International Biodiversity Congress in Northern India
“Human happiness is closely tied to all living beings. Therefore, human’s action to protect all earthly living beings equals to protecting human rights.”
Seeing fierce climate change resulting in ceaseless calamities as well as the severe problems of tremendous endangered even extinct species, Dr. Vandana Shiva, the world-renowned Indian scholar in Physics as well as the author of numerous books, initiated International Biodiversity Congress based on her insights, and organized the conference in Indian Institute of Forest Research in Dehradun Town, Northern India (IBC 2018) during the period of Oct 4th-6th. (
From the left: Dr. Shiva; Mr. Deng, Hong-Bin; Mr. Wu, Dong-jie; Ffrom the right: Dr. Mira Shiva; Ms. Lin, Si-Xian; Venerable Guo Xiang )
Pawan Kumar Chamling, the Honorable Chief Minister of Sikkim State in India, addressed a key note speech in particular, to call upon all people living on Earth to be a part of protecting the global ecology and the natural environment.
More than 700 attendees, including the representatives from more than 20 countries worldwide took part in the congress, producing and presenting 27 papers and research reports in the conference. The committee also arranged a visit for all attendees to the organic farm in Navdanya, where they could see a warehouse that holds 735 various rice seeds and many other native seeds. At IBC’s invitation, Venerable Guo-Xiang (果祥法師), DDM Vice Abbot attended the conference as well, on behalf of DDM Abbot President, and accompanied by Mr. Wu, Dongjie (吳東傑), CEO of Green Formosa Front (綠色陣線聯盟) from Taiwan.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, the originator of the conference, stressed that the aim is to facilitate the collective and exchange of ideas between frontiers worldwide so as to better realize that only when we start to reverse our own conceptions and take keen actions can we make things different. Besides, if our generation didn’t reach the goal, we should be obligated to well explain the reasons to our children and grandchildren.
Trivendra Singh Rawat, the Honorable Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, addressed the closing marks and presented the awards to those individuals and groups that put many endeavors on protection of ecosystem and environment in India. He further stated that we should look into our minds if there is any greed, anger and ignorance, and then be able to make changes from wrong thoughts and doings, thus protecting our precious and fragile Earth Family.
The IBC presented and operated the conference in a very abundant, in-depth and grounded way during the 3-day discussion; whereas more than 700 attendees ended their discussions on the biodiversities at 5 p.m. October, 6th.
After the conference, Ven. Guo Xiang shared that the spirit and the approaches of this conference well fit in Buddhism wisdom of “interdependent origination”. Namely,
"one for all, and all for one.", which is also in line with the core spirit of great compassion, wisdom, and conducts aspired by Buddha, Guan Yin Bodhisattva, Manjushri Bodhisattva, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and Samantabhadra Bodhisattva; as well as DDM’s vision, “Protection of spiritual environment”. She called on the public to practice natural and environment- friendly life style in order to protect the Earth and each of us.
Reported by Deng,Hong-Bin (鄧洪斌) and Lin, Si-Xian (林思嫻) in Dehradun, India
Translation: Hugo Su
Editing: Elenda Huang; DDM Australian Editorial Team