Question

Human life is dependent on nature (that’s why we call her Mother Nature). We take everything from nature to live our lives. Do we give back anything to nature?
(i) Write down some examples of the natural resources that we use.
(ii) Write a paragraph expressing your point of view regarding our relationship with nature.

Answer 1

Hint: The context of the above question is given in the chapter ‘This is jody's fawn’. It is written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The chapter is about a child Jody who kills a doe to save his father. Later, when he realizes the loss of the doe’s fawn he adopts that fawn and pledges to take care of it. Therefore, based on Jody’s actions, the question says ‘We take everything from nature to live our lives. Do we give back anything to nature?’

Complete answer:
i) Everything that we use is directly or indirectly procured from the natural resources that are available on the earth. All our life activities are centred around natural resources.

Examples of the natural resources that we use are as follow-
- Air that we breathe.
- Water that we drink.
- Food that we eat whether it is in form of plants, trees, animals etc
- All the raw materials required for construction and other manufacturing work.
- Rain is very important for agriculture.
- Natural gas
- Metals and stones for ornaments etc.

ii) Our relationship with nature
Nature comprises all the living and nonliving things that exist naturally in our environment. Humanity is also a part of nature. However, with the evolution of human life on earth, humans have become more and more greedy instead of compassionate. We extract natural resources from the environment but we do not care about the forests, the animals, climate change and increasing population. In order to fulfil their needs, humans have put the lives of animals in danger and harmed their habitats. The impact of the extraction of resources to meet our needs is such that many species of animals have become extinct. We have only taken from nature over all these years and have rarely given anything to it. Just because it is freely available to us we have taken it for granted.

Note: Our very existence is dependent on nature. The natural capital forms the basis of all the capital of the businesses. Its overexploitation will only get human life closer to its end. Sustainable practices of using resources are vital for our future as well as the protection of nature.