A two-day meeting was organized by The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on April 18 and 19, in collaboration with Experiments in Rural Advancement (ERA) and Sarokaar – Centre for Advocacy Studies, with the following objectives:

1. To create awareness amongst civil society groups, government and media about the politics and process leading up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
2. To bring about debate on issues relating to the region which have a global character.
3. To draw up recommendations on issues which should be taken up by the global community in view of their serious impact on global environment

NGOs, media, local activists, scientists and bureaucrats from the states of Uttaranchal and Himachal participated in the meeting. The meeting was divided into four sessions, each of which was introduced by a panel of speakers, after which working groups would discuss and come out with comments/recommendations.

Some of the issues identified in the sessions were:

Governance:

• Inter and intra national conflicts over globalisation, natural resource management and biodiversity conservation and utilisation
• Centralisation of governance, policy and programmes
• Political agendas do not tackle basic problems – sustainability and environmental concerns have to be a part and parcel of political manifestos.
• Existing laws on natural resources are obsolete and they should be changed, keeping in view the problem of present era
• Discriminatory and vaguely defined people’s rights on resources
• Insensitivity of policies towards community cultures, ecosystems, values etc.

• Loss of traditional (sustainable) knowledge systems
• Indiscriminate and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources; excessive and resource intensive consumptive lifestyles
• Lack of understanding and awareness of issues amongst people, governments, media, scientists, and NGOs.
• Insensitivity and alienation of media
• Inappropriate educational systems
• Globalisation interferes with traditional (sustainable) social, economic and cultural systems – destroys cultural diversity
• More emphasis on economic rather than social and environmental reforms

Session on "Combating poverty through Sustainable Development"

• Conservation and utilisation of local natural resources has to be brought under the umbrella of a sustainable management framework.

• Implementation of a project in an area should accrue long-term benefits – projects with short-term goals are unsustainable.
• Farming community must have a decisive role in marketing systems.
• Demand and consumption cycles must operate within the community without external pressures

• Greater role and empowerment of women in agriculture.
• Value addition of traditional skills

• Active partnership between local people and scientific community

Session on "Natural resource and Biodiversity conservation"

• Natural resources should be under the domain of local (farming) communities who have nurtured and sustainably utilised these resources
• Excessive (unsustainable) exploitation of natural resources (herbs, minerals, forest produce, water, land) should be mitigated
• Farmers, with the participation of the government/public systems must take initiatives for policy formulation and programme implementation.
• In-situ / on farm conservation of local genetic resources
• Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) based livelihoods should be promoted
• Farmers must be paid for their conservation efforts

Session on "Climate change and disaster management"
The participants identified climate change as a critical problem for mountain eco-systems. They recognised that there is an increasing trend in natural calamities and that unsustainable patterns of consumption of an urban minority were creating grave dangers to life support systems of a rural (poor) majority. Reversing this trend was identified as the major challenge in this session. The following recommendations were made in this regard:

• Northern countries must be held primarily responsible and new effective laws in this regard must be enacted to curb and help reverse the current problem/processes.
• Lifestyles of the people should be reshaped on the principles of frugality, with minimum or no waste to be added to the environment.
• Technologies based on judicious exploitation of resources, more use of renewable sources of energy, using waste recycling and creating no pollution should be developed, refined and effectively implemented
• Unplanned growth of urban sector should be checked.
• Shift from capital-intensive agriculture to traditional practices.

Session on "Law, policy and institutional framework for Sustainable Development"
The participants recognised that current laws are obsolete and incapable of addressing current and future issues. They identified decentralisation of the law framing process and the recognition of ‘customary’ or traditional law within the formal law-making process as the two main challenges facing us today. The recommendations were:

• People's participation and consultation in law making.
• Panchayat systems do not have powers commensurate with their duties. Panchayati laws should be reviewed and more power should be given to panchayat in a "real" sense.
• Customary laws should be taken into account while enacting new laws.
• Legal education should be made a part of basic education.
• Integration of law on natural resources – an integrated approach to policies and legislation, which sees natural resources as a system that needs to be managed and not merely as a resource base to be drawn upon to maximise benefit.

In conclusion, the participants said that Sustainable Development cannot be globalised, it must vary for operational purposes according to ecosystem communities and their value systems. This can be achieved through developing and strengthening of democratic and institutional systems at local level (gram panchayats). A critical factor is the sensitisation of government, media, scientists, and NGOs towards issues, problems, concerns and aspirations of communities. They also stressed that international trade regimes and policies directly affect the socio-economic status of people, therefore trade cannot be given precedence over environmental treaties.

Participants realised that NGOs have an important role to play as a connecting link between govt. and the people, and in encouraging govt. towards community oriented policies. They said that academia should continuously refine / improve rural based technology in partnership with communities, and in recognition of traditional knowledge base. Information, education and communication are key elements in a sustainable development paradigm, and greater institutional (government, NGO, academia) networking and partnership must be encouraged in order to achieve this.