The use of "the"

My colleagues and I have discussed the use of "the" in the following writing samples. Two of us agreed that "the forest" and "the environment" sound right, while "the" should be omitted in other words. However, the other colleague made a good point that by putting "the" there, we will create a parallel structure. Can anyone please clarify this for me? It'll be greately appreciated. Your opinion will be highly valued as well.


"the objectives and purposes of the Program and the direction of the project in 6 aspects, soil, water, the forest, agriculture, the environment and alternative energy"

or


"the objectives and purposes of the Program and the direction of the project in 6 aspects, the soil, the water, the forest, the agriculture, the environment and the alternative energy"

Yes, you do need to use "the" with "forest" and "environment".But you should not use it with "alternative energy".

Even though that phrase is written in the singular (energy versus energies), it is understood to refer to a variety of technologies (wind, solar, geothermal, etc). So using "the" there makes it seem like you're referring to a particular one of those technologies without specifying which one it is.

For the others, both examples you gave sounds perfectly natural.

There should be a colon, rather than a comma, after the word "aspects". Also, in formal writing, numbers are generally spelled out, i.e. "six" rather than "6". I don't think that "forest" and "environment" absolutely demand articles, and if you want to have them match the other terms, it's better that you take the "the" away from them than add a "the" to the others. If that doesn't sound right to you, you can turn them into other forms, such as "forestry" and "environmental".

Thank you for your replies, guys.

Special thanks to "Another Guest" who pointed out the punctuation mistake.