Manipur students pledge to protect the degraded environment

Our Correspondent
YARALPAT, FEBRUARY 20

A group of Class VIII students in a Manipur school on Saturday pledged to conserve nature in the process of finding remedies to protect the degraded environment in the interest of the future generation. They even promised to make their school plastic free school first in the state.
These students of Mega Manipur School,located at the foothill close to the picturesque wetland- Yaralpat, about 8 km north of Imphal, shared their pledge while taking part in a 2 hour long first ever multi-medium National Environmental Awareness Campaign cum interaction session with the theme “Combating Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought”.
“This is the first time that environmental film screenings are used with short span, interactive talks by media practitioners and activist to raise the environmental consciousness of the students in order to make them a stake holder in combating for the Planet Earth,” says Managing Trustee Sunzu Bachaspatimayum of the organiser-Win Foundation, a public charitable trust based in Manipur. “It is built on the philosophy that each individual has a life mission to win.”
Environmental activist Jiten Yumnam, who has just returned recently after studies on environmental impact on the rain forest of Amazon spoke on present status of the degraded environment in Manipur while Senior Journalist, Sophapati Samom who specializes in Environment beats and RK Robindro Singh, TV Producer of Doordarshan who has won multi awards for his provocative environmental TV productions shared their experiences while dealing issues relating to human pressure on environment.
Four short environmental films – Conservation International’s “Nature is Speaking”, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Global Environmental Facility and Good Planet Foundation’s “Desertification” Stand For Trees’ were also screened in the day’s campaign where the students along with their teachers responded actively.