Development impact on society, environment; Industrial plans progress forward

    Throughout the world there has been a significant increase in the number of developments created, this includes business parks, housing, shopping centers, etc. Significant environmental impacts can derive from these developments.

       On the Maryland government website, it provides the public with the exact impacts and the results of all surveys developments. This access to information is important for the community to understand everything that is going on, there have been protests for these types of plans and involvement is crucial for understanding the situation.

     The concept of destroying land for profit is not a new one, it is dated back to early settlements where instead of utilizing the land like the Native Americans they chose to destroy it and its resources. As well as destroying rainforests for economic gain,  scientist Edward O. Wilson believes this is like “burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”

     These developments take massive amounts of time and funds through the multiple stop process before even breaking any ground. There is first the Site Selection, Selecting Industries, Layout and Facilities, Restrictions and Controls, Factors Affecting Development Costs, and finally Selling vs. Leasing, according to an Industrial Park Development Case Study. In between these steps there needs to be a land survey, potential endangered species surveys and potential water bodies survey.

     All of these surveys highlight the negative effect these industrial parks have on the environment, because of the expansive use of untouched land there is extreme species displacement.  Senior Colby Criss explains, “if we continue at this rate there could be a minor extinction event because a lot of these animals reside in these areas being affected.”  

     Eventually the continued displacement of the species will lead to endangerment and potentially extinction according to wwf.panda.org. Junior Sophia Tiso adds, “the natural population of the animals are going to be impacted which will impact the rest of the ecosystem and the food chain.” 

     In some cases, companies are notified that the land is unfit for development but continue with construction. When this happens, the companies abandon the project after creating tons of construction damage. Some ways that this is avoided is through the creation of Eco-Industrial Parks, these continue to create job opportunities and increase labor mobility but in an environmentally safe and sustainable way. Criss believes, “we have over 7 billion people on this planet, we don’t have enough support to create action and reverse what we already have done.”