Bhubaneswar: The ‘Punascha Pruthibi’ campaign by Sambad has grown beyond an awareness initiative to become a household conversation on climate change, said Tanaya Patnaik, Editor of Sambad and Kanak News, while addressing the three-day Earth Again Conference 2026 at Utkal University in Bhubaneswar today.

Patnaik said the campaign is taking the climate conversation to people across Odisha through Climate Panchayats being organised in all 147 Assembly constituencies. The discussions are aimed at providing a platform for citizens to voice their concerns and enabling elected representatives to listen to them.

“Their voices are now being collated into a people’s climate atlas,” Patnaik said, describing it as a record of how climate change is being experienced at the village level across the state.

She said the campaign has focused on ground-level engagement rather than being limited to Bhubaneswar. The initiative has reached Bhitarkanika to highlight the importance of mangroves, Berhampur and Aryapalli in Ganjam where coastal erosion and the advancing sea are affecting communities, as well as Similipal and Debrigarh.

Referring to Debrigarh, Patnaik said the campaign highlighted the need for a dedicated sanctuary for the Indian bison. The bison has therefore been chosen as the mascot of this year’s Earth Again campaign.

She said the initiative is using print, television, radio podcasts and digital platforms to take climate-related reporting to people. Competitions for school students through Sambad Ama Odia are also being conducted at the grassroots level.

The campaign has also included plantation drives with Sahitya Ghara, climate fellowship and partner events in different parts of the state. On October 1, awareness programmes were organised simultaneously at seven universities across Odisha, she said.

This year, the campaign has also introduced ‘Parivesh Bidhansabha’, a new initiative that will begin at the conference and subsequently travel to different parts of Odisha.

Explaining the choice of Utkal University as the venue, Patnaik said the climate conversation must involve the young people who will live with its long-term consequences.

“To the students here, the future we are discussing is not ours; it is yours,” she said, referring to them as ‘Gen C’, or Generation Climate.

She urged students to think about how campuses could become greener under their leadership and stressed that the Earth Again Conference should not be seen as an event that ends with its conclusion on Sunday.

“The promise continues every day after,” Patnaik said, adding that the campaign would continue working with communities in villages and coastal areas, forests and campuses, and across every block of Odisha.

She said the movement aims to continue its work with people and for people until 2036 and beyond, and appealed to citizens to join the Earth Again movement.