SHILLONG, JULY 25: Meghalaya governor Dr Krishan Kant Paul said that conservation; preservation and restoration of nature’s balance are vital and warned if neglected human existence will be at peril.
Addressing the inaugural function of the “Citizen’s Conference on Environmental Goverance” organised by the Informed Conscious and Responsible Existence (ICARE) on Thursday Paul said, “Air, water and land should be looked as capital which needs to be preserved.” He emphasized on need to viewed environment as a “common heritage” by government as well as the citizens.
Environment, according to Paul, is a common heritage and have to sustained jointly.
Reminding the fundamental duty of every citizens as enshrined in the constitution to preserve the environment, Paul informed as per Article 51A (g) of the Indian Constitution it is the Fundamental duty of every citizen of the country to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures.
Paul, however, said a single person making efforts to preserve environment will not help.
Ruing at the exploitation of the nature by people in the rural areas for their benefits, Paul said, “With the advent of modernisation “ethnic wisdom has been lost”. He felt the need of the hour is to go on and be environmentally sustainable, socially just and financially inclusive.
Meghalaya principal secretary, (Home), KS Kropha earlier pointed to the difficulty in protecting the environment because of conflict of customary and traditional law(s) of the state with the statutes passed by the legislature.
Kropha said, “It is a dilemma how to enforce law to protect the environment and scientific usage of resources and opposed to it is the customary laws prevalent in the State.” He said there are many laws on mining which provides to preserve the resource and to exploit them scientifically.
But, Kropha added, “The customary practices will not allow it. Customary laws should be enforced over the statutes.” He also said that even though there are forest laws which aim to protect the green cover of the state but such laws have not been fully implemented.- By Our Reporter
Yet most of our Corrupt officers support the Politicians in amending the acts to make way for more destruction of environment…by ‘Defining Forest’ their way….