FROM PAGE 3

sector-driven afforestation project with Bonayan Bangladesh. Delowar Jahan, co-founder of Prakritik Krishi Bipanan Kendra received the Food for the Future Award.

Meanwhile, Hawladar Azad Kabir, ranger & officer-in-charge of Karamjal Crocodile Breeding Center received the Forest Guards and Rangers Award.

The other winners include Sir Partha Dasgupta, author of the landmark Economics of Biodiversity report for the UK treasury; and Dr Kamaljit Singh Bawa, president and founder of the environmental think tank Ashoka Trust Research in Environment and Ecology.

Prof Niaz Ahmed Khan was also awarded.

Ranjit Barthakur, founder of Balipara Foundation, said, “There has to be a shift in mindset and attitudes. Everything has to be biodiverse.”

Lord Nicholas Stern, chairman of Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment of the London School of Economics (LSE), said, “The Eastern Himalayas is the centre-stage influencing more than a billion people in the region.”

Ambassador Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary and Prime Minister’s Special Envoy For Nuclear Affairs and Climate Change of India, said, “Today, we are at a point where climate change, biodiversity, and finance cannot be put in a single box; they have become more and more interconnected.”