Environmental governance at centre stage
This article reflects on the 50th anniversary of the first UN Conference on the Human Environment, highlighting Indira Gandhi's pivotal role in shaping India's environmental policy. It details her efforts to establish wildlife protection laws and conservation programs during the early 1970s.
Why it matters
It provides historical context for modern environmental governance and highlights the foundational legislative efforts that shaped India's conservation landscape.
It was the noted Pakistani economist, Tariq Banuri, who, in the run-up to the ill-fated Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change in December 2009, first pointed to me that the global environmental discourse has been shaped by four events. The first three were the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb in 1968, and the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth in early 1972. The fourth was Indira Gandhi’s speech at the first-ever United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm 50 years ago today. She was the only head of government to speak at that conclave (other than the host, Olof Palme). Her address, which looked at environmental issues from a development perspective and at developmental challenges from an ecological standpoint, has gone into history as a milestone.
The article is a historical retrospective focusing on policy milestones without overt political agenda.
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