The Tamil Nadu government has chalked out a ten-year vision on biodiversity and to emerge as a green crusader. In the next few years this will be done by steering Tamil Nadu to a climate smart state, transitioning the State to be future ready into a green society and green economy powered by clean, energy and sustainable practices and recreate the magic of the Sangam era by building up biodiversity.

Biodiversity conservation is an important part of climate action. The world is now changing because of climate change. We need to provide and bring in as much area under protection, and maybe legal protection, and then develop those areas as biodiversity spaces. The world has to move from biodiversity hotspots (concept) and create larger biodiversity spaces. That’s what Tamil Nadu is trying to do, said Supriya Sahu, Secretary of Environment, Climate Change and Forest Department, Tamil Nadu.

TN Climate Summit 2.0

The State government recently set up an Endangered Species Conservation Fund. There is so much negative impact on such species because of climate change, she said at the Tamil Nadu Climate Summit 2.0

Tamil Nadu has done a few things differently and with innovation and innovative thinking, she said. “We realised that with the existing machinery we will not be able to move fast and we need to move faster and galvanise everybody. We brought science data and evidence by partnering with several technical institutions. Every policy that we designed, it was not designed in vacuum and had a framework on which the particular initiative will be implemented,” she said.

Work-in-progress

Harnessing the power of community and the youth is a great lesson for Tamil Nadu. Without community, climate change will remain only a promise, which is made in a vacuum. “Time has come that we need to make sure that the community gets empowered. I don’t think we are there yet, but we are working on it. It is work-in-progress,” she said.

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Harnessing the power of community and youth are done through campaigns like Meendum Manjapai; Green schools; Women Eco Warriors; Climate smart villages and climate clubs being set up in all the schools in the State, she added.

On the unchartered territory, Sahu said, “we did not know whether these territories could be taken up but then we tried to venture in to these territories with a baseline study, difficult assessment and failures. We are working on Tamil Nadu fish net initiatives; green indexing of cities and industries; working with rag pickers; waste exchange bureau; 100 Kurungadugal and e-waste circularity.”