2008 K R Narayanan Oration Why Environmentalism Needs Equity

16 September 2008

Ms Sunita Narain

"Why Environmentalism Needs Equity: Learning from the environmentalism of the poor to build our common future". Ms Sunita Narain, Director of the Centre for Science & Environment; Director of the Society for Environmental Communications; and publisher of the fortnightly magazine 'Down to Earth', has been with the Centre from 1982 and has worked hard at analysing and studying the relationship between environment and development, and at creating public consciousness about the need for sustainable development.

Her research interests are wide-ranging - from global democracy, with a special focus on climate change, to the need for local democracy, within which she has worked both on forest-related resource management and water-related issues. Ms Narain began her career by writing and researching for the State of India's Environment reports and then went on to study issues related to forest management. For this project she travelled across the country to understand people's management of natural resources, and in 1989 co-authored the publication Towards Green Villages advocating local participatory democracy as the key to sustainable development. In the early 1990s she became involved with global environmental issues and continues to work on these as researcher and advocate.

Ms Narain remains an active participant, both nationally and internationally, in civil society. She serves on the boards of various organisations and on governmental committees and has spoken at many fora across the world on issues of her concern and expertise.

Broad Topics: Asia and the Pacific

Sub-topics: Environment, Policy & Political Science, Society & Culture

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Ms Sunita Narain the 2008 K R Narayanan Orator