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Sign the Petition requesting The Honble Minister of State for Environment
and Forests (I/C) to maintain the moratorium on issuing further
environmental clearances for mining activities in Goa
http://goanvoice.org.uk/miningpetition.php
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Environmental Behavior: Issues, Challenges & Prospects
26th & 27th March, 2010.
Organized by: The Abbé Faria Post Graduate Department of Psychology
St. Xavier’s College - Mapusa - Goa.
Environmental Behaviour: Issues, Challenges and Prospects was the core
theme of the two day National level Seminar organized by the Abbé Faria
Post Graduate Department of Psychology, St. Xavier’s College, Mapusa, Goa.
Our environment is the stage and scenery in which the story of our life
unfolds. The healthy functioning of our planet’s ecosystem – air, water
and land, and the vast diversity of our life on earth – is worth
preserving. Recognizing that a sustainable balance among environmental,
economic and psychosocial systems is a key to sustaining the quality of
life for all of earths inhabitants, this seminar aimed at creating
awareness about these issues in the hope for a better tomorrow.
In the Inaugural function that began by invoking Almighty’s blessings,
the principal of the college Dr. (Fr.) Walter de Sa welcomed the
gathering and passionately presented his views toward the chief global
concern – environmental degradation and its restitution. He expressed
that it was time each individual got motivated to act toward
environmental preservation, and said the seminar was one such attempt to
enthuse within the participants an inner zeal to act. Ms. Ashwini
Bandekar, Student coordinator of the Seminar outlined the
conceptualization and journey of the seminar till the final day. She
also made clear the idea behind the backdrop created by the dept
students, how can one use environmentally friendly technology to enhance
quality of life. The Chief Guest for the day Dr. Sudhir Kakkar reflected
upon the various angles from which one could understand human psyche and
behavior. He also lamented the lack of attention given in the discipline
of Environmental Psychology. He called for a balance between the
material and spiritual so that the environmental conservation progress
could be sustainable. Ms Tina D’Cunha, teacher coordinator of the
seminar presented a gracious vote of thanks.
The key-note address was delivered by Dr. Arindham Ghosh, Scientist and
Head, R and D dept NEERI Nagpur. He outlined the history of
environmental stressors and spoke comprehensively on the issue of
environmental impact and behavior. He presented a mathematic equation to
elucidate the same.
Environmental Behaviour = f [ Environmental awareness among people ]
= a1
[education] + a2 [social ambience] + a3 [ robustness of legal frame
work] + a4 [political will] + a5 [ all other parameters that shape
political will] + a6[ any other parameter….]
Where
a1,a2,a3,… are co-efficients which are again dependent on the
‘enlightenment’ of the population. Dr. Ghosh concluded by discussing the
preventive means one could adopt to bring about the Green Change!
The Scientific Session I, chaired by Dr, Mahesh Pai was next on
schedule. The papers varied from a case study approach, an experimental
design, a theoretical framework to interview based models. Each of the
papers presented highlighted the importance of awareness, pro –
environmental attitude and the role of youth in initiating the change
process. A delicious meal was served after which followed the poster
session. Budding researchers got an opportunity to creatively display
their research findings. It was indeed an interesting session and set
the tone for the 2 expert speakers.
Dr. Shirisha Sathe, Asst Prof. Foundation for Liberal and Management
Education, Pune, in her lively speech brought out the significance of
the role played by a psychologist toward Pro-environmental behaviour.
Through plenty of anecdotes she elucidated that for any change to take
place, one must begin with a small step. If change has to take place,
individuals need to regard themselves as change agents and shrug off
self defeating behaviors, learned helplessness and the varied defense
mechanisms as rationalization, intellectualization, and projection. She
echoed the words of, Gaylord Nelson, former governor of Wisconsin,
co-founder of Earth Day "The ultimate test of man's conscience may be
his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations
whose words of thanks will not be heard."
Dr. Nandakumar Kamat, in his speech gave an extensive account of
literature available on environmental psychology, and asserted a need
toward sustainable perspective. He laid stress on environmental
education with special emphasis on nature appreciation, wilderness
preservation, earth salvation, environmental issue resolution, species
protection and environment ethics.
Each of the sessions was followed by a question and answer session. A
movie clip on global warming and protection of trees and ecology
concluded the day-long deliberation.
Day two began officially with a prayer which led us to focus on our
earth and the peace which we find in this entity. The report was read
and the first Scientific Session was introduced. The Session included 7
papers presented by lecturers, students and researchers from Dharwad,
Punjab and Goa. The papers focused on gender differences in
environmental psychology, the role of the youth and changing attitudes
in order to make a real difference in the environment. Sir Clifford
deliberated on the presentations and commented that ‘Attitude is
Everything!’ As youth we should participate in events like earth day, as
Gandhi said, ‘future of the country is in the classroom’. Sir Clifford
felt strongly that we need to focus on the ‘commercial factor’ and its
effect on the environment.
The second half of the morning saw a very interesting Panel Discussion
by eminent personalities, Mr Roland Martins, who spoke very practically
about Garbage issue and how the consumption pattern is changing and
causing the increase of garbage in terms of plastic. He also said the
consumers need to make a responsible choice. Dr. Antonio Mascharenhas
from NIO spoke avidly about the effect of humans on the sand dunes and
coastal erosion. Mr. Ramesh Gauns shared passionately on the mining
issue, pictorially depicting the sad truth of the rivers and tributaries
in the state of Goa. Mr. Rajendra Kerkar spoke on the relationship
between government policies and the presence of endangered species that
are not even recognized. He also shared about different wildlife
sanctuaries that are protecting wild life. Dr. Nagendranath spoke on the
issues concerning the ocean, its resources and impact.
In the afternoon the participants attended a workshop which focused on
‘preventive and action oriented resolutions, all groups participated
enthusiastically and made a personal green resolution! Let’s begin the
change movement by observing the EARTH HOUR and not being de-motivated
by bureaucratic hassles in continuing the restitution process. The vote
of thanks was proposed by Dr. Suhas Shetgovekar.
Dr. (Fr.) Walter de Sá
PRINCIPAL
St. Xavier's College of Arts, Science & Commerce,
Xaviernagar, Mapusa - Goa - 403507 - INDIA.
