Preserving Environment: Who is Responsible?

"Responsibility for preserving the natural environment ultimately belongs to each individual person, not to government."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

Does a government policy rely only on public support in order to be implemented successfully? To some extent yes. Any unpopular decisions can cost the government power and erode its popular support base. However in order to implement the rule of law and its policies the government cannot rely completely only on the conscience of the masses. It has an elaborate machinery in place to address and enforce them. The fear of law helps the government to collect taxes and maintain law and order. The power that the people place in hands of the government allows it to take pan-national policies that cannot be implemented by ordinary citizens. Ordinary citizens generally lack the expertise, funds and/or authority to enforce a vision that they may agree with. They may support it by adhering to the laws, paying their taxes and voting for the government whose policies they agree with. However to hold only them responsible for implementing it is preposterous. I admit it does sound good and may be in an ideal world citizens would take care of everything that needs to be done. However for what would such a society need a "government" for?

Keeping this reasoning in mind we can safely say that preserving environment should be a concern of every citizen and they should contribute to it. However implementing a nation-wide policy to preserve the environment and making it a part of the law and order mechanism can be done only by the government. Both need to work in tandem in order to raise awareness about environmental issues and enforce such policies on the ground level.  Even if the government does not participate directly, it needs to play a huge role in making the environment conducive for such efforts. For example, an individual cannot challenge an industry destroying the environment without the backing of the government and strong laws punishing people who do not take environment preservation seriously.

Concluding, there is no doubt that an individual does hold some responsibility to preserve the natural environment. However to absolve the government of any responsibility what-so-ever is ridiculous. In fact with the power a government holds on policy making issues, their responsibility is far greater than any individual responsibility.