By ALLAN MKANDAWIRE –

In the current competitive world, human economic activities have increased rapidly. Countries are competing for the world status of middle income country or the status of developed country.
Individuals are competing for a recognised economic status in society.
This desire of countries and individuals has led to the acceleration of human economic activities both at national and local level.
All these human activities are aimed at improving the living standards of human beings through poverty. This is a welcoming thing to our society and important for our survival as human beings.
However, our action cannot go beyond the environment parameters. The environment plays a big role in human life and our continued existence on earth.
Without it, I do not think we can survive even for a single minute. Imagine if God had placed us in a formless vacuum planet where there was no air, water, trees or other living organisms; I can assure you that life would not only have been boring but also impossible.
That is why God first created the complete natural environment composed of air, water, trees and sunlight before he created human beings.
The human being was the last creation of God not that he was the least important but because God wanted man to have everything he needed for his survival before he was created just like what a responsible father would do for his unborn baby.
The natural environment is important in all of our daily economic, social, and political activities. Firstly, the natural environment is a major source of raw materials for all economic activities.
This includes all activities in the agriculture, mining, tourism and manufacturing sectors. The agriculture sector does not only get provided with the land on which to farm, but the natural environment has also ensured that the land is fertile for various types of crops.
To the manufacturing sector of the economy, the natural environment supplies all materials required for production for human consumption. The mining sector is totally dependent on the availability of natural resources such as copper, zinc, gold, etc, and all these resources are non-renewable.
Secondly, the environment acts as a sink for our daily waste products from industries and home consumption. Each and every day, we produce a lot of waste to the environment which is decomposed; otherwise the earth would have mountains of waste today.
Lastly, the environment supports life by supplying the human being with clean air which is an expensive and irreplaceable element of the environment.
Another important element of the environment essential to life is water. In our everyday life, these environmental elements have no economic value attached. As people say, air is free and so is water, but nothing is free on earth as each and every day a lot of money is spent on water treatment and clean air.
The natural environment is at threat of degradation or depletion as a result of accelerated human economic activity. Everyday somewhere, land is cleared for farming, road construction, and human settlement, cutting down a lot of trees and displaying other living organisms in the ecosystem because this is what is expected in the development process for economic growth.
Each piece of copper, zinc, gold and coal mined means less and less quantities of these natural materials remain in the ground.
This means the economic development is being done at the expense of the natural environment, but again there are no other ways of development rather than using the natural environment resources.
Does this mean that at some point man will not be able to develop economically because of lack of natural materials for these economic activities? The answer is yes if no effective methods of natural environmental protection and management are formed.
One would argue that technology would support economic development even if the natural environment was destroyed.
However, the question is, can technology provide natural water, air, light and food? The answer is no because technology can only work and improve on the already existing resources provided by the natural environment.
Therefore, technology can only assist in preserving the natural resources by improving the efficiency of human economic activities in the production process.
The high rate of natural resource consumption has made the world’s powerful economic bodies revise the definition of human development. This has changed the definition of economic development to sustainable development.
The new definition has changed a lot of programmes for countries and organisations towards development. Countries now are no longer just pursuing economic development but development which is sustainable.
In this new pursuit of development, countries are working towards development which will meet the needs of the current population without compromising the ability of future generations in meeting their needs.
However, this cannot be achieved by the Government alone because we are all participants in the economic development. Therefore, it is the duty of everyone to work towards sustainable development.
This means we should always have a thought about tomorrow’s need as we fulfil today’s need. On a large scale of economic activities as a country, we may be about 75 per cent of achievement in working towards sustainable environment.
Here, a lot of environmental policy regulations and control instruments have been properly enforced by the Zambia Environmental Management Agency, EIA and other environmental organisations.
Large economic organisations such as mining and manufacturing companies, as well as commercial farmers are complying well with these policies and regulations though they are still in the process of transformation and perfection.
The main problem with environmental matters is at the small scale of economic activities. This includes small-scale farmers, trade men and women in our markets and individual consumers in communities.
These groups of people seem to care less about the quality and sustenance of the natural environment. Small-scale famers do not care much about the effect of their methods of farming on the natural environment.
They can cut trees over a large piece of land but just farm at the corner of the land. Some famers, especially in rural areas, cut trees just for enjoyment without any meaning to it. They can also start a bush fire for animal hunting or just for clearing the land without realising the danger they pose to the natural ecosystem.
In most of our urban markets, waste management has been the problem of the day. Policies, regulations and other measures have been put in place by the local government and other environmental organisations, but they have yielded negligible results.
Marketeers and consumers throw their waste products anywhere and anyhow. In private homes, the situation is worse; house waste products are dumped on roads and on any open space or undeveloped land which has been reserved for future development.
Dumping bins have been provided both in markets and communities, but still most of the waste is dumped in wrong places, dirtying the streets with plastic papers and food waste.
Therefore, proper policies and enforcement programmes should be put in place to improve the natural environment protection and management.
These policies and regulations should not only be on paper. They should be enforced and complied with by every member of the community.
We should see individuals polluting the environment prosecuted and punished and not only companies.
When the natural environment is cared for at an individual level, sustainable development can be achieved.