmental lawyer and activist Alfred Brownell stopped the clear-cutting of Liberia’s tropical forests by palm oil plantation developers. His campaign protected 513,500 acres of primary forest that constitute one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots, enabling indigenous communities to continue their stewardship of the forest.
Alfred Brownell, a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Northeastern School of Law. says “It’s not just a struggle to protect remote towns and villages, or just to protect their sacred sites, or just to protect their land and their crops, their way of life, their culture, their religion, it’s also about protecting the forests in West Africa that are producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide, in essence making an enormous contribution in the mitigation of climate change”.
Mrigakshy K. Borthakur