Development Planning Must Place Environment, Biodiversity and Public Health at the Core — Adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Adviser to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; the Ministry of Water Resources; and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, has said that development planning must adopt integrated and forward-looking decisions with environment, biodiversity and public health at its centre. She noted that when environmental and ecological considerations are sacrificed in the name of development, society ultimately bears the cost. “While roads and infrastructure can be built, a Sundarbans or a river cannot be recreated,” she said, adding that climate change, pandemics and environmental crises repeatedly remind us that all elements of nature are deeply interconnected and that humans are not owners of nature, but an inseparable part of it.
She made these remar...