Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy on Tuesday said that the Puducherry government had taken a conscious decision not to grant permission to polluting industries to achieve environmental sustainability.
Stating that sustainable development will not come till the ecology is maintained, he said that the Government had also decided not to allow the indiscriminate felling of trees.
He was speaking at the second international conference on Ecosystems and Sustainable Development organised by CIFEODD (French-speaking International Organisation of High Education and Research Institutes working on Sustainable Development) in association with the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) at Alliance Francaise here. Mr. Narayanasamy said that maintenance of ecosystems for sustainable development was an important factor not only in India and France but all over the world.
Nature has been disturbed by humans and there should be awareness among people to protect and conserve ecology and natural resources.
Pointing out that the Government alone cannot resolve the issue, he said that countries should work together and bring out an action plan to work towards sustainable development.
Consul General of France in Puducherry Catherine Suard pointed out that sustainable development was today a complex issue and only an intersection of approaches, and the exchange of analyses can provide the elements of response that can base political decisions at the local as well as global level.
Ms. Suard said that the French Embassy and the French Institute in India had launched their first sustainability competition titled ‘La vie en Green. Tech your Future’.
The competition is targeted at high school students (class X and XII) from France and India with the objective of increasing interest in and to create awareness about sustainable development. The competition will last four months.
Sustainability issues
Generating awareness about sustainability issues among the youth will help in creating a global community, which will be able to interact, understand each other’s issues and maybe one day, find cooperative solutions, she said. Experts and researchers from different fields and countries could benefit from each other’s expertise and open the competition’s educational aspects to youth from various countries, she added. The meet aims to create a platform for interaction between Africa, India and France, which are at the forefront of sustainable development, she added. Didier Lemoine, Secretary General of IFP and Frederic Landy, Director IFP participated.
