Forest and Environment Minister James PK Sangma has been invited as a keynote speaker to represent Meghalaya at the The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Sustainability Summit 2021.
Sangma will address a delegation including former United States Ambassador Nikki Haley, Tata Group emeritus chairman Ratan Tata, Tech Mahindra’s chief executive CP Gurnani, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari.
The two-and-a-half-day event will also have the presence of distinguished Indian and world leaders from governments, industry, regulatory bodies, academia, foundations, and investment firms.
Sangma, who has been burnishing his green credentials relentlessly over the past few months, will speak on the theme of this year’s summit – ‘Entrepreneurship Meets Sustainability’ – highlighting some of the key environmental issues of Meghalaya and how the Forest and Environment Department is taking initiatives to facilitate collaborations with indigenous communities and local/national change-makers to implement long-term solutions.
Sangma has also pushed for ecotourism in the state of Meghalaya, as a strategy for post-Covid recovery of the tourism sector. Sangma is currently advocating to restart the ailing engine of small and medium businesses on the lines of ecotourism, which were heavily intertwined with a commercial tourism model and faced a massive strike down due to the pandemic.
“While tourism is an important sector for our state, our environment, and our local businesses take a massive beating due to hyper-commercialization. We cannot sacrifice the environment for short-term gains. Ecotourism is therefore an opportunity to ensure that reopening tourism is not a mere commercial opportunity but more of an experiential one where people can seek meaning out of the entire process and carry it with them as messengers for others to understand,” Sangma said. “We have to move towards a nature-first approach. Ecotourism will help urban consumers soak themselves into the rural landscape and help them to understand the importance of traditional and cultural conservation practices. We have to begin now as we cannot afford to compromise on the rights of our future generations.”
