Climate Change & India

Climate Change & India

It is well said, “If climate change is the problem, biodiversity is the answer”.

Indian scientists are already forecasting that monsoon in India will be weakened if global temperature rises. At present the global average CO20 c, if the total Green House Gases concentration is 385 ppm. It is predicted that global temperature will rise by 2 (GHG) concentration goes up to 445 ppm. Global warming will affect growth rate of plants, many of them will go extinct and distribution of species & their reproduction will be affected. This will directly affect India’s poor. People who are directly dependent on forests are estimated to be more than six crores. For many rural poor wild plants provide 14 to 42 percent of their income.

Quality of life of people, especially those living in rural areas is therefore, greatly dependent on the quality of natural resources in the country.

It is alarming to note that over the last 50 years, the quality of natural resources in India has been degrading rapidly. The Noble prize winner Mr. Pachauri & his team have estimated the loss in billions of rupees due to degradation of natural resources. Here are the figures

Problem	Annual economic value (Rs billion)
Preventing adverse effects of poor quality of drinking water on human health	122
Loss of crop productivity due to degradation of soil	89 - 322
Loss of wood due to degradation of forests	57
Adverse effects on human health due to polluted air	885 - 4250

The loss must be continuing as little evidence is there for corrective measures on a large scale. As the opening statement says, climate change will deeply affect India as we have already lost the protective cover of biodiversity.

I am not going to enter into the controversy whether human activities contribute to global warming in a major way or not. It is far more important to discuss what measures should be taken to avoid losses due to climate change. Such measures include policy changes at the centre and state levels, corrective actions to be taken by various government departments and agencies & NGO level actions based on peoples’ participation.

I shall speak mainly, on research & action programmes with which our Ecological Society is directly concerned. A nation wide move is currently going on to collect basic information on Biodiversity in the form of Peoples’ Biodiversity Registers. It is necessary that these registers are brought under Intellectual Property Rights so that individuals & communities who hold this information can get some material benefit.

Before discussing action programmes let me first take you to regions with which I am associated over several years & where effects of climate change are strikingly evident. The first such area is Ladakh, the northern most region of India.

Ladakh was known to be a cold desert with average altitude above 11000 ft or 3500 meters. Climate change has led to melting of glaciers flooding the sand filled valleys with water & turning them green.

This has benefited wildlife in general as food has become plentiful & reproduction is easier. Breeding pairs of the rare Black necked Crane (Grus nigricollis) were hard to find in 1990s as freshwater marshes where they breed were widely scattered. There were in all 5 or 6 breeding pairs in entire Ladakh. Now there are 30 pairs in 2007 as freshwater marshes can be met everywhere due to glacier melt. Animals like Bharal & Urial have increased in numbers too & could be easily seen by the roadside. But knowledgeable people predict that these conditions may not last long & the reverse process of drying up will begin soon.

Coastal areas of Maharashtra are also witnessing changes in sea level. The famous Jaki Mirya beach near Ratnagiri now lies submerged as the sea has invaded over it. Since 2000 the coastal biodiversity of plant & animals has been rapidly declining. There is a horrendous decline in fish catch & large size; deep water fish have become rare. Already in 1998 some 24 species of fish had become scarce & were rarely recorded in fish catch.

Government efforts to create awareness of the situation among fishermen rarely succeed as the government fails to provide alternative occupations that will generate income for fishermen.

Initiatives & programmes to fight not only climate change but also ill effects of the present process of economic development are conspicuous by their absence. How can we reverse the ill effects of both? What could be the nature of such programmes? Some pointers in this direction can be gauged from the work Ecological Society has been doing over the last 26 years.

But before I delve into the nature of such programmes let me remind you of some simple truths which we seem to have forgotten in recent years because of the overwhelming influence of technology on our minds. The first simple truth is healthy nature i.e. natural ecosystems with their regenerative & absorptive capacities unaffected & high quality natural resources are the foundation of economic progress. The second one is in a tropical country like India, decentralization is far better than centralization. It accounts for microclimates & peculiar local biodiversity and the third seems to be technology should be consistent with ecology.

You will immediately realize that our educational system, our occupational strategies and our top-down developmental planning deride these three basic propositions.

Our educational system seems to be hardly aware of the importance of micro-climates of different livelihoods that these generate & of the importance of local conditions & other genetic variants of plants & livestock. All this leads to neglect of local natural resources & biodiversity, their degradation & students are made to believe that technology alone generates livelihoods & that too primarily in cities. The urban sprawl therefore, continues.

Our occupational strategies & development planning shows their excessive dependence on modern technology. Our administrators and politicians seem to be totally unaware of eco-processes & basic life support systems which are provided by nature free of cost. These are: self cleaning of atmosphere and fresh water, natural development of soil, biodiversity or gene bank, assimilation & waste absorptive capacity of nature, the self- generating marine wealth etc.

When a person enjoys these services free of cost, his/ her cost of living decreases remarkably. For example, if agriculture is supported by an adequate area of forest, a farmer’s input cost comes down & soil improvement & availability of water enhances productivity.

Modern technology, in its efforts to divert more & more Sun’s energy towards human beings, first destroys these eco-processes & then tries to technologically restore them which increase the costs tremendously. In order to enhance per capita consumption of food & water, agriculture is standardized through green revolution techniques, and fresh water flows are disrupted by building dams. Both these lead to unprecedented quality losses in soil & water. These are then sought to be corrected by application of inorganic fertilizers and chemical treatment of polluted water. Both are extremely expensive.

Overall impact of economic development based on technology is unbelievable degradation of natural eco-systems & eco-processes & consequent steep rise in the cost of living.

Our efforts now should be directed towards understanding the ecology of natural eco-systems, & eco-processes & restoration of degraded nature in all its forms. Ecological Society has been working in these two related fields for the last 26 years.

If our technology is to be consistent with ecology, we need a complete overhaul of our educational system. We must aim at a holistic view of life & not compartmentalization of knowledge into different subjects. Social Sciences such as Sociology & Economics need to be combined with physical sciences such as geography & general science to clarify the role of human beings in a natural setting. With this goal in view we are working with urban & rural school students, making them aware of the importance of micro-climates & local natural resources. We have also devised a post-graduate holistic course in management with special emphasis on restoration & sustainable management of natural resources & eco-systems.

The importance & potential of restoration of nature are hardly understood in India at the administrative & political level. Our efforts to restore nature have been more appreciated abroad than in India. Restoration of nature is basically labour intensive & has a potential to create millions of jobs. Again it will create natural assets for the nation & will be directly beneficial to India’s poor. The great potential of restoration of nature in eradicating poverty is hardly realized in India.

I may indicate here certain areas where restoration is urgently necessary. Restoration of soil quality & fresh water will benefit almost everyone. Basic truth seems to be that our mountains & hills are the sources of both. Many of our dams & reservoirs are located not far away from the source regions of rivers. Ecological Society has produced a plan to revive the ecology of the source region and catchment area of a dam which supplies drinking water to Pune, irrigation to farming in downstream areas. It has actually carried out a project to restore the ecology of hill slopes and other economic benefits to local people.

Areas around dams generally present a picture of desolation as soil; stone & rubble have been removed together with destruction of plant life. Such stone quarry areas have been restored to wetlands & indigenous forest yielding significant gains in biodiversity.

We have hundreds of reservoirs all over Maharashtra but there is hardly any attempt to manage them for multiple benefits. Our project on the reservoir of Ujani dam was a pioneering project in reservoir restoration. If such projects are carried out, local biodiversity will get a welcome boost.

We have extensive dry & drought prone areas in Maharashtra where farming in risky. The best way to revive productivity & ecology of these areas is to promote grassland development. Our restoration of grassland project located in Phaltan (District Satara) tehsil aims at quality enhancement of grasslands.

Restoration of streams & rivers in rural & urban areas is another dire necessity. Our river front development projects in urban areas & Niraml Ganaga Abhiyan in rural areas have quality enhancement of water as their main objective.

If educational reform & restoration of nature go hand in hand the benefits in terms of biodiversity & eco-processes regeneration & employment & income generation are immense.

Prakash Gole