President Droupadi Murmu said today that it is vital to understand importance of the knowledge accumulated by tribal society over centuries and use it to improve the environment. She stressed that while we must unlearn many misconceptions, we need to learn from the ideals of a balanced lifestyle of the tribal society to move forward on an ecologically sustainable, ethically desirable and socially justifiable path.
Addressing the officer trainees of Indian Forest Service (2022 batch) at their convocation ceremony at the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy, Dehradun, the President stated that the tribal society has no role in climate change but the burden of its ill effects is disproportionately more on them.
The President lamented that under the impulse of unbalanced modernity, some people consider the tribal community and their collective wisdom primitive. She urged IFS officers to spend time among the tribal people in the field and earn their affection and trust. She said that they should learn from the good practices of the tribal society. She also urged them to take ownership of their responsibilities and become a role model.
Earlier, President Murmu said that human society is making the mistake of forgetting the importance of forests when in reality forests are life givers and preserver of life on earth. She stressed on the importance of understanding that we are not the owners of the earth’s resources, but we are trustees. Our priorities should be ecocentric along with anthropocentric. In fact, only by being ecocentric we will be able to be truly anthropocentric, she stated.
The President emphasised that we need to act very quickly to conserve earth’s biodiversity and maintained that human life can be saved from the crisis through conservation and promotion of forests and wildlife. We can repair the damage at a faster pace with the help of Science and Technology. For example, the Miyawaki Method is being adopted in many places. Artificial Intelligence can help in identifying suitable areas for afforestation and area specific tree species.
