Imphal, April 25: Manipur’s new Forest and Environment Minister Irengbam Hemochandra on Monday questioned that why Manipur can’t lead the country in taking up noble cause of environment as Mary Kom lead the country in women boxing. Minister Hemochandra was speaking at the inaugural function of the two day regional workshop for North Eastern region of India on climate adaptation programme and sustainable eco-system here at the conference hall of Hotel Classic Grande.
Elaborating on the importance of conserving the environment of the volatile state like Manipur for the upcoming days, he also called upon the masses to have a sustainable livelihood.
The workshop which will be focusing on climate sensitive sectors in North Eastern region and strengthening of institutional capacity building, risk and vulnerability assessment, community participation, training programme on climate science and integration of adaptation planning and its road map for the proper implementation.
Expressing unhappiness over the lack of response from the related departments to take up steps for the adaptation programmes, state Additional chief secretary (Forest and environment)Shambhu Singh while delivering his speech said, “We need to know the reason of decline in crops cultivation in the region for other necessary measures”.
Dr Nisha Mendiratta, climate change programme, Department of Science and Technology Government of India attending the inauguration function said that her department has already started to open climate change cells in as many as seven Himalayan states of the country in 2014 and three more states including Arunachal Pradesh and West Bengal are in the pipeline. The seven states are Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Sikkim.State Environment Department Director Dr M Homeshwor Singh gave the welcome address and background note of the workshop. In the day’s technical session, Prof. Dinabandhu Sahoo Director Institute of Bio-resources development and Prof W Nabakumar of Manipur spoke on intervention of bio-resources of NE region in climate adaptation and strategic knowledge in climate change and indigenous knowledge of NE region.
