AGID Sub Theme : 5: Geoscientists and Environmental Protection
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Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment through efforts made at individual, organizational or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the environment and humans. On the scale of a watershed, if local people protect the watershed from over-exploitation, the watershed will protect the people by supplying adequate ecosystem services and supplies. Due to the pressures of population and technology, the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently. This has now been recognized, and governments have begun placing restraints on activities that cause environmental degradation. While dealing with mineral resources or with ground water, geoscientists are concerned with the fact that the use of the geo-resource should be environmentally sound and sustainable for the society. Geoscientists have a fourfold role in this. Geoscientists working in Government departments and institutions make recommendations for enacting the laws. Those working in resource development industries can put the conservation principles into practice. Geoscientists working in NGOs often work in public education and stress on the implementation of protection laws. And finally those working in Universities make their students aware of the need to improve degraded areas or watersheds and the specific technical solutions for this. The papers in this session should mainly discuss the case histories of success as well as failures in environmental protection.
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Antony Reedman, Shahina Tariq, Gbenga Okunlola and Afia Akhtar
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