Much water — most of it polluted — has flowed under the bridge since the Stockholm Conference of 1972, when most non-Western Governments rejected environmentalism as a Western fad. However, there is now widespread recognition that environmental degradation is pervasive in the Third World, where deforestation, soil erosion and various forms of pollution are affecting the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of mostly poor people.
The history of colonial exploitation, population pressure and continuing economic dependence on the West are some of the reasons why the ecological crisis in the Third World is an issue of survival. An exaggerated concern for the protection of pristine habitats, while continuing resource-wasteful lifestyles, is the form of "environmental extremism" most characteristic of Western environmentalists.
In India over the past decades, three distinct ideologies have emerged within the environmental movement. The first, deeply influenced by Gandhiism, views environmental degradation as a moral problem caused by the ideology of materialism, which draws humans away from nature and encourages them to consume more and more resources. Gandhians argue that the essence of Eastern cultures is their relative hostility to economic trends — and that by adopting Western models of industrial development, India is, in effect, abandoning its cultural roots. They call for a return to the pre-colonial village society, which they uphold as the exemplar of ecological and social harmony. Their practical emphasis, meanwhile, has been on raising consciousness, in carrying their message of moral regeneration across the country and, indeed, the globe.
The second trend, in many ways the polar opposite of the first, is Marxist in inspiration. Marxists see the problem in political and economic terms, arguing that it is unequal access to resources, rather than the question of values, which better explains the patterns and processes of environmental degradation. In a sharply stratified society, the rich destroy nature in pursuit of profit, while the poor do so simply to survive. The creation of a more economically just society, therefore, is a logical pre-condition of social and ecological harmony. In their practical emphasis, Marxists concentrate on organising the poor for collective action and working towards the redistribution of property and wealth, which is their larger goal. Far from opposing industry, Marxists believe that in a socialist society, industrialisation can proceed much faster and without the byproducts one associates with it in its capitalist variant.