To promote green practices and ecotourism in Himachal, HW has introduced two new sections.

Environment

Climate change is a global phenomenon, which have become a reason of big worry for people in developed countries. Promoting green lifestyle and development of green technologies has become the first preference in many regions of the world. Many countries are tapping the renewable energy resources like solar and wind energy along with emphasizing the need to save water and energy to avert future crisis.

However, the public and government in the state of Himachal Pradesh have not paid any serious attention to the environmental consequences by the virtue of their daily routine activities and policies e.g. like choice they make regarding a product, the way they dispose of the garbage, use of energy and water. Pollution check is not considered as a common duty we all share, rather it’s done half heartedly to avoid penalty. It’s the public who has forced the government to create and implement rules and penalties for what should be its duty. You never cared about the comfort of other members of the society while you decided to smoke in a public place. Therefore, government legally banned it. In other words, we are so insensitive, self-centered, ignorant and uncivilized that government had to form hard rules enforced by law to tame us.

An example of our ignorant attitude is the change in the climate of Shimla. Can you remember, when did you see snow on Christmas last time? In facts,those born in the year 2000, could only hear incidents of heavy snowfall from those, who were lucky enough to witness the majestic occasion when nature showered white puffs of snow from the sky. Even in a city like Shimla, except a few people, rarely anyone bothers to analyze the fatal future consequences of human ignorance toward maintaining natural balance. Nature has gifted us a heaven like place on earth – Himachal Pradesh, but even a place like Shimla, that enjoyed the title of summer capital, is now losing its beauty and pleasant climate. Concrete structures are replacing the agricultural and forest lands. Places like Shimla, Dharmshala, Kullu-Manali are falling victims to overexploitation of resources. Frequent and long traffic jams in these regions hint at the huge increase in the number of vehicles on road.

If still the issue doesn’t sound much serious to you, then you should consider a few other proves of climate change. This year India has witnessed weakest monsoon since 2009, and according to RBI, rainfall deficit of 21 per cent is likely to affect Kharif crops resulting in increased costs. Government even claims that the the recent power grid failures that affected north-east India were caused because the farmers were using energy-intensive water pumps for irrigation, as the monsoon did not deliver enough water. Historic Drought in America and excess rainfall in Korea suggest the climate patterns are getting unpredictable.

The concern here is not consoling ourselves for the damage, but to find the reasons and causes, which are pushing humanity towards a catastrophic end. Anyone who has received elementary science education can be sure, that it’s no one other than the human race, devotionally digging a grave for itself by spoiling the balance of nature, ignoring natural laws, and provoking the planet to maintain the balance through its unpleasant ways. Every individual should know how much damage he/she causes to our environment and more than that, the ways to contribute to help earth retain its balance.

Therefore, as per the recommendations of HW Community members and readers, an environment section has been incorporated to promote ecofriendly practices ,to update the public on the sensitive issues such as environmental pollution, climate change, deforestation any every other issue which have already caused a great loss to a place like Shimla, once famous for the white Christmas.

ECO-TOURISM

Himachal Pradesh is a mountainous area located in western Himalayas. The state is famous for its greenery, culture, and hill stations. Moreover, Himachal represents a rich part of Himalayan bio-diversity and ecosystem. Places like Shimla, Kullu Manali, Dharmshala not only attract tourists from India but from different parts of the world. Tourism is one of the major sources of state revenue. A PTI report shows that in 2010 Himachal received a record number of 1.33 crore tourists. With such a rate of growth, tourism is estimated to add 300 crore to GDP annually. The state seeks to develop tourism as a key revenue-earning sector by 2015.

However, one thing that the government and the public must consider is that the environment, natural resources and bio-diversity of the state should not suffer because of the measures taken to develop tourism industry. Therefore, ecotourism should be the preference for the state. Local population shouldn’t be devoid of natural resources and agricultural land, which is also an important source of revenue and employment in the state, must not be sold to private firms to build hotels and luxury villas. It’ll be a great mistake to ready infrastructure for the development of tourism on the cost environment.

Therefore, HW consider it as one of its duty to help promoting our state as an ecotourism destination and therefore, introduced a section dedicated to the cause.

We hope, our efforts would create awareness among the public regarding the sensitive issues affecting the ecology and would help promote our state as an ecotourism destination. However, the public and our readers themselves plays the major role in the success of the cause, therefore, please contribute by writing to HW anything that you think is relevant for the conservation of our environment and promotion of ecotourism for the economical development of Himachal.

How You Can Contribute

HW is a platform for the public and it publishes and highlights what public want us to. Most of the public grievances and issues published on HW relate to their impact on a society as a whole. Members of the society sent us the complaints or issues on the behalf of their society. Therefore, for the creation of a healthy, developed and highly conscious society, it’s necessary to share individual opinions and views at some common place to ensure that the norms, rules and policies are formed and implemented for the equal benefit of each member of our society.

Hence, the members of the society writing to HW regarding the grievances, opinions and sensitive issues, which requires attention, are contributing for the betterment of the society they live in. In the same manner, every member of the society can contribute by writing to us about any matter pertaining to the public grievance, malpractices in the society, corruption, defaults of our governmental and social system, suggestions through pictures, videos and textual information. When an article on any complaint or an issue regarding the society and public benefit is published on HW, the information circulates and is exposed to greater number of people. The authority of the Community as a public platform increases in proportion to the number of people participating.

HW is one of the many other ways to contribute your part of duties, but what distinguishes is that it’s an online community accessible from any part of Himachal or world.

Important Note:

Please do not associate HW with any anti- government campaign. We criticize faults of both, government and public equally. The change is possible only if both, the government and the public work in co-operation with each other.