From Our Special Correspondent
GUWAHATI, Dec 10: A farmer-entrepreneur and community leader from West Garo Hills has been honoured with the “Green Guru Award” at the Balipara Foundation Awards 2021 ceremony here on Thursday evening.
Layland Marak from Ganolgre village has helped his entire community under the Rongram Community and Rural Development (C&RD) Block to earn a better livelihood than the environmentally devastating practices of farming like shifting cultivation, rampant in the region.
Marak overcame his struggles at an early age to be engaged in processing and selling aloevera products through a self-help group (SHG) named Chizingjang.
He has helped create immense opportunities to support fellow community members and also contributed funds from his profits for social projects such as construction of roads and low-cost toilets in his area in 2012-13. Speaking to The Shillong Times on Friday, Marak said he was happy with the recognition given by the Balipara Foundation. “As of now, the pandemic has put the brakes on aloevera cultivation. But I plan to restart it once the situation improves. Currently, I am engaged in dairy farming, an occupation I started in 2009,” he said.
The awards ceremony marked the culmination of the 9th edition of the Eastern Himalayan Naturenomics™ Forum, the flagship annual event of the Balipara Foundation, an NGO based in Assam.
The forum, themed on ‘Ecology is Economy’, awards and recognises extraordinary visionaries of the Eastern Himalayas and their indomitable contribution every year.
These entrepreneurs received a Social Impact Recognition Award which comes with a Citation and a contribution to the organisation or individual from the Social Impact Recognition Fund of Balipara Foundation.
“The Lifetime Service Award 2021” was presented to Prabin Saikia of Assam by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Saikia, through self-curated, indigenous botanical library, ‘Banatirtha’, is preserving the age-old Assamese traditional knowledge in context to rituals, belief and medicinal usage of indigenous plants species. The botanical library is now habitat to many wild species like snakes, butterflies, lizards, birds, mongoose, amongst others.
Among the other awardees recognised by the forum are Ivan Zhimomi of Nagaland (The Rural Futures Rewilding Award 2021); Sonam Tashi Gyaltsen of Sikkim (The NaturenomicsTM Award 2021); Momee Pegu of Assam (Food for the Future Award 2021); Gopal Nag, a specially-abled farmer-entrepreneur from Assam (The Food for the Future Award 2021); Lalvohbika of Mizoram (The Young Naturalist Award 2021); Kime Rambia of Arunachal Pradesh (The Forest Ranger and Guards Award 2021); Manjit Patir of Assam (The Rural Futures Rewilding Grant 2021).