Lawmakers vow to include environment rights in statute

By A Staff Reporter Nagarkot, July 17

Most lawmakers representing different political parties in the Constituent Assembly (CA) Friday expressed their solidarity and commitment for incorporating the issue of environmental rights and good governance in the upcoming new constitution.

Lawmakers said that they were doing their best through getting involved in different Constitutional Committees so that the rights on environmental issue could be guaranteed and assured to poor, dalit and marginalised groups.

Lawmakers said so in course of a two-day seminar organised jointly by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Pro-Public it this scenic outpost.

Former justice and coordinator of the Interim Constitution drafting committee Laxman Aryal, urging lawmakers, emphasised that the issue of environmental rights could not be guaranteed until lawmakers mentioned the environmental rights as fundamental rights rather than listing it in the directive principles section in the constitution.

“The environmental rights of women, dalit, marginalised and poor can be ensured can be ensured only if they are incorporated in the fundamental rights of the constitution,” Aryal said.

Lawmakers Suprabha Ghimire of Nepali Congress, Minakchee Jha of Nepali Congress, Ram Bahadur Thapa Magar of UCPN (Maoist), Dr. Bishwo Nath Agrawal of Nepali Janata Dal, Ramananda Mandal of Madhesi Jana Adhikar Forum, among others, asked for necessary suggestions from the resource persons that were related to environment so that the environmental rights could be mentioned in fundamental rights in the new constitution.

Prof. Dr. Pramod Kumar Jha, academician at the Nepal Academy of Sciences, presenting his working paper said that the environmental crisis that had surfaced some 40 years ago was going to bring a planetary crisis in the near future. He spoke on the need to ‘Think globally: Act locally’ to protect and ensure environmental rights.

Narayan Belbase, acting National Representative of IUCN, said that as 85 per cent of the Nepalese still depended on environment for their livelihood, stern punishments should be introduced in the country for those who breached the laws related to the environment.

Belbase hinted on the lack of proper and essential institutional structures to check, regulate and implement the rules and regulation introduced in environment related issue. Campaigning on the issue and its effect should be mounted across the country so that people became aware of the effects of environmental impact.

Dr. Om Gurung, professor and anthropologist and Min Bahadur Bishwokarma, presenting their separate working papers also underlined the need of cooperative role of all human beings to protect nature and avert environmental crisis. They said that culture and environment played complimentary roles to protect nature from further degenerating.

The programme was also supported by WWF, World Resources Institute (WRI) and UNEP.

Source: http://gorkhapatra.org.np/rising.detail.php?articleid=21421&catid=4