Don’t wait for others, act on your own!

The world is fighting a pandemic together; one positive thing that is happening is that Nature is reclaiming its spaces. We need to realize that like everything else around us, Nature needs its resting time too. In this World Environment Day, I want to share my little contribution towards Mother Nature.
How it began: I clearly remember I was in Class 5 when I first came across the word ‘sustainable development’. It was fancy to my ears but when I realized what it was, the little me knew that I have the responsibility to do some good towards Mother Nature. This responsibility without a doubt also came from the space where I have seen my parents doing gardening in free time, growing vegetables, switching off fan, lights when not necessary etc. At this age when I look back I realize that these small habits which were imbibed in the formative years became a part of my lifestyle. In this pandemic situation when I am at home where in the last couple of days rains are plenty, in 3 days I conserved more than 60 liters of water!
Celebrating Biodiversity: Human beings are part of the ecosystem and cannot continue in isolation. We grow few vegetables and fruits at home. Though I cannot boast of too many names but we have managed to grow mustard greens, herbs, lemon, tomatoes, sugarcane, guava, custard apple, gooseberry etc. Now apart from the fact that we are consuming organic food, we also have small creatures that stay and eat these fruits. Our recent addition is a squirrel. We plant flowers which not only enhances beauty of the space but also let’s bees pollinate. In this way, ecosystem is little bit maintained.
Here are few photos:

Giving Nature its time: Time is irreversible and we need to give time to Nature to heal itself. Exploitation of resources will leave nothing for us. What we follow at home is that we do not throw plastic in our space but to common dustbin. In the last 10 years of staying here, we can proudly say not even a safety pin we have dumped in our soil! Also, we produce compost and fertilizer on our own.
Recycling: Recycling old paint tin and cup:

The above are the few measures that my family and I undertake to maintain the ecosystem. We have realized that we are a part of the ecosystem and not vice versa. Bringing lifestyle changes to ourselves put fewer burdens on the environment.

At last, I want to say that we human beings have a tendency to take everything for granted. It is not about the ranking of species in the food chain that we should consider ourselves as the superior-most. We should accept that we need to co-habit with Nature and not to exploit it. We also have this tendency to pass our responsibility to others thinking someone else will do this but as Mahatma Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the World.”
Name: Anuradha Garima Gogoi
Place: Jorhat, Assam, India
Photos: self-captured

AboutAnuradha Garima Gogoi