NE Brief

Archbishop John Moolachira gave a clarion call to protect Mother Earth

Current Updates | NE Brief | NECARF Rep | 14-Sep-2022

Addressing the North East India Pastoral Conference 2022 in Guwahati on September 13, 2022, Archbishop Moolachira, President, North East India Regional Bishops Council (NEIRBC) gave a clarion call to protect ‘Mother Earth”. Invoking passages from the Bible, the Archbishop said, “The book of Genesis speaks of the world God created. ‘Yahweh planted a garden in Eden… There he put the man he had fashioned.” He recollected how as a young priest he travelled through dense forests to reach some of the parishes and villages. He regretted it was not the same today as he travel through those same roads, as there are no trace of a forest. All one saw he said, was “host of settlements, surrounded by cut Timbers meant to be sold outside the state by unscrupulous elements with the connivance or negligence of government machinery”.

 He warns that old forests no longer exist, 70 per cent of water sources are polluted, and laws are not enforced by the authorities. This led to the hill sides and plains turning barren, and rivulets drying up, rains have become less, and when it rains fertile soil is washed away; garbage is everywhere and life in towns is unhygienic; pollutants in the cities and towns freely flow into our rivers and water ways. Pesticides and fertilizers are used widely and the water in the rivulets has become dangerous both for man and animals. He therefore called upon people to rediscover harmony with nature, which God created.

He however said that all is not lost. God, he said urging young and old, Church personnel and civilians, to champion the cause of the earth, though their cry seems to have come too late. He cited how on 2 November 2021, Vinisha Uma Shankar, aged 14, an environmentalist and an innovator, and the winner of Children’s Climate Prize 2021, made a speech in the UN at the international climate change conference, and pleaded the international community to save environment. He spoke of Rajendra Singh- the waterman of India, Jadav Payeng the man who planted a forest, Rakhibuddin Ahmed the environmentalist from Assam, who tell us to love and respect nature, save energy and water, plant trees and grow gardens, reduce waste, reuse and recycle, volunteer to clean up and maintain cleanliness.

He said, Earth, our common home, is composed of living and non-living organisms. They are interconnected. No living creature can live without reference to non-living organisms. The interaction between the living and non-living makes the earth balanced, healthy, resourceful and beautiful. But when the balance is lost, it results in environmental disasters caused by overproduction, overconsumption, and pollution. Air and water-borne diseases increases, global warming, floods, earthquakes, storms, drought, etc. become rampant. Similarly, migration, increase in slum settlements, more people falling below poverty line, are all ill effects of environment degradation, he said. Citing example of 1.5 million children death annually, the Archbishop attributed this sorry state of affairs environmental pollution.

India, he said has mechanisms and laws to save and protect the environment but has no will to execute them. Human rights, child rights, minority rights, and environmental rights, Wildlife Protection Act (1972), the Environmental (Protection) Act, are all there on paper, but not much is seen on ground to judiciously apply these laws, he said. He cited how the National Green Tribunal and other agencies for protection of environmental are blatantly violated by people in power for monetary gains. He said it was therefore, hardly surprising that India’s performance in environmental protection is almost at rock bottom at 169 out of 180 nations. He also quoted Pope Francis as having said that “the cry of the Earth is the cry of the poor”, and urge the people to do their bit in protecting everything that God has given.  

 

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