President Murmu highlights environmental dimension of justice on Human Rights Day

President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday said the society must consider the environmental dimension of justice as climate change is knocking on the doors and people in poorer nations are going to pay a "heavier price" for the degradation of the environment.

Speaking at an event hosted here by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to mark the Human Rights Day, Murmu also made a fervent appeal that humans must learn to treat nature and biodiversity with dignity and respect.

"I wonder what would the animals and trees around us tell us if they could speak," she said. "What would our rivers say about human history and what would our cattle say on the topic of human rights? We have trampled on their rights for long and now the results are before us."


Just as the concept of human rights exhorts the society to consider every human being as no different from us, "we should treat the whole living world and its habitat with respect", the President said. "We must learn, rather relearn, to treat nature with dignity. This is not only a moral duty; let us remember it is necessary for our own survival too," she said.