A two-day national conference, organised by the Council for Green Revolution (CGR) in collaboration with the Zoology Department of the Utkal University, began here on Saturday.
The conference on ‘Conservation of Eastern Ghats’ was held as part of activities of the Green’s Alliance for Conservation of Eastern Ghats (GrACE), an initiative launched by the CGR.
Inaugurating the symposium, Governor Dr SC Jamir said there have been efforts in the past for bringing into limelight the urgency for conservation of the Himalayas and the Western Ghats and it is a gigantic task of initiating people’s movement for conservation of Eastern Ghats, the vast and unique mountain ranges on the eastern part of the country.
“Environmental degradation has become a major and serious global concern and it is rising across the globe. Therefore global commitment for environment must reflect in such type of initiative which should be fully supported,” Jamir said.
“For our nation with a teeming population, it becomes a great challenge to strike a balance between natural heritage and population and its development goals. We need to devise policy that would facilitate development to co-exist with environment and not putting environment at the risk,” Jamir said.
Creation of awareness among the people, especially the youth on preservation of nature and conservation of the forests, is necessary, he said.
He appealed to the people to do their bit in safeguarding the forests and biodiversity, as the optimum impact or the environment would only be felt by individual intervention.
Utkal University Vice-Chancellor Prof AK Das focused on research and ground level activities on the occasion. “We would give proposals to the State Government, on the basis of the conclusion drawn from the conference,” Das added.
Padmashree Prof Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi said about Eastern Ghat hills.
The conference had 12 invited lectures in the technical sessions by eminent academicians, activists and policy experts. More than 100 research papers would be presented in two days.
About 300 researchers, environment lovers and students participated.