Mr. Salam harped on the fact the despite such huge potential, this region remains largely untapped when we talk about “Green Gold”. Recently back from Bangalore after celebrating World Bamboo Day on 18th of September, he shared that fact that “Green Gold” or Bamboo can indeed be a tool for sustainable progress and an ideal tool for socio- economic transformation for indigenous people and communities that depend on forests for their livelihood through an impactful audio- visual analogy.

The next speaker, Mukul Mahanta, who has been running bamboo-based business, “Luit Nirman” since 1985, spoke about the need to examine the current lifestyle from instant gratification to sustained satisfaction, which is only possible if we take a bit more care of our environment. The next resource person, S. Kedia, representing Assam Productivity Council, addressed the youths focusing on their need of personnel development in order to achieve a sustainable progress. The next speaker, Sujata Dutta Hazarika, deputy director, North East Center for Research and Development, IGNOU and co-founder of Global Initiative for Sustainable Development and Planning, emphasized the role of values in sustainable development.

The keynote lecture was given by S. Garg, an honorable award recipient of the Dow Sustainability Innovation Challenge 2010 at UC Berkeley. He is also the co- founder of GISDP (Global Initiative For Sustainable Development and Planning ), an initiative to create a common platform for interaction and exchange between organisations and institutions at a global level to share their resources, skills and expertise to create a globally sustainable world order and promote a culture of sustainability in a world increasingly threatened by energy dependence, over consumption, erosion of traditional community resources, and environmental degradation.

The next session after lunch was a case study workshop, conducted by Ranjan K. Baruah, a social entrepreneur. He discussed the role of youths for sustainable development. He mentioned the importance of sustainable way of trade and commerce or green business, which brings change in harmony with nature. Mentioning about carbon trading, he said that developing must be careful in carbon trade and developed countries must be ethical in this regard. Group discussions were held amongst the participants which was moderated by Mr. Baruah. Participants committed to adopt sustainable consumption pattern and also work for development which would be sustainable.