International webinar on Plants and Microbes for Environmental Sustainability
Aligarh: An international webinar on ‘Plants and Microbes for Environmental Sustainability’ was organized by Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University in collaboration with International Society of Environmental Botanist (ISEB), CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), Lucknow.
Lectures on different topics were delivered by Prof Emeritus M N V Prasad, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Hyderabad (Telangana); Dr P Thangavel, Department of Environmental Science, Periyar University, Salem (Tamil Nadu), and Dr Muhammad Arslan , Environmental Engineering Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Prof Emeritus M N V Prasad enlightened the significance of plants, microbes, and hybrid systems in minimizing metal-pollutant’s load, and thereby achieving environmental sustainability. Dr Muhammad Arslan discussed the success story of the floating treatment wetlands (FTWs), comprising consortium of unique plants and microbes (plants-bacteria synergism) as cost-effective, and an appropriate eco-technology for large-scale cleanup of sewage and industrial wastewater. Dr P Thangavel explained the mechanisms underlying metal hyper-accumulation in plants and elaborated its role in cleanup of the metal contaminated sites.
A round of discussion followed each talk.
In his presidential address, Prof Wasim Ahmad, Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences appreciated the efforts of the organizing team for timely and significant theme of the webinar.
Prof Nafees A Khan, organizing secretary, gave the insights into the webinar theme, and also enlightened the role of biological approach comprising plants and microbes in sustainable control of varied environmental issues, and eventually in achieving environmental sustainability.
Prof Ghazala Parveen, Chairperson and the co-organizing secretary of the webinar in her welcome address mentioned that the collaboration of Department of Botany with ISEB and NBRI, Lucknow would improve joint academic activities in the campus of AMU and NBRI, Lucknow.
Dr RD Tripathi, Secretary, ISEB, and co-convener, introduced ISEB to the gathering and expressed his desire to organize more AMU-ISEB/ NBRI collaborative events again in future also.
Dr Naser A Anjum, the convener of the webinar introduced the rationale and objective of the online event to the audience. Dr Asim Masood, the co-convener highlighted the major take-home message of the webinar, and also gave the vote of thanks.