Itanagar, Oct 19: Meghalaya Minister in-charge of Environment and Forest, James K. Sangma on Tuesday, opposed palm oil plantations in the state. Speaking on the topic connecting the dots of Sub nationalism in India, Regionalism and Environmental Protection, Sangma spoke about Palm Oil cultivation and the monocrop culture, which central government wants to introduce expressing concern towards the harms that the plantations could bring to the state’s dense forest cover vis-à-vis the environment.“India imports palm oil from Indonesia. We spend a lot of money to import edible oil. However, if palm oil is introduced in our region, it will threaten our ecology… 25 % forest cover in Indonesia and Malaysia has been destroyed. So we fear that if it is introduced, it will hamper our environment,” he said.

Hinting that North East voices are at times overlooked by the centre, he said, “We should be proud of our identity and our diversity but should not disintegrate against each other but unite and become a strong united voices of inclusive North East”. He said Northeast is considered as minority political force, however, if all regional political forces comes together, we will surely become assertive voice of the region.

The NPP leader further said that through this conclave, NPP envisages to engage people to understand issues of the region and how best it can be resolved.

The Conclave will provide us a platform to deliberate on the various issues of the North East and how we can come together to bring about positive changes for the welfare of the region.

— James K Sangma (@JamesSangma1) October 19, 2021

He said that frontal organisations “NPP for Actionable Governance” will connect with different think tank to solicit opinion from different sections of the society. He also took the opportunity to engage with audience on various issues of the region.

Dialogue is the way forward

On interacting with the audience, the NPP Spokesperson answered questions on insurgency in Northeast and border issues between Assam-Arunachal and Assam-Meghalaya and how will NPP look into these particular issue.

On answering the first question, Sangma reminded the gathering about the principles of Mahatma Gandhi and his “Ahimsa”. “By expressing yourselves and by dialogue… that is the way to find solutions,” he said.

On the Assam – Arunachal and Assam- Meghalaya border dispute, Sangma said, “That we have started a process whereby our Hon’ble Chief Minister has initiated discussions with the Assam counterpart, with the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam… we have constituted committees headed, and subcommittees headed by the certain respective political leaders, we’ve identified various areas of differences, and the process has started.”