Communities will have to adapt to nature in order to be sustained for long, said that State planning secretary Ranjit Sinha. He was delivering the inaugural address at the CII – UCOST Environment Summit here on Tuesday. Speaking on the occasion, he said, “We are not taking services provided by nature into account while doing various activities; be it industrial activity or Government services. We are not considering the burden that is being put on our future generations.”
The ninth annual CII –UCOST summit was inaugurated on Tuesday with the theme “Eco System Services and Plastic Free Uttarakhand”. The deliberations at the first day of the summit dwelled upon the issues, challenges and opportunities to value ecosystem services and identification of financial measures for its management. Delivering a special address, the Uttarakhand biodiversity board chairman Rakesh Shah said that unless all do not take a pledge to reduce the plastic foot print, the plastic free world will remain a distant dream. He stressed that water is the foremost service that is provided by the eco system and plastic is polluting the water and making land infertile, which is all the more reason for starting the use of plastic sensibly.
Speaking on the occasion the additional director general of Forests and Climate Change in Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) VRS Rawat said that India is one of the few countries where forest and tree cover has increased in the recent years transforming country’s forests into a net sink owing to national policies aimed at conservation and sustainable management of forest.
Uttarakhand State Council for Science and Technology (UCOST) director general Rajendra Dobhal said that plastic free life is not possible, since most of the products that we consume today are made up of plastic. However, the best one can do is to reduce and restrict plastic products that have one time use. He also mentioned that considering the terrain of Uttarakhand only six per cent of the land is available for developmental activity, therefore it is vital to derive maximum benefits through eco system services. CII Uttarakhand state council chairman Vijay Dhasmana said that valuation and management of ecosystem services provided by nature will support in understanding the criticality of services and development of measures for its conservation and enhancement.
later in the day, plenary sessions were held on valuation of ecosystem services and actions for managing ecosystem services. The first day of the summit was attended by over 100 delegates from industry, institutions, academia, NGO’s and experts in the area of environment and addressed by 14 experts.