205+1 environment conferences (2012-2014)
for awareness, advocacy and public dialogue, engaging with local people across India
www.environmentconferences.org
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Why India plays an important role in protecting the environment
India is a vast country with a large population, amazing social diversities, social & economic biases
and inequalities. India is a growing consumer economy and will one day have amongst the largest
group of consumers in the world. However, the population of India must be seen beyond that of
potential consumers for international markets. The Indian population must play an important role in
protecting the environment. It is therefore increasingly important that work is done to create
environmental awareness with the common people of India towards sustainable development. We
need to explore the people, groups and organizations working for environmental issues on the real
ground if we are serious about protecting the environment. Exclusive awareness and participatory
dialogue programs with the common people is needed that promote decentralized methods of
protecting the environment.
However, currently in India there is little public dialogue or community awareness about the local
and global issues facing the environment. What is climate change? What are other issues facing the
environment? And what are roles people can play to protect the environment? In answering these
questions, it is our view that environmental issues cannot be resolved only by funded academic
research, or through grants and programs supported by government agencies. Environmental
problems need to be resolved by and between individuals, which includes common people, the
corporate sector, academics, NGOs and government. All sectors and all individuals need to consider
their role in protecting the environment and work together towards a common goal.
In order to begin to work towards sustainable development, we propose a chain of environment
conferences. The most important activity of this chain of environment conferences is a dialogue
with common people about their environment, its problems and potential solutions. If common
people will understand how environmental issues are related to them and their future generations,
then they can start to work for the environment sincerely, including advocating to government and
private sector to make better policies for the environment that promote its sustainability.
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The activity
Ground Report India (GRI) was founded as an accountable media platform. The people of GRI go to
the ground for their reports. In this process they found that there is a missing gap - most people
didn’t understand or were not aware about environmental issues, even though it is one of the most
important issues of the world today. GRI has also published special editions on water, agriculture
and tribal issues. Through this, GRI found that many common people and local communities are
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