The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Urbanisation `is major challenge to eco conservation'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 06, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Urbanisation `is major challenge to eco conservation'

Staff Reporter

Job opportunities in villages stressed

CHENNAI: Population explosion, increased urbanisation and industrial pollution are the major challenges to environmental conservation, S. Balaji, Chief Conservator of Forests, said on Wednesday.

Inaugurating a three-day seminar on `Environmental Biotechnology' at Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed (JBAS) College here, Dr. Balaji said more than 13,000 persons were migrating to the city every day. Efforts should be made to make the rural areas vibrant with assured employment opportunities in agriculture and income generation activities through micro credit. This would arrest unemployment, he said.

A good example to this was the Tamil Nadu Afforestation Programme, under which over two lakh forest dependents were provided employment and over 4,000 self-help groups formed in 1,400 villages.

Dr. Balaji noted that ecological development was possible with economic development.

Faizur Rahman Sayeed, Executive Council Member, Southern India Education Trust, recalled that the place was originally a paddy field five decades ago when the foundation stone for the SIET College was laid.

Biodiversity, bioresources, energy resources, environmental biotechnology and clean bioprocesses, innovative technologies in pollution control, recent trends in biotechnology were some of the topics that would be covered in the seminar.

Golden jubilee

The seminar was organised as part of the golden jubilee celebrations of JBAS College for Women in association with the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the University Grants Commission.

Sanjida Haris, principal of the JBAS College for Women, and Nausheen Dawood, the organising secretary, were among those who participated in the programme.

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