By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Meghalaya Governor Dr Krishna Kant Paul has stressed the need for a balancing act where efforts to protect the environment should blend with the developmental initiatives.
“We need to create a situation where economic development and environment conservation should go hand in hand,” Dr Paul said while speaking at the inaugural function of the ‘Citizen’s Conference on Environmental Governance’ organised by the Informed Conscious and Responsible Existence (ICARE) here on Thursday.
The Governor also emphasized the need to revive and inculcate traditional practices on how to protect the environment.
“The ethnic wisdom of preserving nature has been lost with the advent of modernization. We need to revive these traditional practices,” Dr. Paul said.
The Governor said that air, water and land should be looked upon as social capital which need to be preserved even as he stated that environment should be viewed as a ‘common heritage’ by both the Government and the citizens.
Dr Paul pointed to Article 51 A (g) of the Indian Constitution which says ‘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’.
The Governor urged the government and civil society to emulate best practices from a neighbouring country which had brought down the occurrence of Dengue fever from 20,000, of which there were 455 deaths in 2010, to only 450 cases and no deaths by 2012, simply by giving cell phones and small honorarium to young people to become whistle blowers against dirt and filth. Dr Paul also pointed at the Maldives, a small island where fresh water is a scarce resource but where every household harvests rain water.
Meanwhile, Principal Secretary (Home), KS Kropha, who is also Chairperson of the Meghalaya Institute of Governance pointed out that customary and traditional laws of the State were in conflict with the statutes passed by the Legislature.
“It is a dilemma how to enforce laws to protect the environment and scientific usage of resources as this seems to be opposed to the customary laws prevalent in the State,” Kropha said.
According to Kropha there are a host of laws on mining which provide for scientific mining and rejuvenating the environment but people claim their rights over resources by citing customary laws and overriding the statutory protocols.
Kropha said people should resolve these dichotomies at their level as it is difficult for Government to enforce the statutes.
Kropha also said that even though there are Forest Laws which aim to protect the green cover of the state, such laws have not been fully implemented.