“If you want to breathe clean air, you have to contribute. The academia needs to bring ‘live issues’ before the students and take them to the ‘live situation’ of pollution and brainstorm them for the solution,” Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, Chairperson, National Green Tribunal, said on Monday.
He was giving a keynote address at the international conference on Rights of Nature for Sustainable Development to mark the World Environment Day.
The conference was organized jointly by the Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur, with the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment (GNHRE).
Justice Goel said that problems have solutions but implementation requires huge will power. He stressed upon the exigency of ‘act now’.
During the panel discussion. Prof. Juan Sebastián Villamil RodrÃguez touched upon the constitutional aspect of 'Rights of Nature' with special reference to India and the international perspective.
Prof. (Dr.) V.C. Vivekanandan, Vice-Chancellor of HNLU, said: “The ‘Finite Nature’ cannot be exploited for ‘Infinite' development processes.
This necessitates the ‘Rights of Nature’ as a legal game changer."