UN's highest environmental honour for Assam conservationist
Guwahati (PTI): Assam's leading conservationist Purnima Devi Barman has been awarded the United Nation's highest environmental honour, 'Champions of the Earth', for 2022.
Barman, a wildlife biologist, bagged the award along with four others from different countries for their transformative action to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) announced on Tuesday.
A Green Oscar winner, Barman has strived for nearly two decades to ensure survival of the Greater Adjutant Stork by creating an all-woman grassroots conservationist group called the 'Hargila (the Assamese name for the bird) Army' to save the bird from extinction.
The award is given in various categories and Barman got it in the Entrepreneurial Vision category, for leading the "Hargila Army".
The women in the group create and sell textiles with motifs of the bird, helping to raise awareness about the species while building their own financial independence.
"The honour is overwhelming and a dream come true for me. I dedicate this award to Mother Earth and all mothers of the planet as the best education begins at home on the mother's lap," Barman told PTI.
The conservation focus of the project is on motherhood and the Hargila Army celebrates baby showers before the eggs are hatched and also after the chicks are born, she said adding that all the activists are mothers and housewives who contribute to the conservation of the stork which almost became extinct, Barman said.
''There are many challenges along the way but we have created a community movement which we will continue to take forward with the help of people,'' she said.
UNEP's Champions of the Earth honours individuals, groups, and organisations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment. The annual Champions of the Earth award recognises outstanding leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector.
Announcing the Champions of the Earth, 2022 at Nairobi, UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said that this year's award honours a conservationist, an enterprise, an economist, a women's rights activist, and a wildlife biologist for their transformative action to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation.
Besides Barman, the other recipients of the UNEP award are Lebanon's environmental enterprise Arceniel, Peru's Constantino (Tino) Aucca Chuta for pioneering a community reforestation model driven by a local community, Sir Partha Dasgupta of the UK in the Science and Innovation category and Cameroon's Cecile Bibian Ndjebet for advocating rights of women in Africa to secure land tenure.
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Chabahar port will benefit entire region: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on US warning
Kolkata, May 15: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the Chabahar port would benefit the entire region and a narrow view should not be taken of it, after the US warned that any country having business dealings with Iran runs the "potential risk of sanctions".
Speaking at a programme in Kolkata on Tuesday night, he said that in the past, even the US has been appreciative of the fact that the Chabahar port has a larger relevance.
India on Monday signed a 10-year contract to operate the strategic Iranian port of Chabahar that will help New Delhi expand trade with Central Asia.
"We had a long association with the Chabahar port but we could never sign a long-term agreement. The reason was there were various problems... Finally, we were able to sort this out and we were able to get the long-term agreement done. A long-term agreement is necessary because without it we cannot improve the port operations. And, the port operations, we believe, will benefit the entire region," Jaishankar said.
"I did see some remarks which were made, but I think it's a question of communicating and convincing and getting people to understand that this is actually for everybody's benefit. I don't think people should take a narrow view of it. And, they have not done so in the past.
"If you look at even the US's own attitude to Chabahar in the past, the US has been appreciative of the fact that Chabahar has a larger relevance. We will work at it," he said.
Located in Sistan-Balochistan province on the energy-rich Iran's southern coast, the Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman -- which New Delhi had proposed to develop way back in 2003 -- will provide Indian goods a gateway to reach landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia using a road and rail project called International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), bypassing Pakistan.
US sanctions on Iran over its suspected nuclear programme had slowed the development of the port.
"We're aware of these reports that Iran and India have signed a deal concerning the Chabahar port. I will let the government of India speak to its own foreign policy goals vis-a-vis the Chabahar port as well as its bilateral relationship with Iran," US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters at his daily news conference on Monday.
"I will just say, as it relates to the United States, US sanctions on Iran remain in place and we’ll continue to enforce them," he said in response to a question on the Chabahar port deal.
"You've heard us say this in several instances, that any entity, anyone considering business deals with Iran, they need to be aware of the potential risk that they are opening themselves up to and the potential risk of sanctions," Patel said.
India and Iran have projected the port as a key hub for the 7,200-km-long INSTC -- a multi-mode transport project for moving freight among India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.
The long-term agreement was signed by Indian Ports Global Limited (IPGL) and the Port and Maritime Organisation of Iran, an official statement said.
