Culture Vs Environment

Any mass congregation of people has an adverse impact on the overall ecology of the area. Events like World Cultural Festivals, Kumbh Mela or even the Olympics lead to a huge pressure on the biodiversity of the area. Some of the major effects are
- Loss of Biodiversity due to clearing of trees and shrubs to make way for the event
- Polluting of Water bodies and Riverine Ecosystem as these events are generally neat the water source
- Disturbance of the flow of rivers channels due to construction of roads, pontoon bridges near the river body.
- Immense stress on the fragile floodplain due to large concentration of people and infrastructure
- Change in the level of flood plain of the river.
- Land Degradation caused due to anthropological activities in such areas.
Although these events are a part and parcel of human lives, extreme care should be taken in assessing the impact of the organizing such events. Proper local environment impact should be taken into account before permitting such events and stricter rules and regulations should be imposed in the sites to limit the pollution caused by people in these fragile ecosystem.