I was telling somebody once that there would be very few people in this world who wouldn't love nature. All sane human beings tend to appreciate nature's beauty but it takes guts and a much inner compassion and empathy to think about what is happening to it and how can one contribute to it.
So since you have taken the first step by thinking about it, you are already on the way to contribute towards it.
Now the question is how to go about doing it. 7 years ago when I was in ur shoes, I just decided to make it as my career and be fulltime into it.
I was told that this is called the (rural) development sector and environment is actually just part of the total holistic picture that includes livelihoods of people and is also therefore related to agriculture, animal husbandry, and also enterprises related to the primary sector (read forests, crops, animals etc and their produces).
All of them are part of farming systems that interact closely.
To move up, they would need either the support of the GOVERNMENT, or the MARKETS Or the CIVIL SOCIETY. These are actually the three sphere of development for environment also.
GOVERNMENT - the forest department (forests), irrigation department (water) ,revenue department (land) just administrate these but also mismanage them as custodians.
MARKET - the demand and supply tend to only do justice to mainstream areas where technology has made things easier like green revolution areas.
CIVIL SOCIETY - bunch of motivated people who try and do work in bits n pieces to address issues in regions where both the above have failed to succeed. 8-10 % of india's populations of tribal areas are one of their areas. I also work in Udaipur, a tribal district. These erstwhile forest dwelling communities are suffering from lack of access to basic services, market and as a result have eaten into their own resources and face degraded natural resources like forests, water and loss of livelihoods.
The point I want to drive home is, if you want to contribute to environment, you will have to address these issues as well. Many grassroot NGOs including seva mandir try to follow that model.
