Attitudes towards the environment: A study of farmers in India

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Title

Environmental Policy Assessment and Communication

Abstract

This chapter summarises a series of studies that examined the salience of a sense of environmental protection in the minds of residents of three villages in West Bengal. India. It considers how their level of awareness and concern could initiate some public action and the formation of pressure groups for checking wasteful exploitation of natural resources. The investigation was based on a Household survey (n = 368), a Social Ecological Survey (n = 168) and an indepth study of 57 Village Council (Panchayat) members. It indicated a high level of awareness of environmental problems but superficial concern. Even among the new Panchayat members who expressed some anxiety over wasteful depletion of natural resources, their concern was not sufficiently crystallised so as to lead to any public action. People’s confidence in the ability of the panchayat and the government was also found to be low in general. Although a large number of respondents mentioned the possibility of an acute food shortage resulting from population explosion, few of them explicitly identified population growth as a contributor to environmental crisis. The findings suggest that in addition to non-formal ecological education, there is need for carefully designed activities aimed at the establishment of effective resource management institutions at the local level which may be empowered to control various forms of environmental degradation.

First Page

75

Last Page

96

DOI

10.4324/9781003500681-7

Publication Date

1-1-2024

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