As part of a slew of projects launched by the State government, the Environment department signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the U.K. to set up a botanical garden in Chengalpattu in partnership with the Kew Gardens, London.
“The MoU commits to Kew providing advice and expertise around landscape planning, plant collection development and botanical garden management,” the department said in an official release.
Environment Minister Siva V. Meyyanathan, along with Graham Stuart, U.K. Minister of State for Climate, launched the ‘Roadmap for Green Indexing of Industries’ for industrial decarbonisation in Tamil Nadu.
Theresa Coffey, U.K. Minister for Environment and Forest, inaugurated the U.K. Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions’ (UK PACT) mangrove project, which will be implemented by Keystone Foundation, Nilgris. The project will specifically build capacities of local communities in the Nilgris, Cuddalore, and Coimbatore districts, said Supriya Sahu, Secretary for Environment.
Walk on the beach
The State government kicked off green initiatives in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at another event on Thursday including the “Tide Turner Plastic Challenge”, a global youth-led movement against single use plastics.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael S. Regan, who is in Chennai for the G20 Ministerial Meeting, joined the students on a walk on Besant Nagar beach and performed an experiment to measure temperature and salinity of seawater samples, an activity conducted as part of “Ocean Matters,” an ongoing citizen science project organised by the U.S. Consulate General Chennai in partnership with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to build capacity of students to measure and monitor ocean health parameters.
