Community Response towards Climate Change Adaptation

Dr Ram Boojh

UNESCO New Delhi Office

Adaptive Response of Communities in Sunderban Biosphere Reserve

• Sunderban located in West Bengal in vast delta of the Ganges, south of Kolkata bordering Bangladesh

• Largest contiguous mangrove ecosystem (along with Bangladesh) in the world

• Consists of 102 islands, among them 48 are inhabited

• Population is mainly migrant settlers from different parts of Bangladesh and southern West Bengal for last 60 - 120 years

•

The People

• Major Livelihood Activities • Practiced:

• Agriculture• Fishery• Wood Collection• Honey Collection

•Approximately 4 million people live in Sunderban

•Fully dependent on the forest resources

•Agriculture is not properly developed due to many reasons

•Sunderban is under severe stress and the community is quite vulnerable

Biodiversity

• Sunderban has the largest mangrove diversity in the world including several threatened floral and faunal species

• It is the only wetland tiger habitat in the world.

• The core area (Sunderban National Park) has been designated as World Heritage Site

Considerations

• Local communities perception: about climate change, variability and extremes, impacts (local and global environmental and economic changes)

• Local knowledge about coping against climatic change, variability and extreme events in relation to biodiversity, ecological services and livelihoods.

• Conservation and development policies and programmes for enhancing local capacities of adaptation or reducing people’s vulnerability to likely climate change scenarios- strengths and weaknesses

• To strengthen adaptation through collaborative efforts and networking

Observed climate change impacts

• Temperature:• No major changes in recent past• The span of summer season has

increased• Span of winter has decreased•• Rainfall & Humidity :• Rainfall has considerably increased

( known to be one and half times more than what it was 15 years ago)

• The span of monsoon season has shifted (approximately it is now delayed by 15 - 20 days)

• The number of cloudy & humid summer days has increased

Sea Level Rise

• Villagers see definite changes in terms of sea level rise

• They have seen sufficient increase in the level of water during high tide (Bhara Kotal)

• Community also talked about settlement of the local habitat and river siltation as major causes for flooding of rivers

Climate change as percieved by communities

• Intrusion of saline water into the farmland - loss of yields and drinking water availability and people migrate (environmental refugees)

• Change in monsoon pattern severe stress on agriculture which is fully dependent on weather

• Increase in span of summer increases insect attack on crops

• The delayed winter hampers the cultivation of “Ravi Crop” ( winter crops)

• Increasing humidity leads to incremental phenomenon of vector borne diseases

Building long term resilience• Programmes targeted

towards adaptation strategies to build long

term resilience. • Local people make choices

daily, and Governments with adequate assistance must step up theirefforts to support them in coping

Adaptive response

• Change in cultivation time in anticipation of changed monsoon (rains) pattern

• Growing weather resistant crops

• Rainwater harvesting and storage: ponds and canals

• Construction of mud-barrages around the island to protect it from incursion of saline water

Adaptation Responses• Reforestation activity

(mangroves) on the mud barrage to make it durable

• Alternative livelihood options for proper substitution of certain livelihood activities like baby prawn/ shrimp catches, timber smuggling etc.

• Capacity building activity through scientific and organizational intervention in support of their indigenous adaptation efforts.

Support Policies• Community Learning and Participatory

Centres for building adaptive capacity• Enrichment of knowledge base on

adaptation through systematization of relevant indigenous knowledge

• New Blue Revolution for increased water availability for crop production

• Livelihood diversification increases resilience to extreme events as muchas income level and should be supported through investments.

Cultural responses

• The multi-cultural rural communities provide approaches that are tailor-made for long-term adaptation plan involving civil society organizations through conserving the living cultural heritage.

• For India, with its rich mosaic of sub-cultures, preserving traditional knowledge is a matter of urgency.

•  Messages related to traditional adaptation practices need to be disseminated

Way forward

• Data base on lesser-known/ unknown elements of indigenous knowledge on sensitivity, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, sustainable use of natural resources and socio-cultural capital favoring environmental sustainability, social equity and community solidarity