Environmental values, ethics, health and community action
What this domain tests
This domain is marked on reasoning, not recall alone: name an ethical position, apply it to a resource conflict, and connect environmental quality to public health and to what communities have actually achieved in Maharashtra.
Core concepts
- Three standpoints: anthropocentric (nature has instrumental value for humans), biocentric (individual living things have intrinsic value) and ecocentric (ecosystems and species have intrinsic value). Deep ecology, associated with Arne Naess, is strongly ecocentric; Aldo Leopold's land ethic extends the community to soils, waters, plants and animals.
- Intergenerational equity asks what a decision leaves for the next generation; the precautionary principle asks what we do under uncertainty.
- Indian movements: Chipko (Sunderlal Bahuguna, Gaura Devi), the Bishnoi sacrifice at Khejarli, Silent Valley, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and Maharashtra's Pani Panchayat, Ralegan Siddhi and Hiware Bazar.
- Health links: cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A and diarrhoea follow contaminated supply; malaria and dengue follow standing water; air pollution drives respiratory and cardiac illness. Sanitation, chlorination and source protection are the cheapest health interventions available.
- Community action: watershed committees, self-help groups, school eco-clubs, Vanrai's plantation work, Swachh Bharat's sanitation drive.
Worked example
A village debates a check dam that would irrigate 60 ha but submerge 5 ha of regenerating forest. An anthropocentric reading weighs only the irrigation gain; an ecocentric reading gives weight to the forest and its species; an intergenerational reading asks whether the dam silts up in 20 years and leaves the village worse off. The precautionary principle argues for a smaller structure plus catchment treatment - retaining the irrigation benefit while reducing irreversible loss. Full marks come from naming the principle, applying it and stating the trade-off.
Traps that cost marks
Equating environmental ethics with tree worship or ritual. Describing an NGO such as Vanrai as a government body. Giving a moral opinion without naming the ethical position it rests on.