Dimapur, October 15 (MExN): Representatives from church organizations of several denominations, Zeliangrong Baudi (Nagaland) and students of the Zeliangrong community today deliberated on the need to inculcate and strengthen conservation culture for sustainable livelihood.
Organized by the Care – Centre for environment and rural poor (C-Cerp) at the St. Xavier Higher Secondary School in Jalukie, the meeting underlined the need to focus on development with the right perspective. “Developmental programmes are not development when its policy is deprived of health, sanitation and human rights. Unplanned development or in other words unsustainable developmental activities in our surroundings has caused health hazards especially to the marginalized group” said Liangsi Niumai John, director of C-Cerp in her keynote address.
“There are number of related issues and this growing complexity is a threat and concern for the society. It has therefore become everyone’s responsibility to get involved and understand the environmental issues that concerns our livelihood,” she said.
She said Nagaland – a victim of both geography and the ravages of a sixty year separatist movement – have gone above the all-India level of rural and urban area human poverty with 45% and 16.8% respectively. All this while basic poverty also stands at 20% whereas the national level is 17.5%., she explained.
The meeting endorsed to begin sensitization from the grass-root level to change mindsets and be encourage the ‘conservation culture’ for sustainable livelihood, while also initiating to strengthen the community’s role in natural resource management by considering the livelihood issues through strategies that have community perceptions.
