The earth is our mother who keeps us alive and feeds us, punishes us for our wrong conduct

and rewards us as well, gives us love, care and warmth. This mother is the human race’s only hope and the planet that supports life and civilisation.

However, our life has become more and more complex. Due to this complexity, people have turned towards materialism forgetting their responsibilities and duties towards the planet.

The negative development of science and technology has changed the course of evolution. Demand for more of everything has led to people destroying beautiful grasslands with pretty rivers and streams turning these into desert. The land is gradually turning brown. Drought and desertification now threaten the livelihood of more than a billion people in 110 countries worldwide.

In the last year alone, thousands of people in eastern Africa had to abandon their lands when drought rendered farming unsustainable. In the Americas and southern Europe, forest

fires had devastated millions of hectares of land, while massive sandstorms have ravaged vast areas of north-east Asia.

Some 9,000 years ago, the tilt of the Earth’s axis was 24.14 degrees; today it is 23.45 degrees. Today, the earth is closest to the sun in January, while 9,000 years ago, our planet was closest to the sun at the end of July.

Wild living species is getting extinct by the day. Great natural catastrophe like the tsunami is enough to give us the first warning. There are frequently occurring cyclones with high tolls every year. Scientists have even predicted 10,000 more cyclones in the near future.

The above facts clearly show the rate of desertification in the world and people have already started to search for life in other planets.

There is a fear that the earth might turn into a desert one day putting a big question mark in human survival.

Though numerous researchers are going on to save the earth and human civilisation, it is not research alone that is the answer. We have to be aware and awake to the dangers we face.

The lions are there to rule the jungle, the plants are there to feed the deer, the deer are there to serve as prey for the lions, the scavengers are there to finish the remaining food, bacteria and virus are there to cause decay of the carcass, and finally there is the human being to lead the entire living kingdom.

It is in our hands to save the earth. If not ‘we’, then ‘who’? — Ashnika Bajracharya, Class X, Shuvatara Residential School, Lamatar, Lalitpur