Climate Change and Developing Countries

Climate Change and Developing Countries

Climate Change and Developing Countries Edited by

Banshaikupar Lyngdoh Mawlong

Climate Change and Developing Countries Edited by Banshaikupar Lyngdoh Mawlong This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Banshaikupar Lyngdoh Mawlong and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-1174-X ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-1174-3

CONTENTS

Preface ...................................................................................................... viii Foreword .................................................................................................... ix List of Contributing Authors ...................................................................... xi Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Introduction Banshaikupar Lyngdoh Mawlong Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 15 An Eye of the Storm Perspective Climate Change Leon Monroe Miller Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 40 Climate Refugees and Institutional Responses to their Protection Fazil Khan Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 49 Climate Change as a Non-Traditional Security Threat: Reflections from Pakistan Anjali Devi M. Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 64 Security, Risk and Securitisation of Climate Change Norattam Gaan Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 99 Climate Change and its Adverse Consequences Ravi P. Bhatia Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 107 Climate Change and Security: Debates, Approaches and Challenges Saurabh Thakur

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Contents

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 120 Climate Change and Role of Non-State Actors: The Case of the Indigenous People Smriti Sabbarwal Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 135 Climate Change—A Threat to the National Security of India: Understanding and Identifying the Key Threats to Indian National Security emanating from Climate Change Pavan Kumar Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 146 Climate Change Impacts on African Agriculture Alemu Abota Adare Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 154 Impact of Climate Variability on Farming: What the Farmers of Meghalaya Perceive? S.M. Feroze, Sao Evalwell Dkhar, Ram Singh, Pynbianglang Marboh, P.M.N. Rani and Koijam Johny Singh Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 166 Climate Change: Impact on Streamflow at Bhakra Mohammed Sharif Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 179 Impact of Climate Change on the Rural Livelihood in Meghalaya Pynshongdor L. Nongbri Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 189 Man and Environment: The Khasi Narrative Charles Reuben Lyngdoh Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 198 Ethical Response to Climate Change with Reference to the Khasis: Then and Now Saphimosha W. Blah

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Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 210 The Contribution of Indigenous Knowledge of the Khasis in Ecosystem Management Jasmine T. Sawian, Larihun Jeengaph and Michelle Khongwir Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 222 Bamboo Ecosystem: An Untapped Carbon Trading Resource David C. Vanlalfakawma, S.K. Tripathi and F. Lalnunmawia Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 237 Can REDD+ and Ecotourism Coexist? Integrating REDD+ and Ecotourism in Meghalaya: Potential and Implications Bennathaniel H. Diengdoh, Lasara M. Lyngdoh and Tamanna Kala Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 259 Climate Change and Government Initiatives in India: The Status of Agricultural R&D Investment Dayohimi Rymbai, S.M. Feroze and Koijam Johny Singh Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 272 Conceptualizing “Green Cities”: Making Indian Cities Environmentally Sustainable Oindrila Dattagupta Chapter Twenty One................................................................................ 288 A Sustainable Way to Mitigate Ozone Pollution by Reducing Biogenic VOCs through Landscape Management Programme Pallavi Saxena Chapter Twenty Two ............................................................................... 297 Effects of Fire and Grazing Interaction on Carbon Sequestration in the Grassland Ecosystem of Sohra (Cherrapunjeee), India U. Shilla and B.K. Tiwari

PREFACE

Natural processes have over the millenniums driven changes in climate, and these mechanisms continue to cause change. However, “Climate Change” as a term in academic and policy usage is now taken to mean anthropogenically driven change in climate. Climate Change today has assumed geometrically alarming proportions and its impacts are potentially catastrophic. Climate Change knows no boundaries and its cost will be borne by all earthlings. While the technologically advanced and developed countries are better prepared for responding to climate change, particularly by developing and establishing suitable policy, institutional and social, capable for dealing with the consequences of climate change, yet it is the developing countries that are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts because they have fewer resources to adapt: politically, socially, technologically and financially. The book which was a product of the International Seminar on “Climate Change: Impact on Developing Countries” held from 15th to 17th October 2015 attempts to understand and ascertain the potential impact of Climate Change on the economy and polity of the developing Countries. The book also emphasizes that Climate Change is a matter of moral and cultural ethics. It stresses the fact that the existing Climate Change adaptation methods also need to accommodate traditional environmental knowledge and practices of the different indigenous cultures. The editors placed on record the financial assistance rendered by the sponsoring bodies of the International Seminar- the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)- North-Eastern Region Centre and the Government of Meghalaya without which the publication of this volume would not have been possible. I thank all the contributors for their efforts in submitting their articles for the volume. A special mention must also be made of the inspiration, support, and guidance extended by the Principal of the College, Dr. S. R. Lyndem for the publication of the volume. Banshaikupar Lyngdoh Mawlong Union Christian College, Meghalaya, India.

FOREWORD

This volume has its origins high up in the hills of Meghalaya, NorthEastern India, where the 2015 International Seminar on “Climate Change: Impact on Developing Countries” took place. Shillong’s Union Christian College provided a tranquil setting for sharing knowledge and insights on what is one of humanity’s most troubling challenges. I had the privilege of participating in this conference and in the process I learnt a great deal from a diverse set of scholars. Banshaikupar Lyngdoh Mawlong and his colleagues commendably designed a programme that crossed disciplinary boundaries. The result was a two-day conversation among philosophers and ethicists, political scientists, economists, biologists, climatologists, marine scientists, earth scientists, agricultural scientists, and human and physical geographers. Far too often, our research communities gather in the comfort of our disciplinary enclaves, speaking in terms that we understand but are often incomprehensible to other experts, policy-makers, or the wider public. This volume is testament to the value of venturing beyond our enclaves. Universities and the global research community have a vital role to play in helping our communities understand climate change. Fulfilling this role will require pooling wisdom from diverse disciplines. The 2015 International Seminar in Shillong, and its proceedings published in this volume, should inspire further such interdisciplinary meetings. This volume showcases some of the excellent and important research that is being done in India and further afield on multiple aspects of climate change. Climate change reflects a cluster of threats and problems, but also opportunities to transition towards more sustainable, resilient, and fair societies. As a global-scale problem, sometimes it can be difficult to grasp the significance of climate change for the local level and for people in their everyday lives. The authors of these chapters do an admirable job of translating the abstract issue of climate change into clear and detailed accounts of its various impacts in developing countries. The volume spans issues of culture and human rights, refugees and forced migration, security and risk, marginalized voices and indigenous knowledge, agricultural adaptation and land management, carbon trading and REDD+, carbon sequestration, urban development and rural livelihoods. I recommend this volume to readers seeking to understand the multiple dimensions of

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climate change and its physical, social, and economic impacts on developing countries. Hayley Stevenson, University of Sheffield

LIST OF CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)

Alemu Abota Adare, North Eastern Hill University, India. Anjali Devi M, Doctoral Scholar, Centre for South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Banshaikupar Lyngdoh Mawlong, Union Christian College, Umiam Khwan. Bennathaniel H. Diengdoh, Lecturer in Environmental Studies, Synod College, Shillong. B. K. Tiwari, Department of Environmental Studies, North Eastern Hill University, India. Charles Reuben Lyngdoh, Synod College, Shillong. David C. Vanlalfakawma, Department of Forestry, Mizoram University. Dayohimi Rymbai, School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya. Fazil Khan, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. F. Lalnunmawia, Department of Botany, Mizoram University. Jasmine T. Sawian, St. Edmund’s College, Shillong. Koijam Johny Singh, School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya. Larihun Jeengaph, St. Edmund’s College, Shillong. Lasara M Lyngdoh, Research Scholar, Dept. of Economics, NEHU, Shillong. Leon Monroe Miller, Talinn University of Technology, Estonia. Michelle Khongwir, St. Edmund’s College, Shillong. Mohammed Sharif, Jamia Islamia University, New Delhi. Narottam Gaan, Department of Political Science and Human Rights, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, India. Oindrila Datta Gupta, Centre for International Politics, Organisation, Diplomacy and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Pallavi Saxena, School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

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List of Contributing Authors

Pavan Kumar, Junior Research Fellow, International Politics Division, Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. P.M.N Rani, School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya. Pynbianglang Marboh, School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya. Pynshongdor L. Nongbri, St. Anthony’s College, Shillong. Ram Singh, School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya. Ravi P. Bhatia, Retired Professor Delhi University. Sao Evalwell Dkhar, School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya. Saphimosha W. Blah, St. Mary’s College, Shillong. Saurabh Thakur Research Scholar, Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. S.K. Tripathi, Department of Forestry, Mizoram University Smriti Sabbarwa, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. S.M. Feroze. School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya. Tamanna Kala, Junior Research Fellow, Care Earth Trust, Chennai. U. Shilla, Union Christian College, Meghalaya.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION BANSHAIKUPAR LYNGDOH MAWLONG1

“Poor Countries’ economic development will contribute to climate change. But they are already its greatest victims” —The Economist, 2009.

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) dispelled many uncertainties about climate change. It is now clear that climate change is mostly due to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2). The impact of climate change can (and will) pose a major challenge to the economic and national security of every nation. Climate change affects us all but it does not affect us equally nor do we possess the same capacity to respond to its challenges. As is often the case, the most vulnerable countries particularly developing countries - remain on the margins of the current debate on climate change and once again find themselves in the worst situation. In developing countries, rising populations, income levels, need for rapid economic development and energy use are leading to rapid increases in Green House Gases (GHG) emissions. At present growth rates, developing countries’ emissions are expected to surpass those of developed countries within a matter of decades (Chandler et al. 2002).

1

Assistant Professor, Union Christian College, Meghalaya, India.

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Chapter One

Source: Social cost of carbon by region, 2015 (RICE-2015).

Introduction

3

Climate Forced Migration and developing countries The scientific basis for climate change is increasingly well established. An enormous amount of time and energy have gone into determining the meteorological impacts of climate change in terms of rising sea levels, altered precipitation patterns and more frequent and fierce storms. Much less time, energy and resources, however, have been spent on empirical analysis of the impacts of climate change on human populations in the developing countries. In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration- with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption. In the mid-1990s, it was widely reported that up to 25 million people had been forced from their homes and off their land by a range of serious environmental pressures including pollution, land degradation, droughts and natural disasters. At the time it was declared that these “environmental refugees”, as they were called, exceeded all documented refugees from war and political persecution put together (Myers 2005). Professor Myers’ estimate of 200 million climate migrants by 2050 has become the accepted figure, cited in respected publications from the IPCC to the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (Stern 2006). To put the number in perspective, it would mean that by 2050 one in every 45 people in the world would have been displaced by climate change. By 2020, up to 250 million people in Africa could be exposed to greater risk of water stress. Over the course of this century, millions of people living in the catchment areas of the Himalayas and Andes faces increased risk of floods as glaciers retreat followed by drought and water scarcity as the once extensive glaciers on these mountain ranges disappear. Sea level rise will lead to inundation of coasts worldwide, with some small island states possibly facing complete inundation and people living with the constant threat of tropical cyclones now face increased severity and possibly increased frequency of these events with all the associated risks to life and livelihoods (UNFCCC 2007). Put simply, climate change will cause population movements by making certain parts of the world much less viable places to live; and by causing food and water supplies to become more unreliable and increasing the frequency and severity of floods and storms. Recent reports from

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Chapter One

Albert et al. suggested that climate change is rendering people homeless leading to massive climate forced migration. “…vegetated reef islands (1–5 ha in size) that have recently vanished and a further six islands experiencing severe shoreline recession. Shoreline recession at two sites has destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations.” (Albert et al. 2016).

Reconciling Development and Climate Change Adaptation in the developing countries Thus, climate change is already impacting populations and ecosystems around the globe and threatens to set back development efforts for decades, profoundly affecting us all. Another defining challenge of the 21st century is to combine economic development- a rapid reduction in poverty and inequality with a rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Meeting this challenge requires an understanding of how the size, structure and dynamics of human populations influence, and are influenced by, our changing climate. According to the latest United Nations projection, world population could theoretically reach a high of 10.5 billion, or remain as low as 8.0 billion by 2050 (Guzmán et al. 2009). Climate change is a global environmental problem and international studies have predominantly addressed climate change from an environmental policy perspective. However, emerging literature recognizes that climate change variability, extreme events, and structural changes have major impacts on economic, social, and human living conditions as well as on natural systems. This implies that key goals related to poverty reduction, water, food, energy, education, and health are critically influenced by climate change and that adaptation measures, therefore, should be tackled in the context of development policies. The strong relationship between climate change and development is also recognized by IPCC in its Fourth Assessment report by stating that: “The distribution of impacts and vulnerabilities is still considered to be uneven, and low-latitude, less-developed areas are generally at greatest risk due to both higher sensitivity and lower adaptive capacity; but there is new evidence that vulnerability to climate change is also highly variable within countries, including developed countries” (IPCC 2007, 781).

Introduction

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The issues of climate change, growth, and poverty reduction are inextricably intertwined. Failure to manage climate change will undermine development and poverty reduction; failure to promote development and poverty reduction will further exacerbate climate change. A new energyindustrial revolution is needed. Realizing this transformation will require both leadership and collaboration. It now looks as if that leadership will have to come from the emerging-market countries and the developing world. But the rich cannot retreat from their responsibility to help with both resources and technologies and to take strong action to reduce their emissions. It is time to break out of the old “cash for cuts” and zero-sum approaches that have driven earlier discussions and models of international negotiations on climate change (Mattoo & Subramanian 2013). In many cases, climate change adaptation can go hand in hand with other development activities in such a way that the activities jointly support the same goals (Halsnæs & Trærup 2009).

Developing Countries and Extreme Weather Patterns In developing countries, climate change is already affecting economic growth, health indicators, water availability, food production and the fragile ecosystems. On an annual basis over the past decade, developing countries have absorbed US$ 35 billion a year in damages from natural disasters. On a per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) basis, this is 20 times the cost in the developed world (Freeman 2001). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in 2007 that a sea-level rise resulting from a global temperature increase of 4 degrees Celsius would completely submerge low-lying island states like Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives (see figure below). For the developing countries in Africa and Asia, climate change will result in flooding of lowlying coastal areas, increased water scarcity, the decline in agricultural yields and fisheries resources, and loss of biological resources. The IPCC has predicted that yields from rain-fed agriculture in Africa could be reduced by as much as 50% by 2020. Water shortages and the shrinking of land suitable for agriculture would cause other social and political disruptions, including forced migration and conflict.

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Sources: Met Office, Govt. of U.K, 2014.

The German Watch Climate Risk Index, which ranks the countries according to their extreme weather risks, shows that all countries in the top ten of this index are developing countries, led by Honduras, Myanmar and Haiti (see figure below). 95% of fatalities from natural disasters in the last 25 years occurred in developing countries. Furthermore, indices characterizing the expected range of future changes of climate like the Climate Change Index (Baettig et al. 2007) clearly show that in many developing countries these changes will be most pronounced. Taking into consideration that already today the climate conditions in many of these countries are on the edge of allowing a sustainable livelihood to the people, only small changes can put this at risk. Developing countries do not have a history of large emissions of greenhouse gases and thus have not contributed significantly to the causes of climate change. So it is the responsibility of the industrialized countries, which have caused the problem, to support the people in the developing countries. Developing countries are thus vulnerable to extremes of climatic variability and climate change is likely to increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events and disasters. Extreme climatic events create a spiral of debt burden on developing countries. Increased capacity to manage extreme weather events can reduce the magnitude of economic, social and human damage and eventually, investments, in terms of borrowing money from the lending agencies. Vulnerability to extreme weather events, disaster management, and adaptation must be part of longterm sustainable development planning in developing countries.

Introduction

Sources: Germanwatch, 2015.

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Chapter One

The Way Forward International negotiations on climate change have been dogged by mutual recriminations between rich and poor countries, constricted by the zero-sum arithmetic of a shrinking global carbon budget, and overtaken by shifts in economic and hence bargaining power between industrialized and developing countries (Mattoo & Subramanian 2013). The four most recent summits held under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - Copenhagen in 2009, Cancun in 2010, Durban in 2011 and Paris in 2015 - have come and gone. They have offered only a thin reed of hope based on nothing more than promises to make more meaningful promises later, rather than on concrete commitments to act now. The big problem with the pledges made by the major countries to cut emissions is that they are inadequate compared to what the scientific community says is necessary to keep climate change to manageable levels (see figure below).

Pledges to Reduce Emissions Are Woefully Inadequate: Projected GHG Emissions under Different Scenarios

However, to delay acting on climate change is to run great risks of fundamentally rewriting the relationship between human beings and the planet. The risks of inaction, in the lifetime of children born today, include the potential movement of hundreds of millions of people - possibly billions - with devastating effects on livelihoods and living standards across the world. The only path that is sustainable is the medium-term path of growth and poverty reduction (Mattoo & Subramanian 2013).That

Introduction

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realization has begun in Cancun and Durban, with the ideas of “equitable access to sustainable development” and the increasing commitment of China, India, and others to new technologies. It is the emerging and developing nations that are undergoing economic growth and thus high carbon emission, and these countries are also the ones hit earliest and hardest by climate change- although we are all at great risk. It is time to accelerate action and to do that we must look to the developing world to chart a path and to the rich world to both act strongly in support and share leadership through its own actions and examples (Mattoo & Subramanian 2013). Addressing climate change in developing countries poses a fundamentally different challenge. This is best expressed by Coulier (2007) who argues: “The countries at the bottom coexist with the twenty-first century, but their reality is the fourteenth century: civil war, plague, ignorance”.

For most, emission reduction is not a viable option in the near term. With income levels far below those of developed countries - and per capita emissions on an average, just one-sixth those of the industrialized world developing countries will continue to increase their emissions as they strive for economic growth and a better quality of life. Development is essential to reduce poverty and inequality but, under the present models, development will exacerbate global climate change (GCC). Countries currently considered ‘developed’ account for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions to date, and, as countries ‘develop’, their per capita contributions increase. As a result, development itself has become a threat. This consequence of current development models must be addressed urgently and effectively in a way that will benefit the poor and not block their path to social and economic advancement or to environmental justice. Indeed, combining a rapid reduction in poverty and inequality alongside a rapid reduction in the global emissions of greenhouse gases will be the defining challenge for the 21st century (Guzmán et al. 2009). One of the most contentious issues in the debate over global climate change is the perceived divide between the interests and obligations of developed and developing countries. Equity demands that developed countries- the source of most past and current emissions of greenhouse gases- act first to reduce emissions. This principle is embedded in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding emission targets for developed countries only.

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Chapter One

Just as equity demands that developed countries act first, the physical workings of our planet demand that in time developing countries limit and, ultimately, reduce their emissions as well. The search for consensus on an equitable sharing of responsibility must begin with a fair accounting of how nations are contributing to this common effort. The cost of climate change will be borne by all. We live under the same sky and share the same earth. Climate change is a responsibility of all earthlings. The Book, a product of the proceedings of the International Seminar on “Climate Change: Impact on Developing Countries” held from 15th-17th October 2015, attempts to understand and ascertain the potential impact of climate change on the economy and polity of the developing countries. The chapter by Leon Monroe Miller “An Eye of the Storm Perspective on Climate Change” argues that culture has always been a means by which humanity has been able to organize human relations. It stresses that Khasi Culture is a model of how to resolve the techno-economic and selfdetermination dichotomy because of its ability to integrate three key concepts (Eco leadership, the greening of democratic principle and critical Approach to Peace Research). Fazil Khan in his article “Climate Refugees and Institutional Responses to their Protection” evaluates the alarming number of displacements caused by environment and how they are tackled by the international community. He also rues that the lack of a proper mechanism to deal with mass movements caused by climate change is leading to an uncertain future for their survival. The fourth chapter on “Climate Change as a Non-Traditional Security Threat: A Case Study of Pakistan” by Anjali Devi analyses the impact of climate change in Pakistan from a non-traditional security perspective on the society and economy of the state. Narottam Gaan in his article “Security, Risk and Securitisation of Climate Change” addresses the question of Climate Change Security by identifying the distinct logic of speech act that turns issues into questions of risk politics. The sixth chapter examines the various casual factors of climate change and its adverse impact on human lives. An attempt is also made to analyze how these adverse effects can be addressed. The seventh chapter by Saurabh Thakur addresses the security concerns emanating from climate change. Smriti Sabbarwal in her article “Climate Change and Role of Non-State Actors: The Case of the Indigenous People” explains how the non-state actors, through their advocacy and lobbying activities have been able to make indigenous people important stakeholders in climate change negotiations. The paper establishes that non-state actors have indeed become an important part of the climate change discourse. By

Introduction

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giving voice to the hitherto unheard indigenous people at the international climate change negotiations, non-state actors have added vigor and legitimacy to their work. The next chapter by Pavan Kumar identifies the threats to national security from climate change. The paper also tries to evaluate the policies and preparedness that India has to tackle such situation at domestic and international level. Alemu Abota Adare, in his article “Climate Change Impacts on African Agriculture” examines the major impacts of climate change in Africa. He argues that the lack of extensive adaptation to the effects of climate change on agriculture is exacerbating Africa’s deepening food crisis, narrowing channels of food access and slowing efforts to expand food production. The eleventh chapter by S.M. Feroze et al (2015) judiciously examine the extreme weather pattern in Meghalaya in recent years. The paper revealed that the productivity of rice, ginger, potato and pineapple in Meghalaya was greatly affected during a period of low rainfall or droughts in the State. Mohammad Sharif in his article “Climate Change Impact on Stream flows at Bhakra” envisages that changes in the climate would create an attention in the stream flow patterns in the Setluj River basin, which in turn is likely to affect future water availability at Bhakra. The thirteenth chapter on “Impact of Climate Change on Rural livelihood in Meghalaya” argues that the impact of climate change will increase the challenge of ongoing poverty alleviation efforts in Meghalaya and in the country as a whole. The author also demonstrates the immediate need for an acknowledgment and improved understanding of vulnerabilities so that appropriate adaptation measures can be implemented. Charles Reuben Lyngdoh in his article “Man and Environment: The Khasi Narrative” explores the complex relationship between culture and environment particularly among the Khasi traditional knowledge system. Saphimosha W. Blah in her work “Ethical Response to Climate Change with reference to the Khasis: Then and Now” seeks to understand the impact of climate change on the human and non-human world from a traditional perspective. She also stresses the need to inculcate a sense of urgency to remind the present generation to have an ethical duty to protect Mother Nature. The chapter on “The Contribution of Indigenous Knowledge of the Khasis in Ecosystem Management” highlights the indigenous knowledge practiced by the Khasis in maintaining ecosystem services and the potential of such knowledge to be incorporated into

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Chapter One

modern environmental management practices and in combating climate change. David Vanlalfakawma and his peers in their article titled “Bamboo Ecosystem: An untapped carbon trading resource” considers the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of bamboo along with its environmental services, particularly the role played by bamboo in mitigating climate change through the inclusion of bamboo ecosystems. The chapter “Can REDD + and Ecotourism Co-exist? Integrating REDD+ and Ecotourism in Meghalaya: Potential and Implications” by Bennathaniel H. Diengdoh, Lasara M. Lyngdoh, and Tamanna Kalam, evaluates the potential for integrating REDD+ (Reducing Emission from Deforestation ) and Ecotourism in Meghalaya and elucidate possible ways in which the two could be merged, along with the possible benefits, disadvantages, and caveats. Dayohimi Rymbai, S.M. Feroze and Koijam Johny Singh in their article “Climate Change and Government initiatives in India: The status of Agricultural R&D investment” addresses three inter-related issues - the increase in the annual temperature, how to counteract the negative impact of climate change and how the farming community resorted to adaptation strategies coupled with Government intervention. The chapter “Conceptualizing “Green Cities”: Making Indian cities environmentally sustainable” by Oindrila Datta Gupta primarily stressed on the relationship between cities and climate change in an urban century, the role of the Indian Government and local bodies to walk the green path. The penultimate chapter on “A sustainable way to mitigate Ozone pollution by reducing biogenic VOCS through landscape management programme” by Pallavi Saxena investigates four different types of trees viz. Dalbergia sissoo, Butea monosperma, Mangifera indica and Azadirachta indica. The result suggested that Mangifera indica and Azadirachta indica were more suitable for planting as they can mitigate ozone pollution and can be used in greenbelt development programmes. The last chapter “The Effect of Fire and Grazing Interaction on carbon Sequestration in Grassland Ecosystem of Sohra (Cherrapunjee)” by U. Shilla and B. K. Tiwari deliberated on the adverse impact of fire and grazing on the surrounding environment.

Introduction

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References Agarwal, Anil, and Sunita Narain. 1991. Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism. New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment. Albert, Simon, Leon, Javier X., Grinham, Alistair R, Church, John A., Badin R. Gibbes., & Woodroffe, Colin D. 2016 “Interactions between sea-level rise and wave exposure on reef island dynamics in the Solomon Islands”. Environment Research Letters 11 (2016): 054011. Baettig, Miche`le B., Wild, Martin, & Dieter M. Imboden. “A climate change index: Where climate change may be most prominent in the 21st century”. Geophysical Research Letters 34: L01705. Burke, E., S. Brown., & N. Christidis. 2006. “Modelling the recent evolution of global drought and projections for the twenty-first century with the Hadley Centre climate model”. Journal of Hydrometeorology 7. Chandler, William, Schaeffer, Roberto, Dadi, Zhou., Shukla, P. R., Tudela, Fernando., Davidson, Ogunlade., &Alpan-Atamer, Sema. 2002. Climate Change Mitigation in developing countries: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey. Arlington: Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Collier, Paul. 2007. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Easterly, William. 2007. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin. Freeman, P.K., 2001. Infrastructure, Natural Disasters, and Poverty. Luxemburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Guzmán, José Miguel., Martine, George, McGranahan, Gordon., Schensul, Daniel., Tacoli, Cecilia., eds. 2009. Population Dynamics and Climate Change. UNFPA and IIED. Halsnæs, Kirsten, & Trærup, Sara. May 2009. “Development and Climate Change: A Mainstreaming Approach for Assessing Economic, Social, and Environmental Impacts of Adaptation Measures”. Environmental Management 43 (5): 765-778. Hansen, James, & Sato, Makiko. 2016. “Regional climate change and national responsibilities”. Environment Research Letters 11 (2016): 034009. International Organization for Migration,

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(10 March 2007). International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2008. Migration and Climate Change. Prepared by Oli Brown. Geneva: IOM. IPCC, 2001: Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by J.J. McCarthy., O.F. Canziani., N.A. Leary., D.J. Dokken., & K.S. White. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Mattoo, Aaditya, & Subramanian, Arvind. 2013. Greenprint: A New Approach to Cooperation on Climate Change. Washington, D.C: Center for Global Development. Mirza, M. M. Q. 2003. “Climate change and extreme weather events: Can Developing countries adapt?” Climate Policy 3 (2003): 233–248 Myers, N., “Environmental refugees: An emergent security issue”, 13th Economic Forum, Prague, May 2005. Stern, Nicholas Herbert. 2007. The Economics of Global Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Tearfund. 2006. “Feeling the Heat: why governments must act to tackle the impact of climate change on global water supplies and avert mass movement of climate change refugees”. London. The Hindu. “We borrow the earth from our children”. September 7, 2006. van Drunen, M.A., R. Lasage., & C. Dorland., eds. 2006. Climate Change in developing countries. Cambridge, USA: CAB International 2006. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 2007. Climate Change: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Adaptation in developing countries. Bonn, Germany: UNFCCC. UN-OHRLLS. 2009. The Impact of Climate Change on the Development Prospects of the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States. New York: Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked developing countries, and Small Island Developing States.

CHAPTER TWO AN EYE OF THE STORM PERSPECTIVE CLIMATE CHANGE LEON MONROE MILLER1

1. Introduction Research on the consequences of climate change has drawn attention to the plight of indigenous people and the impact that environmental and climate change challenges have on their right to autonomy and selfdetermination. This has resulted in questioning the extent to which the right to autonomy can apply in a world increasingly interconnected by an interdependent techno-economic network. In addition, there is the prospect that an appropriate response to the world’s environmental and climate change challenges will demand the concerted effort and cooperation of all global stakeholders for example, which would necessarily involve dialogue and cooperation with the very technologically advanced societies that are most responsible for creating the environmental challenge. This article emphasizes the normative value choices that both indigenous cultures and the global society have to make in their endeavor to reconcile the tension between technological determinism and self-determination, for instance, during a time when forces of the technological age will challenge the culture’s right to autonomy and self-determination due to the extent that globalization creates interdependence and the necessity to adopt techno-economic strategies for development. This article argues that culture has always been a manifestation of a social group’s endeavor to organize social relations in such a way as to maximize the satisfaction the members of the group experience in their social relations, and in a way that promotes the flourishing of the culture. The eye of the storm is used as a metaphor to depict the imposing conditions that surround indigenous cultures due to powerful macro-level social, economic, and technological forces. That is to say, given the current environmental and climate change challenges, indigenous cultures

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exist in the midst of the eye of a storm, with an approaching threat of devastation imposed upon their identity and their culture. The eye of the storm also represents a micro-level cultural value perspective that indigenous cultures have maintained which provides the potential for the culture to function in a way that enables it to experience a complementary connection between its culture and the reality imposed by the surrounding forces. However, the current environmental and climate challenges are different in that they are not imposed by nature, but are man-made. This creates a unique challenge for indigenous cultures in that they have to discern not only how to appropriately respond to the forces of nature in a way that reinforces the complementary connection between the culture and the natural forces which surround them; but the culture must also determine how to respond effectively to the powerful industrial and technological forces imposed by the developed world which seem to be most responsible for the climate challenges, and thus are most responsible for creating the current reality. This article re-evaluates the micro-level challenge imposed on cultures in light of what seems to be macro-level technological, social-economic determinism and explains a theoretical model for progressive and sustainable development that allows a culture to rise above what seems to be determinism. Because the critical perspective on peace research provides insight into the connection between globalization and self-determination, it is used as the basis for a theoretical stance that is in line with the natural rights or Human Rights of indigenous cultures. In other words, the critical perspective on peace research represents a viable perspective from which to analyze the dichotomy between the right to self-determination and techno-economic determinism because it represents an interdisciplinary intersection between disciplines that address global issues, for example, an intersection between international relations, peace research, the social sciences, and international legal philosophy (Patomäki 2001; Jutila et al. 2008). This article contributes to science and the research on climate change in that it points out the extent to which environmentalism, sustainability, and climate change have been under-researched by international relations scholars, that is, as a factor affecting future security, conflict, peace-building, and global stability. The primary hypothesis is that there are two factors involved in the micro-level capability of an indigenous culture to adjust to the current macro-level environmental and climate change challenges, that is, a

An Eye of the Storm Perspective Climate Change

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culture’s ability to exercise their right to autonomy and self-determination. The first is the fact that the phenomena that culture is adapting to represent an integration of internal and external processes that result from adjustments cultures necessarily have to make in response to the conditions imposed by the progression of civilization especially in terms of colonization, assumptions about Modernity, plus the industrial revolution and its techno-economic forces. The second factor is the proposition that knowledge needed for successfully responding to the challenge requires dialogue and cooperation with other segments of the global population which could necessarily impel the culture to consider making use of technological means for a successful social-economic adjustment. The article proceeds with section two explaining the concept of culture, it argues - on the basis of a critical approach to peace research that indigenous cultures, in particular, have continuously portrayed the capacity to respond to natural challenges in ways that maintain a complementary connection between culture and the forces of existence, that is, the significance of indigenous knowledge and/or the value of what is increasingly referred to as ethnoscience. Section three introduces the concept of technological determinism and analyses the challenge it imposes on indigenous cultures for example, especially in light of the current environmental and climate change challenges. The final section proposes a theoretical model for a progressive response to contemporary environmental and climate change challenges that allows a culture to rise above what seems to be techno-economic determinism. A critical analysis of the democratic peace concept is used as the basis for proposing a theoretical strategy for establishing a complementary connection between contemporary environmental demands, that is, the necessity for the concerted and cooperative collaboration of all global stakeholders, and a culture’s right to self-determination. In addition, the final section offers a Constructivist-based dialectic contribution to the global society’s effort to effectively respond to the current challenges, and proposes that indigenous cultures are in a position to make a significant type of cultural-technological adjustment to the challenges imposed by climate change in a way that maintains the culture’s integrity while, at the same time, provides a progressive model for sustainability. The final section concludes by explaining how the critical perspective on peace research contributes to international relations theory and practice by indicating how a multi-level approach to methodology increases the

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capacity for addressing issues related to peace building, security, conflict and global stability.

2. Indigenous Cultures and a Complementary Connection with Existence The late Talcott Parsons - regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century especially in regards to both economics and sociology - defined culture as an organized and systematic strategy for structuring social relations so as to effectively manage the complicated processes involved in the interchange between its members and the environing system(s). That is to say, that a culture exists in a state of interpenetration and interchange with processes internal and external to its system, for example, the culture is embedded in some other more extensive system(s) (2007, 421). As a result, according to Parsons, a culture is subject to being influenced by phenomena that it did not constitute but is able to influence its system. Thus, culture can be challenged by the need to establish an effective response to forces that could otherwise threaten the flourishing of that culture. To withstand the forces that could diminish the vitality of the culture, the social group institutionalizes normative and structural systems that serve as functional strategies for maintaining equilibrium, that is, the endeavor to maintain a complementary integration between the culture and its environment. “Equilibrium is a fundamental reference point for analyzing the processes by which a system either comes to terms with the exigencies imposed by a changing environment, without essential change in its own structure, or fails to come to terms and undergoes other processes, such as structural change [and/or] dissolution as a boundary-maintaining system” (Parsons 2007, 423).

Parsons explains that given the variability of a system's relation to its environment the integrity of culture can only be maintained by means of culture engaging in the goal-orientated or goal-attainment behavior. The goal or intended outcome is to reduce the discrepancy between the constraints imposed by the environmental forces and the normative principles of culture, that is, the material and intrinsic needs of culture due to its value orientation and/or worldview (Parsons 2007, 426). In other words, an effective adaptation to the variability of external environmental constraints demands maintenance of the culture’s social processes, its material and aesthetic artifacts or systems, and its boundaries, but in a way


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that is in line with the culture’s endeavor to perpetuate its intrinsic and higher order values. Emile Durkheim - considered to be the father of the science of sociology and a pioneer in investigating the affinity with nature displayed by cultures that continue to maintain a complementary relationship with their environment for example, which he described as a characteristic of cultures existing at the elementary stage of the human experience claimed that cultures construct an identity based on their understanding of what constitutes an appropriate relationship with the natural order. That is to say, that at the elementary stages of cultural development, social identity or the collective consciousness was a reflection of the interconnection which individuals felt they had with each other, the earth/nature, and with existence. In this respect, Durkheim was not only proposing a theory regarding what constitutes a culture but “simultaneously (and in his view, necessarily) a theory of how human mentality constitutes itself” (Durkheim 1995, xix). Thus, a culture - at its elementary stages of formation - is a conceptualization of what is believed to be the fundamental principles involved in perpetuating a harmonious and beneficial interchange between its members and the environment, which are the basis of a culture’s cultural worldview or the formation of a culture’s collective consciousness. The material productions and normative principles of culture are regarded as constructed means for systematically re-enacting the culture’s nature-culture complementarity (Durkheim 1995, 17). It is in this sense that a culture’s worldview serves as a normative basis or ethos for a society’s conception of the principles necessary for promoting its preservation, or perpetuating its vitality, and serving as the basis for its flourishing. In other words, a culture’s worldview is a conceptualized and constituted means for maintaining cultural processes, for maximizing the culture’s ability to enjoy its social experience in terms of its social relations, social activities, and its relationship with the natural order. The means for achieving this are prescribed by the culture’s normative principles (Geertz 1973, 90). Thus, according to Clifford Geertz, a cultural worldview establishes the tone, quality, and character of a culture’s life, its ethos, and its understanding of the aesthetic qualities necessary for maximizing its enjoyment of life. In short, a cultural worldview, its normative principles and its institutionalized systems represent a structured means by which a social group organizes its internal and external processes so as to maintain cultural integrity and vitality to

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regulate and protect its boundaries, and the means by which the culture is able to perpetuate its existence. Culture in this sense - if the concept is applied, for example, to the challenge Khasi people in Meghalaya, India, face in their efforts to maintain cultural integrity while effectively adjusting to the demands imposed by climate change - acts as a undergirding force that mediates between the environmental reality and the understanding that Khasi people have of how to maintain a proper relationship/connection with their ancestral lands, with each other, and with the cosmic order. In fact, in the Khasi case, in particular, culture and environment are interwoven in such a way that individual identity, social identity, the understanding of how to respond effectively to the encroaching social, economic, and technological demands of Modernity are all tied to the Khasi understanding of the connection between the human world and the natural world. For the Khasi, whose sense of identity is closely connected with the environment a particular geographic space defines the culture’s identity and cosmology, that is, the place is connected with the Khasi sense of its cultural origins and their sense of well-being is closely connected with the well-being of their natural world. In other words, there is a reciprocal interplay between what decimates their environment and what decimates the harmony of their culture. Thus, the Khasi culture exists in the eye of the storm because of the extent to which its future flourishing is based on the effectiveness of its culture’s particular micro-level normative principles and the adequacy of the Khasi cultural perspective for managing inescapable encroaching macro-level power forces that are manifest on multi-levels and in multidimensions. In relationship to the Khasi notion of cosmology, both geography and topography are matters that have special meaning for its culture. That is to say that Khasi culture developed a relationship to a particular place and it is the culture that gives the place substance, a unique topography, a special history, and is what gives the place a particularly special meaning. “Place incarnates the experiences and aspirations of a people” (Yi-Fu 1979, 387). It is in this sense that culture also involves protecting boundaries, protecting how its place is defined and the topography that develops in a particular locale. Boundary protection is necessary because there are forces (natural, human, and factors resulting from techno-economic determinism) that intrude on a culture’s space. The human forces intrude on political, economic, and/or ideological reasons but today the intrusion also involves the consequences of technology and globalization.


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In terms of evidence available from ancient history the earliest outside factors influencing a culture, that is, the phenomenon of intrusion is referred to by anthropologists as contamination. The most typical intrusions were new inventions and/or technologies like the bow and arrow, the plow, and the windmill, but more recently they include trade items such as mobile phones, portable music devices, and/or the automobile that alters the traditional processes of a culture. However, cultural contamination resulting from such things as radios, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and computers also represent a type of intrusion that involves, on the one hand, the power of developed cultures to expand their markets (or open new markets) by permeating the borders of a culture, but, on the other hand, has an effect on a culture that gradually results in techno-economic dependence (Agnew & Duncan 1989, 3). Equally important is the fact that culture defines how to manage the problem of the maleficent aspect of reality that is things that appear to be in opposition to what is in the best interests of the overall culture and its individual members thus are a disruptive intrusion into the culture. The maleficent aspect of reality can be described as that which threatens the culture in a way that the culture has no conceptual or material resources for managing; thus, there is no way for the culture to avoid suffering. The maleficent aspects of reality become a threat to a culture when they are experienced as forces that have the potential to seriously disrupt, or cause the culture to suffer, and/or threatens to decimate culture. The damage to culture is due to the fact that culture has not been able to devise a workable set of ethical and/or normative guides to govern appropriate and effective action in response to the challenge (Geertz 1973, 106). In this sense, what threatens decimation are those things that are considered contrary to what culture believes will maintain its established harmony with its environment, thus are also things considered by culture to upset the natural order, for instance, in some cultures they are things that can be designated as taboo. In this sense, cultural knowledge represents a depth of insight that is essential for providing the means for appropriately integrating human, environmental, and cosmic forces into outcomes that are beneficial for the culture. In fact, a significant feature of culture is that it represents a peculiar (micro) perspective on how to maintain harmonious and beneficial relationships with macro power dynamics. Without such knowledge of how to manage the powerful forces that lie beyond the culture certainly great harm would befall the culture. For the Khasi, this

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means that decimation can be avoided when cultural principles are applied to human interactions and to relationships with the natural order in a particular way that is proven to enable its members to avoid the pitfalls of life. Given the prospect that large portions of humanity will increasingly be challenged by a common disruptive force due to the consequences of environmental devastation and climate change that are proving to threaten the prospect of sustaining individual and societal well-being into the future, the depth of insight available from Khasi knowledge concerning how to maintain the natural and moral order (Kamai ia Ka Hok and Ka Rngiew) will be an important source for a future ecosophy and critical peace research response to the current dilemma (Syiemlieh & Nonglait 2015, 59-60; see also Mary Lyngdoh, 1991 for an explanation of Khasi insight into the moral force for regulating nature-human harmony). This article argues that a critical approach to peace research is completely in line with the indigenous cultural normative values that promote progressive strategies for sustainability. This claim is supported by the fact that both indigenous knowledge and the critical approach to peace research promote the notion of the greening of the democratic peace concept. In other words, the critical approach to peace research envisions that the greening of the democratic peace concept is an effective means for perpetuating harmonious interactions between people, and between people and the natural environment. Thus a critical approach to peace research claims that- “To achieve ‘peace with nature,’ both locally and internationally, human behavior has to be brought back in line with the wholeness of nature, where increasing hazards and disasters are an expression of the disharmony and lack of peace of humankind with nature” (Spring et al. 2014, 17). The Khasi sense of the ontological nature of existence for example, what entails an appropriate relationship with other humans and with the natural environment, offers a viable perspective for improving the nature-human relationship. Integrating the Khasi viewpoint on nature-human relations with the critical approach to peace research would generate a value perspective for creating congruence between sustainability and the greening of the democratic peace concept. The synthesis would propose a reconceptualization of the ontological assumptions that have shaped the established perspective within the field of international relations concerning the most effective level of analysis for researching issues most important to the global arena as well as a reconceptualization of the notions of global political economy


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on how to make the best use of global natural resources. The proposed reconceptualization of the theoretical basis for the established approach to international relations- by the critical approach to peace research- would be viable because it calls for conceiving of the ontological nature of global arena as vital interconnections that shape international life (Kavalski 2007, 443). This approach proposes that individual states exist within a global ecosystem within a globally interdependent system that is not simple, but a complex, dynamic, and fluctuating system. Besides, the natural dynamics of the system create change that requires managing by constant selforganizing and Constructivist collaboration- that is to say that successfully adapting to the dynamics of the system requires a Constructivist-based process of dialogue and collaboration to generate mutually beneficial outcomes (Kavalski 2007, 444; see also Comfort 2000, 280-286 for a model of Constructivist type collaboration as an effective means of avoiding a possible pending disaster). In this sense, the re-conceptualization of the ontological perspective on global relations involves a macro level adjustment which has a beneficial impact at the micro-level and is potentially in line with micro-level normative commitments.

3. Techno-economic Determinism versus the Right to Self-determination “The driving force behind any future international order must be in a belief, however expressed, in the value of individual human beings irrespective of national affinities or allegiance and in a common and mutual obligation to protect their well-being” (Carr 1945, 44).

The history of human existence is a testimony to the fact that most cultures have created or adopted ways to manage, alter, and/or exploit their environment to some extent. Of course, the most obvious examples are the adjustments many cultures made from hunting and gathering to the agricultural revolution, later in history to the industrial revolution, and most recently to the technological revolution. In this respect, most cultural or social systems and technology have developed together in a way that the culture fitted its adjustment demands, its own notion of value, its cultural worldview, plus its ideas about constructive development and socio-economic progress, which was the case right up to colonialism. Archaeologists, anthropologists and historians point out that the necessary adjustments made by cultures were the result of various factors:

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changing climate conditions (Firestone et al. 2006, 2); population shifts due to climate conditions and population growth due to social-political groups becoming sedentary (Sauer 1952, 6-14); and the invention of new technologies for instance, a pattern of co-dependence, co-influence, and co-development between technology and cultures that occurred as early as the plow and continued up through advanced architecture for the building of cities, kingdoms, and empires- which also prompted technological advancements in weaponry (see also Barker 2006, 3-5, for an explanation of the early cultural techno-economic adjustments to climate and environmental conditions). If the history of human existence is looked at from the perspective of necessary technological adjustments then environmental and climate conditions have continuously impelled cultures to invent or import new technologies that would provide a means for better coping with reality. In fact, the term civilization, or being civilized became a term for distinguishing societies that had developed or adopted techniques for mastering and transforming nature (as opposed to those who had not and were considered primitive, savage, and/or barbaric). “The development of nature and the transformation of the environment [began to be considered] a primordial act, transforming chaos into order, imbuing the environment with human form- a divine-like act to create a new world and a new reality” (Natarajan & Khoday 2012, 41-42). This means that for some cultures technology became the very means by which they believed their social-political systems would flourish and would be able to influence underdeveloped and undeveloped cultures. However, for other cultures technology is a means of adjusting to the demands of the progression of civilization; thus some cultures believe that progress requires assimilating technology into their social systems. While for cultures who prefer to remain totally immersed in nature technology threatens such serious disruption of the culture that their position can be described as resisting adapting modern technology even though it induces the risk of annihilation. In this respect, technology has created an environment/nature-culture dialectic that deserves careful and critical analysis because of the role it potentially plays in “Profoundly modifying [culture and creating a] radical transformation of the environment [that results in altering a culture’s] routine of life” (Mumford 1955, 3). Critics of Modernity refer to this phenomenon as representing a manner of thinking that conceives of development as an increase in the extent to which a virtual reality replaces what is natural; thus the real begins to decrease and what was made as a


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result of human ingenuity increases. The most radical alterations result when cultures that were completely immersed in nature or completely dependent on its resources and processes, adapt to progress by becoming increasingly reliant on technological advancements for coping with their internal and external processes. “Technique integrates everything. When technique enters into every area of life, including the human, it ceases to be external to man but becomes part of his very substance” (Ellul 1964, 6). As implied earlier many cultures believed that the change was not only necessary and/or unavoidable if the culture was to survive, but preferable. According to Critical Theorist, Jürgen Habermas, “The term culture [stands] for the stock of knowledge from which participants in communication supply themselves with interpretations as they come to an understanding about something in the world [and] the term society [is] the legitimate orders through which participants regulate their memberships in social groups and thereby secure solidarity” (1987, 138). According to Habermas, culture is a means by which a social group organizes its lifeworld in order to be able to sustain the satisfaction of its material and higher order needs (Habermas 1987, 138). In this respect, indigenous knowledge is the basis of a culture’s capacity for self-determination in that its normative principles have continuously provided the means by which the culture maintains, perpetuates, and protects its life-world and its cultural boundaries. Thus, the normative principles and worldview of a culture are the means by which a culture is able to withstand the powerful external forces that confronts it. Habermas describes this as a cultural process for anchoring a cultural system or, in other words, a strategy for institutionalizing a social group’s processes for individual life-world integration - which keeps the life-world from falling apart (Habermas 1987, 173). Habermas goes on to assert that cultures can be threatened by external forces that have the power to subject the culture to what he calls the colonization of their life-world. The colonization of the life-world seems to subject a culture to the role of being a subsystem of another powerful techno-economic force. Thus, in terms of how the colonization of the life-world applies to the phenomenon of climate change, scholars have increasingly recognized and addressed the fact that there are civilization extension systems (e.g. techno-economic forces) that can create an imperative that “burst the capacity of the lifeworld they instrumentalise” (Habermas 1987, 155). According to Habermas, techno-economic reproductions can be a means by which one civilization advances itself by intervening in another culture in order to realize its political and economic aims (1987, 138).

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The difference created between a culture’s initial sense of natureculture complementarity and a culture’s understanding what is necessary for adapting to the demands of a technologically advanced means of survival is discussed in the cultural literature as the dichotomy between a culture’s right to self-determination and the subjection of a culture to technological determinism. The issue of the cumulative impact that technology has had on the environment could be considered as affecting the freedom of individuals and the capacity of some cultures to achieve sustainable growth in ways that are aligned with their cultural values and worldview (Natarajan & Khoday 2012, 37). Self-determination is defined as “The legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order” (LII 2015, 1). The right to self-determination is a general principle of international law and enshrined by a number of charters, treaties, and conventions: The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People; The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Widespread acknowledgment of the right to self-determination was achieved when the UN drafted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, for example, Article 1; paragraph 1 of the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights states that: "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right, they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development" (UN 1976, article 1, paragraph 1).

Thus, according to the renowned expert on international relations, E. H. Carr, the right to self-determination has persisted as a basic principle shaping relationships between social systems since the time that the classical principles of interstate relations were established because it mediates the tension between three forces that have consistently tended to shape the international order: the nationalistic, mercantile, imperialistic, tendencies of political-economic systems; the unifying and/or homogenizing trends that accompany enlarging political-economic systems, that is, initially the trend toward enlarged regional empires but today the trend toward globalization; and the exclusionary tendencies of traditionalists that resist outside interference as well as consider it a disruption to their cultural integrity (Carr 1942, 36-38 & 40-51). As the conceptual basis for sovereignty, self-determination means that a social body has right to selfrule- an idea that is fundamental to the notion that the individuals of a social unit have the right to self-determination, also defined as the right to


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sovereignty, which should not be interfered with by outside political and economic power forces. Renowned international relations scholar, the late E. H. Carr described the Post World War II, the post-colonial era conceptualization of international relations and international law in which self-determination was constituted in terms of the right to sovereignty principle which was the force undergirding the capacity of a culture to effectively insulate from being subjected to the influence of external power forces. The most significant hindrance to indigenous cultures enjoying their right to self-determination is directly related to the problem of technological determinism in two respects. First, one aspect of the problem occurs due to the fact that as part of an endeavor to adapt to the notions of development prescribed by the dominant paradigm for the progression of civilization many, if not most cultures have chosen to adopt technologically advanced means for participating in progress for example, the choice to adopt means that increase in the dichotomy between nature and the culture. The second aspect of the problem occurs due to the fact that the progression of civilization has made it increasingly necessary for cultures to integrate their systems into the globally integrated network as a result of the assumption that in the technological age in order for an undeveloped or underdeveloped culture to become developed it must accept technological transfer- its infrastructure must be built to provide for technology. Thus, if a culture intends to adapt to climate change in a way that is best for maintaining the integrity of the culture while, at the same time, promoting the flourishing will for most cultures will be a matter of deciding which side of the digital divide it would like to be on, or discerning how to resolve the dichotomy. To resolve this dichotomy the critical approach to peace research proposes the greening of the democratic peace concept as a theoretical basis for establishing a global infrastructure for sustainability. The concept is a viable foundation for conceptualizing international cooperative initiatives in that it coincides with a concerted effort underway by a large number of governments: including signatories to documents of international agreements and treaties on managing the environmental and climate change crises; scholars proposing international law as a relevant basis from which to approach climate change; the UN effort to offset an imposing global crisis by promoting sustainability, development as freedom, and an increase in overall Holistic human well-being; plus selfdetermination as a basic aspect of Human Rights. This is the case because the progression of civilization has pushed humanity to the brink of being

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compelled to discern how to resolve the dualistic dichotomy between using technology and power to exploit natural resources in order to increase material prosperity to the point that it threatens existence and the realization that it is preferable to restore/maintain a nature-human complementarity experience into the future by implementing sustainable strategies for social-economic development. The democratic peace concept is based on the premise that individuals will ultimately choose what is best for ensuring the satisfaction of their primordial natural inclination (what in liberal democracies is also regarded as a natural right or fundamental Human Right). The most basic human inclination is thought to be self-preservation. However, the fact is that a person is more likely to realize what is in his or her best interest by reducing the number of threats one faces, which, in effect, means increasing the number of beneficial exchanges one has with others, and with the environment. Thus, the democratic peace concept claims that individuals ultimately come to the realization that it is in their best interest to create more beneficial outcomes in relationships. Or, in other words, individuals in liberal democracies have come to accept that it is in their best interests to pursue the common good. When the critical approach to peace research is applied to a particular context (e.g. the Khasi endeavor to manage its environmental challenge), it combines with local indigenous knowledge to create a theoretical model for explaining how the greening of the democratic peace concept can be a strategy for realizing sustainability, peace, autonomy, self-determination, and freedom. In this respect, Khasi indigenous knowledge pertaining to the moral and normative principles that promote the moral order, harmonious social relations, and for maintaining a complementary relationship with the natural order, provides an ontological and epistemological conceptual basis for determining how to shape global social existence into outcomes beneficial for the most advanced societies, as well as for indigenous cultures. This would in effect be tantamount to applying the critical peace concept to the climate change issue by using the Khasi model of how to maintain complementarity in spite of technology. The Khasi perspective would complement the greening of the democratic peace concept by offering its indigenous perspective as a viable conceptual basis for how to make the ethics of mutuality (Human Rights) and the communication ethics of Cosmopolitan Liberalism, a Constructivist model for co-creating global social reality operable for resolving the dichotomy between techno-economic development and humanities natural


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value preference for complementarity, that is, a preference for experiencing beneficial outcomes for interactions. Humanity is pushed to the brink of endeavoring to collaboratively manage climate change because it is increasingly recognized as a big problem shared by the entire global community. “To say that climate change is a global problem is to plead for a big solution, a global social contract” (Onuf 2007, xiii). The social contract is a means by which individuals employ a constructivist dialogic process to shape an agreement on how their best interest can be achieved by constituting the common good. Because climate challenge is viewed from the perspective of the greening of the democratic peace concept as necessitating a concerted collaborative response it has increasingly become an issue that individuals, NGOs, international corporations, and governments acknowledge demands a globally constructed social contract for preventing a global catastrophe. Due to the extent of the environmental crises without a high level of cooperation, we will all be faced with a high level and variety of very disturbing effects in our collective life and on our planet (Falk 2014, 27). It is for this reason, according to Peace Psychologists Blumberg et al., that climate change represents a superordinate goal that individuals realize effects their self-preservation thus are increasingly willing to cooperate to achieve the common good by making the greening of the democratic peace concept operable (Blumberg et al. 2006, 156).

4. Resolving the Techno-economic Determinism and Self-determination Dichotomy “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it” (Einstein 1946, 7).

The Khasi culture indeed exists in the eye of the storm in two respects: on the one hand is the fact that Khasi culture is faced with an impending challenge imposed by very powerful macro-level forces that not only represent agents that could subject undeveloped and underdeveloped cultures to techno-economic determinism; but Khasi culture is also subject to forces that can be described as factors or consequences accompanying the progression of civilization, for example, the globalization of technoeconomic forces propelled by the established paradigm for progress, development, and modernization that most cultures have adapted; on the other hand, the eye of the storm represents the potential that the Khasi culture micro-level perspective on the ontological nature of existence and complementarity has for resolving the dichotomy between the values

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promoted by their own cultural heritage like the admonition to preserve the pristine conditions of the environmental topography and the threat to the pristine conditions of nature resulting from the impact of technoindustrial alternations of natural conditions. This means that Khasi cultural leaders and Khasi scholars engaged with the climate change issue must discern how to articulate the Khasi integrative model for nature-human complementarity which is compatible with the efforts put forth by global scholars and the overall global society’s efforts for dealing with climate change. The eye of the storm represents a potential micro-level perspective from which a particular culture is able to reflect on the normative principles prescribed by its heritage for maintaining nature-culture harmony in order to draw from its ontological perspective of complementarity to establish the foresight necessary for contributing a practical and workable conceptual model for resolving humanity’s current dichotomy between its materialistic pursuits and its higher order values (Mawlong 2015, 2). This claim is supported by the United Nations in the report entitled Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation. This “Collaborative researches bringing together indigenous peoples and natural and social scientists have led to a growing volume of published materials in the scientific literature” (Nakashima et al. 2012, 25). Such efforts have increased the realization that Khasi indigenous knowledge contains valuable insight into how to combine local knowledge with global scientific models to ensure that adaptation measures are aligned with local needs and priorities. The collaboration between indigenous cultures and the global community would be the basis of a model for implementing a global social contract that would serve as a normative basis for constituting the greening of the democratic peace principle. This model is in line with the democratic peace principle in that the integrative concept indicates how knowledge can be transformed into the potential power needed for resolving the problems agents are confronted with when the agents engage in a collaborative Constructivist inquiry to determine how to solve their problems in a way that is found satisfying and beneficial by all participants. Specialist in global environmental politics and International Political Science, Peter Hass describes such knowledge generation as a potential power that could give birth to usable solutions to the climate change challenge. Haas refers to knowledge as a type of power that- given the


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present environmental crisis and the need for a concerted progressive response- could even have an impact at the highest level of power and such knowledge could exert a type of influence that influences policy decisions. In short, he proposes that the Constructivist dialogic process is a means by which knowledge engages power - the ideological forces, political economic forces, and forces that are clearly shaping the nature human experience to create outcomes more beneficial for all stakeholders “Particularly with regard to the management of complex environmental issues associated with sustainable development” (Hass 2004, 569). Hass believes that generating such knowledge “Requires a reorientation of collective understanding and of formal institutions to focus on the key intersecting and interacting elements of complex problems” (Hass 2004, 570). The notion that knowledge is power - in fact, that knowledge is the most valuable commodity in the knowledge age economy which is also stressed by defining the dynamics of the contemporary global political economy as the network economy - is the basis of a new era conceptualization of the power needed for an integrative approach for managing climate change that is referred to as The Eco-leadership Theory (ELT). The eco-leader is an agent that acts as a knowledge entrepreneur, and can discern how to resolve the present tension that exists between the prior industrial era view that progress and development is a matter of increasing material abundance and the new knowledge age paradigm that views progress and development in terms of a Holistic perspective on how to achieve sustainability, create knowledge networks that collaboratively co-create value outcomes found beneficial for all stakeholders, and promote the integration of humanity’s material/economic values with humanity’s higher order values (Wielkiewicz & Stelzner, 2010, 22-23). When cultural agents act as a mediator to generate and disseminate such knowledge the outcome has the power to produce a unique normative viewpoint for promoting complementarity and/or beneficial outcomes in human-human and nature-human interactions. For instance, the Khasi culture would be a model of an agent who displays a capacity for ecoleadership based on its indigenous knowledge. In this sense, Khasi culture acts as a knowledge entrepreneur in terms of what proponents of ecoleadership call a knowledge manager to generate collaborative networks that gather, share and test knowledge regarding climate change. Although, on the one hand, Khasi culture exists within the eye of the storm as a result of conditions created by what is increasingly regarded as an outdated paradigm the culture, on the other hand, it recognizes that it

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has a ‘window of opportunity’ resulting from its own micro-level predicament to create a conceptual model that leads to a solution that could have macro-level impact (Mintrom & Norman 2009, 652). In fact, drawing from micro-level perceptions - to conceive of macro-level solutions - is a necessary challenge the culture must undertake because of its own predicament. But the predicament the Khasi culture is in is also the factor that is the basis of its potential for eco-leadership. This would put Khasi culture in the position of forming a proactive response to its own dilemma that would provide a viable vision for the global future. Proponents of the eco-leadership state that there are four characters that must be evident if an agent is to be able to display the capacity to act as an eco-leader: the agent must have a particular complementary perspective on the ontological nature of existence, and an extremely acute awareness of and sensitivity to the problem. The agent must be in a position to generate knowledge by means of Constructivist collaborative networks, and they also display a model for a solution that would be considered operable for other global agents (Mintrom & Norman 2009, 650-654). In this respect, Khasi culture itself would be portrayed as a model for putting into effect the greening of the democratic principle by acting to engage other agents and institutional structures in the process of instituting a Constructivist-oriented communication network that works to collaboratively transform knowledge into powerful ideational forces and processes for integrating resources to co-create a future where humanity experiences a complementary connection with nature (Pettenger 2007, 67). The literature on eco-leadership describes this type of agent as one who takes on the responsibility of facilitating the integration of micro-level cultural norms, principles, and values and macro-level (international) normative discourses; and interactive dialogue between conceptual models of sustainability (Fogel 2007, 100). By taking on this responsibility, the agent also acts to contribute to the Critical Theory perspective on international relations in that the process would illustrate the constraining and constitutive relationship between normativity/ valuation and discourse as a factor shaping the construction of global social reality—which has been downplayed in the established IR paradigm. So, from the Critical Theorist perspective: “Regulative norms constrain actors’ behavior by altering the incentive structures they face; norms [also] affect behavior through learning processes through which the norm becomes fundamental to actors’ identities and interests” (Fogel, 2007, 100).


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Such possible power-laden and ethical dimensions of normative convergence are often overlooked in international relations which has resulted in an unproductive demarcation between the theory and practice of international relations and strategies for addressing one of the most urgent issues confronting the global society at the midpoint of the second decade of the 21st century (Lahsen, 2007, 184; see also Never 2010, 2). In spite of the fact that the field of international relations, since its inception, has focused on analyzing the factors and forces impacting the global arena especially in terms of what contributes to peace, conflict, and security, the restrictions of the field’s established theoretical and methodological paradigm do not allow for analyzing the impact of climate change and the role that the environmental crisis plays in shaping interstate cooperation and global normative relations. The dominant international relations paradigm asserts that the ontological nature of existence is one where human beings exist in dualistic self-other contention which results in each agent becoming a threat to the other. From this perspective, the other always represents an entity that must be dominated, exploited, controlled, and/or eliminated. In other words, the “other” can be other individuals, cultures, and/or the environment. Thus, those operating on the basis of the dominant paradigm emphasize the need to increase power by any means - the consequences matter less than the outcome. The discipline of international relations needs to address this conflict producing ontological perspective if the broad body of international relations theory is to correctly analyze the dynamics of the environmental and climate change crisis if IR is to prescribe a constructive strategy for managing the current crisis and offer appropriate, normative prescriptive recommendations for policy-makers. This is because climate change raises three specific ontological concerns that are important to global stability: first is the nature of causality in the international ecosystem; second is the issue of the agency of individual entities versus the constraints of the structure of the global system; and third is the possibility that the international political system and the states within it are both whole systems within themselves and constituent parts of a larger eco-system (Kavalski, 2007, 444). However, this article argues that, because climate change is now central to the international political agenda, there is a need for an IR discourse that is inclusive of climate change within its theoretical and methodological scope. The problem partially stems from the theoretical and methodological constraints imposed by the established paradigm in international relations which does not provide a means for a multi-level

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analysis of global issues within state-centric parameters - cultural, normative, and environmental issues do not fit within its scope because the methodological focus is on calculating relative material advantage. Thus, agents that create networks of discourse on climate change are, in effect, in a position to critically engage the issue of the role of indigenous cultures within the state-centric framework, and, the effectiveness of the state-centric approach to international relations for effectively managing environmental concerns that are beyond the capacity of any one state to manage autonomously. This places Khasi culture in the position of having to draw from the ontological concepts that are the basis of its cultural heritage to point out how the climate problems can be rectified by correcting what Roy Rappaport implies is a dysfunction of the current paradigm for human relations- human-human and human-nature. Rappaport believes that the dysfunction occurs because, on the one hand, there is a focus on instrumental (material) values and utilitarian means of maximizing material advantage; on the other hand, there is the problem of a failure to keep instrumental material pursuits balanced with the place of higher order values in the human experience (Rappaport 1979, 155-157). He claims that the problem stems from a perspective on the ontological nature of existence that is problematic from an ecological perspective. The problem results in disorder because the significance of ultimate meanings are diminished by those focusing on instrumental material ends and the established paradigm overlooks the fundamental ontological nature of the human interconnection with nature although humanity is, nonetheless, bound by its laws. “The essential problem of ecology is the relationship of actions formulated in terms of meaning to the systems constituted by natural law within which they occur” (Rappaport, 1984 [1968], 402). From the perspective of the democratic peace concept, natural law is the basis of the principles connected with mutuality, Human Rights, (natural rights), perpetual peace, improving the relationship between humans plus between humans and nature, and the concept promotes collective security. Thus, Khasi culture acts as an eco-leader if and when it takes on the challenge of accepting the position of acting as a facilitator for a green peace research network and for negotiating the possibility that its ontological stance on complementarity could contribute to creating more beneficial outcomes in relationships between other agents concerned about the climate challenge, create more beneficial outcomes in the endeavors of international political economists, and contribute to establishing India as a model of how to improve GDP in a way that is


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sustainable. This means taking a stance for employing the Constructivist dialogic process as the means for creating a knowledge network that empowers Khasi culture along with the global stakeholders the culture engages, to produce satisfactory and beneficial solutions to the problems that all participants are confronted with. This puts the eco-leader in the position of using the Constructivist dialogic strategy for promoting the greening of the democratic process for demonstrating that power is increased by adherence to certain principles, for example, normative principles that increase the likelihood of beneficial outcomes in relation to other global agents and with the environment. Ultimately the eco-leader must also demonstrate that a preferable ontological view of existence is one that promoted complementarity. From the perspective of the democratic peace concept, the primary responsibility of the eco-leader is to address the inadequacy of present paradigm in terms of how its ontological perspective affects the relationship with other humans and with the environment. The established paradigm is based on the ontological perspective that views existence as a competitive struggle where the only way to safeguard a society’s interests is by amassing power (i.e. which means increasing material capability in economic and military terms, and the means for doing this are inconsequential). However, there is a widespread acknowledgment that a new ontological perspective is necessary for rectifying the climate crisis, stabilizing the global economy, managing the energy and water crises and making the right type of adjustments to the revolutionary impact of the emerging technological era. By taking a stance that aligns with the critical peace research concept, cultural scholars who represent the Khasi perspective on the issue of climate change are not taking a stand on resolving the digital divide dichotomy by proposing a progressive vision for the future and in addition, employ the Constructivist knowledge-generating network to engage international relations agents at multi-levels and in multidimensions. This is tantamount to what Amartya Sen calls Development as Freedom, where he claims that by exercising the right to freedom, by becoming a model of the greening of the democratic principle and the critical approach to peace research, Khasi cultural agents are exercising their right: “To lead the kind of life [they] have reason to value” (Sen 1999, 87) while, at the same time, contributing to “Enriching all of human life” (Sen 1999, 31-33 & 36).

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In this sense, the right that individuals and individual social units have to self-determination and sovereignty became the universal template for the greening of the democratic peace concept, and the basis of the claim that the global application of such normative principles would increase the prospect of a democratic peace. Sen confirms the knowledge is power premise regarding eco-leadership by implying that taking such a stance endues the agent with a type of: “…positive power or capacity” to enjoy self-determination and autonomy in spite of any limitations imposed by external forces” (Sen 2002, 586587).

References Agnew, John, & Duncan, James., eds. 1989. The Power of Place. Boston: Unwin Hyman Inc. Barker, Graeme. 2006. The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why did Foragers become Farmers? Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Bizikova, Livia. Habtezion, Zerisenay. Bellali, Johara. Diakhite, Mamadou. & Pintér, László. 2009. Vulnerability and Climate Change Impact Assessments for Adaptation: An integrated environmental assessment and reporting training manual. Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Blumberg, Herbert, Hare, Paul., & Costin, Anna. 2006. Peace Psychology: A Comprehensive Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Carr, Edward. 1942. Conditions of Peace. London: MacMillan and Company, Ltd. Comfort, Louise. 2000. “Disaster: Agent of diplomacy or change in international affairs?” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 14 (1). Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: The Free Press. Einstein, Albert. 1946. “The Real Problem is in the Hearts of Men”. New York Times Magazine. Ellul, Jacques. 1964. The Technological Society. Toronto, Canada: Random House of Canada Limited. Falk, Richard. .2014. (Re) Imagining Human Global Governance. Oxon, UK: Routledge. Firestone, Richard, West, Allen, & Warwick-Smith, Simon. 2006. The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes. Rochester, Vermont: Bear and Company.


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Fogel, Cathleen. 2007. “Constructing Progressive Climate Change Norms: The US in the Early 2000’s”. In The Social Construction of Climate Change: Power, Knowledge, Norms, Discourses, edited by Mary Pettenger. Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books Inc. Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action (volume II). (McCarthy, Thomas. Trans.). Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. Hass, Peter. 2004. “When does power listen to truth? A constructivist approach to the policy process”. Journal of European Public Policy 11 (4). Jutila, Matti, Pehkonen, Samu., & Väyrynen, Tarja. “Resuscitating a Discipline: An Agenda for Critical Peace Research”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 36 (3). Kavalski, Emilian. 2007. “The fifth debate and the emergence of complex international relations theory: notes on the application of complexity theory to the study of international life”. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 20 (3). LII (Legal Information Institute). 2015. Self-determination (International Law). Cornell, New York: Cornell University Law School. Lahsen, Myanna. 2007. “Trust through Participation? Problems of knowledge in Climate Decision Making”. In The Social Construction of Climate Change, edited by Mary Pettenger. Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Lyngdoh, Mary. 1991. The Festivals in the History and Culture of the Khasi. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Mawlong, Banshaikupar. L., & Mitri, Marco., eds. 2015. EnvironmentCultural Interaction and the Tribes of North-East India. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Mintrom, M., & Norman, P. 2009. “Policy Entrepreneurship and Policy Change”. Policy Studies Journal 37. Mumford, Lewis. 1955. Techniques and Civilization. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul Ltd. Nakashima, D.J., Galloway McLean, K., Thulstrup, H.D., Ramos Castillo, A. and Rubis, J.T. 2012. Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation. Paris, UNESCO, and Darwin, UNU.

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Natarajan, Usha, & Khoday, Kishan. 2012. “Sustainable Development as Freedom: on the Nature of International Law and Human Development”. In The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 2010, edited by Giuliana Capaldo. New York: Oxford University Press. Never, Babette. 2010. “Regional Power Shifts and Climate Knowledge Systems: South Africa as a Climate Power?” In GIGA Research Programme: Power, Norms and Governance in International Relations. Hamburg, Germany: GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. Onuf, Nicholas. 2007. The Social Construction of Climate Change: Power, Knowledge, Norms, Discourses. Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Parsons, Talcott. 2007. “An Outline of the Social System”. In Classical Sociological Theory, edited by Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, & Indermohan Virk. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Patomäki, Heikki. 2001. “The Challenge of Critical Theories: Peace Research at the Start of the New Century”. Journal of Peace Research 38 (6). Pettenger, Mary, ed. 2007. The Social Construction of Climate Change: Power, Knowledge, Norms, Discourses. Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Rappaport, Roy. 1979. Ecology, Meaning, and Religion. Richmond, California: North Atlantic Books. —. 1984. Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. Sauer, Carl. 1952. Agricultural Origins and Dispersals. New York: The American Geographical Society. Schwartz, Peter, & Randall, Doug. 2003. “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and its Implications for United States National Security”. Global Business Network report prepared for the US Department of Defense. Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. —. 2002. Rationality and Freedom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Spring, Úrsula., Tidball, Keith., & Brauch, Hans., eds. 2014. Expanding Peace Ecology: Peace, Security, Sustainability, Equity, and Gender. New York: Springer Publishing. Syiemlieh, Magdalyne, & Nonglait, Naomi. 2015. “Ecology and Spirituality: Eco-Theology of the Khasis”. In Environment-Cultural


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CHAPTER THREE CLIMATE REFUGEES AND INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO THEIR PROTECTION FAZIL KHAN1

1. Introduction In contemporary times the refugee crisis is one of the gravest threats faced by the international community. The recent case of Syrian refugees is a stark example of the refugee burden faced by the developed countries of the West. The fear of political persecution continues to be the driving factor for a person to flee from his/her traditional homeland. What happens after a person flees his/her home is an emotional, physical, mental, psychological turmoil which the state (both home state and host state) fails to understand. The 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Optional Protocol serve as the international norms for the protection of the rights of refugees all over the globe. There are limitations attached to these Conventions but the presence of these norms in the body of international law is a source of strength for the ongoing struggle of millions of refugees all over the world. The problems faced by refugees are exacerbated when they flee their homes because of environmental reasons, i.e. when their movement across international borders take place owing to environmental problems, such as rising sea levels or increase in global warming, which may render a place uninhabitable. This increases the challenges faced by refugees because in such cases they are labeled as what has come to be known as ‘climate refugees’ or ‘environmental refugees’. Some years back the concept of climate refugees was considered a myth. Even though there were plenty of evidence to show that movement of people due to weather conditions was a reality (in most of Asia, Africa and Latin America), there were doubts as 1

Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, India.

Climate Refugees and Institutional Responses to their Protection

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to whether this could mean that climate actually had an impact on the ‘displacement’ of people. Climate change is, in fact, the most threatening event of the 20th Century. The term literally means a change in the climate caused due to increase in the levels of greenhouse gases. It manifests itself in various ways such as rising sea level, melting of ice caps and glaciers of the Arctic, wildfires in tropical forests, droughts, famines and so on. The recent Jammu and Kashmir floods in 2014 are a reminder to international experts and policymakers that climate has begun to change, and has had a devastating impact on the lives of people. The climate-induced movement of people is not a new phenomenon. There have been cases such as the case of Haiti refugees, Tuvalu Islanders, which exemplify this phenomenon. Climate change has a disastrous effect mostly in the developing countries of the South and it is the national populations in these countries that are at risk of the forces of climate change. Against this background, the three parts of this paper serve to analyze the concept of climate refugees. The first part explains the concept of refugee and gives a historical perspective about the advent of the refugee problem and how the international community has been dealing with it. The second explains the concept of climate refugees and gives a conceptual clarification of the term. The third part dwells on the institutional responses towards the problem of climate refugees. This is followed by concluding remarks.

2. The Concept of Refugee: Historical Perspective The term refugee is of ancient origin and simply means a person who flees his/her home and seeks refuge in a foreign place due to several reasons. However, its definition has continuously evolved in the Twentieth Century. Although the phenomenon of persons fleeing from their homelands has always been a reality, the first recognized refugees in the contemporary Westphalian State system were the Huguenots, fleeing France in 1685. A large number of French Protestants fled and relocated themselves in other Protestant nations during a series of religious persecutions. In the early part of the modern international system, a number of large refugee movements occurred in Europe. The French Revolution of 1789 is one such example of a large number of refugee flights from one place to another seeking refuge from persecution. Displacement of people on a

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huge scale is not new in international affairs, but the international refugee law regime is a fairly new specialized branch of the international law of the Twentieth Century. The Twentieth Century has witnessed unprecedented human displacements as a result of political shifts and world wars. The period after the end of the Second World War witnessed mass movements of people from one place to another leading to an effort at the international stage to define a refugee and to ensure their protection. The existing refugee law was codified just after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 14 of the 1948 UDHR states that: “Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’ The adoption of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees was one such dedicated effort to define refugees and to ensure their protection. There are two broad categories of definitions - the pre1951 Convention and the post-Convention. There was a little concern about the definition of a refugee before the existence of the 1951 UN convention, both recognized on the basis of multilateral arrangements between the concerned states. The need to deal with refugees on an international level was recognized only after the end of the Second World War. In 1946, the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) was created as a non-permanent United Nations specialized agency to deal with the massive refugee influx after the Second World War in Europe. It was the first international agency to comprehensively deal with the problem of refugees. The IRO constitution also asserts that the principal objective of the organization was that of “encouraging and assisting refugees in every way possible, early return to their country of nationality, or former habitual residence”. However, the IRO was not able to bring the refugee problem to a conclusion and in 1952 its operations came to an end. It was then officially replaced by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in February 1952. The Office of UNHCR was set up in 1952 to help the displaced people affected by World War II. It was initially given a three-year mandate, which was later extended to ‘until the refugee problem is solved.’ UNHCR provides international protection to refugees, guaranteeing the protection of their basic human rights, including the right to seek asylum. It tries to make sure that no person is returned involuntarily to a place where he or


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she has a reason to fear persecution. Since its inception, the organization has been complemented by other refugee protection and assistance regimes in several regions. In the early period of documented history, refugees were not considered as a cause of strain in international relations and they were not an issue of governmental concern. Governments also viewed refugee inflows with a different perspective and encouraged the new arrivals in the form of refugees. They recognized the fact that persons who could afford to travel would eventually make their society stronger with their presence and assets. The refugee regime in the 19th Century was a different story. The issue of refugee flows began to emerge as an international concern as refugee flows resulted in potential power balance shifts.

3. Climate Refugees: A Conceptual Clarification Displacement caused by the change in environment is a very new phenomenon in the field of international refugee law even though climateinduced displacements can be traced back hundreds of years. It is a situation where people who could no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of several environmental degradation problems such as floods, rising sea levels, droughts, soil erosion, desertification, and deforestation as well as the associated problems of population pressures. Norman Myers has written extensively on the environmental issues and links between environmental changes and population displacement. Most of his articles on environmental security and environmental refugees show a simplistic causal relationship between environment and displacement. He explains that if lands become degraded or other environmental problems surface, such as disappearing forests or rising sea levels, people will be forced to flee their homeland. Climatic change and human activities cause land degradation which leads to social inequalities. Activities such as farming and cutting of trees force people to compete for diminishing resources leading to conflicts as well. However, the concept of environmental refugees has been constantly questioned by scholars within the field of international relations. A common agreement of these scholars is that people forced to flee from their state of origin do so because of many factors. Economic, social, institutional and political factors, combined with events like civil wars and incidences of poverty have been identified as the main causes of population displacements and refugee flows.

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Environmental degradation is a process through which the natural environment is compromised in some way, reducing biological diversity and the general health of the environment. This process can be entirely natural in origin, or it can be accelerated or caused by human activities. Many international organizations recognize environmental degradation as one of the major threats facing the planet. Humans are given one Earth to work with, and if the environment becomes irreparably compromised, it could mean the end of human existence. Myers (1995) further popularized and legitimized the concept of environmental refugees by offering a working definition: Environmental refugees are persons who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their traditional homelands because of environmental factors of unusual scope, notably drought, desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, water shortages and climate change, as well as natural disasters such as cyclones, storm surges, and floods. On the face of such environmental threats, people feel there is no alternative but to seek sustenance elsewhere, whether within their own countries or beyond and whether on a semi-permanent or permanent basis. (Myers, 1995, pp.18-19) In many cases, Myers wrote, environmental refugees are actually ‘population pressure’ refugees (63). The term climate refugee specifically has been mobilized to describe large numbers of people predicted to be permanently or temporarily displaced by climate change effects such as drought, desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, water shortages and rising sea levels (Myers 1995; Biermann and Boas 2010). The existing refugee law consisting of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol does not include provisions for climate refugees. Under the UNHCR, a refugee is defined, as per the 1951 convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, as people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters or other environmental problems, but he/she does not qualify for refugee status and the protection that comes from such status. The idea of a ‘climate change refugee’ is a comparatively new one. The term “Environmental Refugee” is attributed to Lester Brown of the World Watch Institute in the late 1970s. Yet the concept has been criticized as vague and simplistic. In a United Nations High Commission on Refugees working paper, Richard Black argues that: “...although environmental degradation and catastrophe may be important factors in the decision to migrate, and issues of concern in their own right,


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their conceptualization as a primary cause of forced displacement is unhelpful and unsound intellectually, and unnecessary in practical terms” (UNHCR 2001).

In 1985, the UNEP researcher Essam El-Hinnawi coined the term ‘environmental refugees’ to describe: “People who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because its carrying capacity for humans is exhausted as a result of marked environmental disruption (natural/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life” (Cohen & Bradley 2010).

The term ‘environmental disruption’ refers to any physical, chemical and/or biological changes in the ecosystem (or the resource base) that render it temporarily or permanently unsuitable to support human life. Debates around linkages between environmental degradation and forced migration have led to the emergence of a range of highly contested terms like environmental refugee, environmental migrant, forced environmental migrant, environmentally-motivated migrant, climate refugee, climate change refugee, environmentally-displaced person (EDP), disaster refugee, environmental displace, eco-refugee, ecological displaced person and environmental refugee-to-be (ERTB). These terms are not accepted under the international refugee law, for environmental conditions do not constitute a basis for international protection. They are descriptive terms, not a status that confers obligations on States. Debates about their validity are often shaped by simplistic judgments and preconceived definitional labels. The lack of a precise definition of the terms routinely deployed fears around the emotionally-charged issue of migration, vastly divergent estimates of the likely scale of climate-induced displacement and the lack of dialogue. Environmental refugees are not a new phenomenon. What is new is the magnitude and frequency of the phenomenon. A Christian Aid Report predicts that ‘given current trends, one billion people will be forced from their homes between now and 2050’. This is a result of globally deteriorating environmental conditions such as desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, drought, water shortages, caused by interconnected and cumulative impact of natural and anthropogenic factors: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, global climate change bringing extreme weather conditions, global warming and the prospect of rising sea levels, consumption of scarce natural resources by the developed states

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disproportionate to their declining population, population growth in the developing world increasing demands on natural resources thus creating a vicious circle of extreme poverty and further ecological pressures. These factors may also be exacerbated by failed development policies whereby increasing numbers of people are being marginalized within physically, socially, politically and economically impoverished environments. It is no surprise that environmental refugees are located mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, China, Mexico and Latin America.

4. Institutional Response to the problem of Climate Refugees The acknowledgment of the term ‘climate refugees’ is a very recent one. In fact, the acceptance towards the existence of the concept is still considered ambiguous. This is the reason that even though the problem of climate refugees has existed over a long period of time, still there have been minimal institutional interventions related to it. The 1951 Convention is a hard law on refugees but it does not contain any provisions on climate refugees or those displaced by the forces of climate change. There have been few institutional responses towards the problem of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was the first such body created in 1988 by international organizations. This was established with the primary purpose of developing scientific evidence on the phenomenon of climate change. With its annual Assessment Reports, the IPCC has performed exceptionally well in its mandate. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the sole legal document pertaining to the discourse on climate change. It was signed and ratified in 1992 during the Rio Summit. The recognition of the fact that climate is changing came very late even when reports and scientific inquiries had begun to take place since the early nineteenth century. The early 1990s was the time when large-scale development efforts were going on in many countries of the world. These had an impact on the natural environment and ecosystems. Hence a Convention was negotiated to combat the evils of climate change. The UNFCCC till date has failed to take into account the problems and challenges faced by climate refugees. Even though the high-level talks and negotiations are opened to many non-state actors such as Climate Action Network - which has very successfully taken into account the concerns of


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other vulnerable communities such as indigenous peoples, farmers and so on - the issues of climate refugees are still unaccounted for. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is an example of a convention which is amenable to the concerns of vulnerable communities. Climate change caused due to desertification is a problem in most African countries. The Anti-Desertification Action Plan as applied to the Sahel and arid sectors of the Horn of Africa can be considered a good action plan to combat climate change and this will have enormous benefits for climate refugees as these are the regions which produce hundreds of climate refugees. The international protection frameworks for climate refugees have essentially relied on prevention techniques rather than any concrete proposals. How to prevent climate change so that it may not result in the displacement of people is the main question behind these frameworks rather than what measures should be taken to address the concerns of climate refugees. What is needed in the international scheme of things is a convention which actually discusses the rights of climate refugees and how the burden of these climate refugees needs to be shared by states in order to make the problem less cumbersome.

5. Conclusion Refugees have been a permanent feature of the international society for a long time. When the 1951 Convention was drawn up, the world witnessed the massive movement of people due to the Nazi persecution of Jews which triggered the migration of people fearing political persecution. However, over the years the reasons for forced migration go beyond being just a political one. Today, the environment or climate has become a bigger reason for people to migrate. Even though ‘climate refugees’ is not an internationally accepted term, the issues of climate refugees are widely accepted and acknowledged. That climate forced migration is a reality is accepted at all levels of society, though the scale of the problem is not something with which all are acquainted. This was the case when Tuvalu Islands got submerged due to rising sea levels. Even though the governments of Australia and New Zealand have accepted the nationalities of the Tuvalu Islands to reside within their territories, the bigger question that needs to be addressed is a permanent solution for these people. Will they ever be referred to as islanders or will they now have to adjust to a completely new identity? These concerns need to be addressed at an international level. There are many organizational interventions with many

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intergovernmental, regional, non-governmental organizations working in the field, but what needs to be achieved is the integration of efforts at all levels and the development of minimum common norms and standards to be adhered to by all states in order to bring a solution to the problems faced by these climate refugees.

References Biermann, Frank, & Boas, Ingrid. 2010. “Preparing for a Warmer World: Towards a Global Governance System to Protect Climate Refugees”. Global Environmental Politics 10 (1). Black, Richard. 2001. Environmental refugees: myth or reality? UNHCR Working Paper No. 34. Cohen, Roberta, & Bradley, Megan. 2010. “Disasters and Displacement: Gaps in Protection”. Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies 1 (201). UN. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: United Nations. Myers, Norman, & Kent, Jennifer. 1995. Environmental Exodus: An Emergent Crisis in the Global Arena. Washington, D.C: Climate Institute.

CHAPTER FOUR CLIMATE CHANGE AS A NON-TRADITIONAL SECURITY THREAT: REFLECTIONS FROM PAKISTAN ANJALI DEVI M.1

1. Introduction The countries of the world have been experiencing the adverse effects of climate change and its related issues for a long time. However, these issues attained a security concern on an international level only by the end of the Cold War. Until then, policy makers, academicians, politicians etc. addressed security from a traditional perspective. Traditionally security has been defined as the ability of a State to protect its interest from external attacks. Those interests can be broadly classified as sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of the nation. One can witness numerous conferences and policy initiatives with regard to nontraditional/non-conventional/non-military security threats in the post-cold war era. Most notable among them is the United Nations Conference on Human Environment (1972), the International Conference on Relationship between Disarmament and Development (1987), the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992), Beijing Conference on Women (1995), etc. New threats under the umbrella of non-traditional security (NTS) mainstreamed in these conferences include environmental degradation and climate change, transnational terrorism, cyber threats, public health issues, ethnic conflicts, displacement, etc. While the state is a major concern in traditional security, non-state actors play a pivotal role in non-traditional security (NTS). Moreover, threats emanating from NTS are transnational in nature and they also pose crucial challenges to the national security of a 1

Centre for South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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country in the contemporary times. The consequences inflicted by NTS are irreparable in nature and they even have the capacity to reverse the economic development of the states. Among various NTS concerns, changes in the climatic conditions and the growing environmental degradations are of primary concerns. Today, natural disasters have become the order of the day. For instance, the recent earthquake in Nepal inflicted a loss of ten billion dollars (The Live Mint 2015). This is half of Nepal’s gross domestic product (GDP). The fatalities resulting from heat waves that struck India and Pakistan during May-June 2015 reached a high proportion of 3,000 lives. Realising the urgent need to address climate change as an NTS threat and a key developmental challenge, the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and nation states initiated various policies to contain the ill-effects of climate change. The reports around the world underscores that South Asia is one of the most disaster-prone areas of the World. Geographical peculiarities coupled with high level of poverty and population density makes the region more susceptible to the vagaries of nature. The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change entitled “Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” mentions that food shortage, flooding and stagnating economic growth are some of the devastating impacts of climate change on South Asia. The 20 foot surge storm that hit Bangladesh in 1991 killed 138,866 people and affected 15,43,8849 (EMDAT). Erratic rainfall, unpredictable rise in temperature, rising sea level and seawater intrusion are some of the manifestations of changing climatic conditions in the region. Among South Asian countries, Pakistan is more vulnerable to the furies of nature. The earthquake of 2005 in the State claimed the lives of 73,338, while the 2010 floods marked a death toll of 1985. In the recent heat-waves, there was a casualty of 1229. Natural disasters ranging from droughts to floods and from cold waves to heat waves have devastating impacts on the social realm of Pakistan. Even though NTS poses a grave threat to the national security of various regions in general and nation-states in particular, traditionalists in the field of security studies are skeptical in widening the concept of security. According to them inclusion of everything that affects mankind under the purview of security would mean losing the comprehensiveness of the scope of security. On the other hand, those who stand for nontraditional security argued for broadening the concept of security by incorporating military security, political security, economic security, societal security and environmental security. In the above backdrop, this paper is trying to analyze the debates between traditionalists and non-

Climate Change as a Non-Traditional Security Threat

51

traditionalists over the concept of security with special emphasis on climate change and its effects on various sectors of Pakistan.

2. Traditionalists versus Non-traditionalists on Security The end of the Cold War heralded a change in the political environment. This change was also visible in the realm of security studies. Several researchers who tried to give an alternative definition for security include Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, Jaap de Wilde, Stephen Walt, Richard Ullman and others. Walt’s understanding of security is steadfastly rooted in realism. For him “the main focus of security studies is easy to identify, however: it is the phenomena of war” (Walt 1991, 3). He holds the view that peace has to be maintained only through military means. The whole idea of his notion of security gives prominence to inter-state wars and not intra-state wars, which was prominent after the Cold War especially in developing countries. Against those who want to widen the agenda outside military domain, Walt argues that, the risk of expanding “security studies” excessively by including issues such as pollution, disease, child abuse, or economic recessions would destroy intellectual coherence of the term ‘security’ and make it more difficult to devise solutions to any of these important problems (Walt 1991,4). Arguing in the lines of Stephen M. Walt, John Chipman says: “the structuring element of strategic analysis must be the possible use of force.......Non-military aspects of security may occupy more of strategist’s time, but the need for peoples, nations, states or alliances to procure, deploy, engage or withdraw military forces must remain a primary purpose of the strategic analyst’s inquiries” (Chipman 1992, 129).

The proponents of the traditional security perspective wanted to maintain the cold war concept of security which is state-centric and military-centric. On the other hand, those who advocated the nontraditional security perspective attempted to widen and deepen the concept to include other issues such as economic security, social security and environmental security. As a result of this discourse, the very concept of security became more normative. There are two views among the non-traditionalists with regard to the inclusion of diverse concerns under security studies. The “Wideners” and

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the “Deepeners”1 form the sub-category among the non-traditionalists but there is disagreement between them as well. The wideners agree that military security may not acknowledge the greatest threats to human survival like economic crisis, poverty, environmental crisis etc. The deepeners ask, ‘Whose security is being threatened?’ They are trying to redefine the concept to use individual as a referent object against the State (Tarry 1999, 2). The very concept of non-traditional security and the debates centered on it has been initiated by Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and Jaap de Wilde of the Copenhagen school. Barry Buzan in his work People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies Post-Cold War Era tries to examine a broader understanding of the concept of security. The three levels that he addressed thoroughly in his work include individuals, states and international system (Buzan 1983, 21). In “New patterns of Global Security in the Twenty-First Century”, he further widened the scope of security to include military security, political security, societal security, economic security and environmental security (Buzan 1998, 2). The concept finds further elaboration in his edited volume with Waever and Wilde Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Buzan et.al. 1998). Despite this, the Copenhagen School developed a new framework called “securitization” to conceptualize security. As per their analysis, an issue can be securitized by the process of the repeated usage of the term in the public domain. A kind of political manipulation takes place to securitize the issue. Consequently, that particular issue becomes an important agenda for national and international security. In a nutshell “security” is a selfreferential practice. Buzan himself admits that in this practice an issue becomes a security issue, not necessarily because a real existential threat exists but the issue is presented as a threat (Buzan 1998, 24). This manifests that securitisation is a Speech Act. Another important figure in this discourse is Richard Ullman. His definition of security is more comprehensive. He defines security:

1

Wideners include Buzan, Wilde, Waever who argues for the inclusion of environment, poverty, climate change under the umbrella of national security since they affect people more than military security. Deepeners consist of Keith Krause, Michael Charles Williams who believe that military security is more crucial. They believe that if everything that affects the people has been included in the security concept it may lose its intellectual comprehensiveness.


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(1) as an action or sequence of events that threatens drastically over a relatively brief span of time to degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a state or (2) as threatening significantly to narrow the range of policy choices available to the government of a state or to private, nongovernmental entities (persons, groups, corporations) within the state. The first category includes a spectrum of disturbances and disruptions ranging from external wars to internal rebellions, from blockades and boycotts to raw material shortages and devastating “natural” disasters such as decimating epidemics, catastrophic floods or massive and pervasive drought. This definition clearly broadens the concept of national security which incorporates all issues that threaten the lives of citizens. The second category refers to degradation of the quality of life in its most extreme form during the time of war. Even if war does not take place, the society has to undergo a war like situation with all its vigor. These circumstances curtail the free flow of cultural and scientific exchanges, intellect, etc. In short, it makes less opportunity for a country and the society to make policy choices (Ullman 1983, 134). Stating the abovementioned attempts to define non-traditional security threats, one cannot deny the fact that there is no common understanding of what security is how to conceptualize it or what its research questions are. The contradiction among the proponents of non-traditionalists can also be identified with the views of Mely Cabellero Anthony on the securitization process. She pointed out that securitization process does not address the issue of why one should securitize an issue. Anthony is of the opinion that the indicator of securitization process only involves speech act. It does not give a precise answer to the question, ‘when should one securitize an issue?’ Also, the analysis of the Copenhagen School has been confined only to European countries. The securitization process is not concerned about the policy implementation and implication of securitization and desecuritization of an issue (Anthony et al. 2006).

3. Discourses on securitizing environment The discourse between the traditional and non-traditional security takes us to another debate that is crucial, i.e. whether environmental challenges is a security concern or climate change can be placed under the security domain. Daniel Deudney gives a couple of reasons to delink

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environment from the realm of security. He is of the opinion that, if we include everything that causes a decline in the human well-being as a security threat, the term loses its analytical usefulness. He validates this by mentioning that when earthquakes, floods and droughts happen, we call them natural disasters and not a threat to national security. Deudney opines that it would be misleading to call environmental threats ‘international’ because it is oblivious to the boundaries and afflicted states. He adds that most environmental disasters affect just one nation-state. For Deudney the next misfit is between the intentions of violence and environmental degradation. Violence has clear intentions. Organisations are mobilized, weapons are procured and wars waged with definite aims in mind. But environmental degradation is mostly the off-shoot of other instances. Deudney says that securitizing an issue is the policy of the state to keep people under constant threat (1990, 461-76). Marc Levy is of the opinion that the indirect threat posed by the climate change in the third world countries settles in a traditional domain of security that is war and conflict. He opines that environmental security does not offer a new thinking; what is needed might be better than the old thought (1995, 10). Homer-Dixon in The Coming Anarchy (1994, 1) observes that climate change will bring drastic effects on the progress of humanity. He says that the environmental factors and vagaries of nature will become crucial for the national security of the Twenty-first Century. Climate change is affecting not just the physical features of the world it also leads to many other adverse effects of a decline in the water level, communicable diseases, conflicts etc. This is where the significance of climate change and the urgent need for securitizing it lies. Parsons (2010, 89) states that: “Climate change, in which man-made global warming is a major factor, is projected to produce dramatic, accelerating, and long-lasting human, economic, and political consequences with profound security implications. These will be most pronounced in places where the effects of climate change are the greatest, particularly affecting weak states already especially vulnerable to environmental destabilization.”

Most experts working in the field of climate change agree with the view put forward by the non-traditionalist school of security. Climate change and its negative impacts were received with great interest in the first decade of the Twenty-first Century. The international organizations realized the gravity of the issues of environmental changes and tried to create awareness among the peoples of different nations through various programmes and interventions. Ban Ki-Moon, the United


55

Nations Secretary-General labeled climate change as a major driver of war and conflict. He said that “Climate Change is at least as big a threat as World War” (The Guardian 2007). Apart from this in November 2007, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Fourth Assessment report. It dealt with a wide range of adverse climate change-related effects. These landmark interventions enhanced the level of attention paid to the security considerations of climate change (IPCC 2007, 3). Climate Change finds mention in the human security literature as well. Even those who say that climate change should be de-securitized admit that climate change threatens human security. “Climate Change is very likely the biggest challenge the world has ever faced” (Buckland 2007, 13). The need for environmental security given in the Brundtland Commission Report, 1987, says: “…true security cannot be achieved by mounting build-up of weapons (defense in a narrow sense) but only by providing basic conditions for solving non-military problems which threaten them. Our survival depends not only on military balance but on global cooperation to ensure a sustainable environment.”

The former American Vice-President and environmentalist, Al Gore, through his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) talked about the vagaries of nature and its effects on society. Environmental concern has to be securitized so that the national and international community will be more aware of the situation and more measures will be taken for the same.

4. Pakistan’s climate change: A key developmental and security challenge The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has defined climate change as “a change in the state of the climate that can be identified using statistical tests by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forces or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use” (IPCC 2007, 2). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defined it as “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods” (UNFCCC

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Article 1). Therefore climate change occurring due to anthropogenic factors creates an imbalance in the global atmosphere resulting in ozone depletion, increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, unpredictable variations in temperature and rainfall pattern, etc. The South Asian region is highly vulnerable to changing climatic patterns and frequent natural disasters. Manifestations of it are evident in the form of erratic monsoon, low agricultural productivity, rising sea levels and seawater intrusion, a prolonged period of drought, and an increase in vector-borne diseases. Among the countries of South Asia, Pakistan is extremely affected by the adverse effects of changing climatic conditions. The geographical location of Pakistan is crucial for its susceptibility towards climate change. The country lies on a steep slope, falling sharply from almost 8,500 meters down to the sea level within a distance of less than 2,000 kilometres. The presence of huge glaciers in North Pakistan further aggravates the situation. The Hindu KushKarakoram mountain ranges host many glaciers which form the lifeline of Pakistan’s agro-economy (Shaw et al. 2015, 5). The recent researches observed that the retreating of huge glaciers in the Himalayan region as a result of global warming began to have adverse impacts on agriculture, hydro-power generation, industrial growth, biodiversity and the very ecosystem of the country. Moreover, seventy per cent of the country’s population lives in flood-prone areas which intensify the vulnerability of Pakistan. The high ranges of the state are frequently exposed to landslides, snow avalanches, Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF), etc. The Centre for Research in Epidemiology of Disasters in 2014 has ranked Pakistan as the fifth worst affected country due to natural disasters while the German Watch (2013) has identified Pakistan as the third most affected owing to the vagaries of nature. According to the Agricultural Census of 2010, 45% of the labor force has been employed in the agricultural sector which constitutes 24% of the national gross domestic product (GoP 2010). But with erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, poor knowledge of farmers to tackle climate change, the agricultural sector is facing a grave threat from changing weather patterns. For example, wheat which is the staple food of Pakistan has shown a downward trend in production due to various factors like water shortages and severe drought conditions (Ahmed & Schimtz, 2011, 4). As a result of a warmer climate and enhancing rate of precipitation, insects and pests have increased contributing to a reduction in the crop yields (Spinage, 2012, 1143). The rise in the temperature levels and the increasing salinity has been creating devastating effects on the very


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existence of mangrove forests, which are the best-known barriers to protect both man and environment from the hazards of nature, especially from floods and tsunamis (Lacerda, 2001). Due to unprecedented climate change, water insecurity has also become a major concern of the Government of Pakistan. The Jinnah Institute reported on May 09, 2014 that ‘like terrorism, the water crisis in the state of Pakistan is an existential threat to Security”. The Water and Power Development Agency (WAPDA) in its report states that with increased population, Pakistan is fast heading towards a situation of water shortage. The per capita surface water availability was 5260 cubic meters in 1951 when the population was 34 million, which reduced to 1038 cubic meter in 2010 when the estimated population was 172 million. The minimum water requirement for being a “water-short country” is 1,000 cubic meters. In 2012, Pakistan had reached the tag of “acute water shortage” (Chaudhary 2012, 1). Accessibility to water from alternative resources is also declining since Pakistan’s groundwater availability has reached its maximum capacity with its increased usage. The climate change induced water crisis is likely to have a huge impact on the hydroenergy production of the country. It also causes increased rate of sedimentation of major reservoirs resulting in reduced hydropower generation capacity, sea level rise and frequent cyclonic activity which threaten the energy infrastructure on the coast; high temperature will result in increased demand for energy for pumping groundwater to meet the irrigation requirements due to increased evapotranspiration, high temperature will also increase electricity demand for space cooling, thereby increasing the peak demand (GoP 2010, 24). The internal turmoil clubbed with changes in the climate is creating difficult situations in the economic and energy front of the state. The unprecedented water scarcity in the Indus River Basin partially or fully paralyzed the energy sector of Pakistan over the past five years since the lion’s share of the power generation comes from hydro-electricity. Though outrages over power are not new to the State, the civil unrest has increased over the last few years due to the acute power shortage. Power cuts have been a regular phenomenon in the country and 18-20 hours per day cuts were common especially in the megacities of the provinces. This led to bloody riots and large-scale protests in various parts of the state. The situation is even worse in rural areas where the power cuts reach 20 hours per day. Violent protests were reported throughout the country. In the worst agitations the violent protestors burnt down trains, damaged banks, gas stations, looted shops, blocked roads and even resorted to attacking the

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houses of National Assembly and the Provincial members (Imran 2013, 3). This was more visible in the rural areas because it affected their access to basic amenities. Thousands of workers have been dismissed from industries as it was not viable to run the industries with 20 hours of power shortage per day. The Pakistan Textile Exporters Association estimates about 150,000 jobs were lost in Faisalabad and surrounding Punjab province over the last five years. Many of those who lost jobs in 2011 launched a civil disobedience movement and questioned the legitimacy of the Government to collect taxes (Imran 2013, 6). Most of the people depend on electricity to take portable water from wells. So the shortage of electricity is creating food and water crisis as well. Disgruntled tribesmen are the most violent protestors as they took control of the power grids, or coalesced with various extremist groups such as the Taliban. The role of militant groups in providing relief to the natural disaster-affected areas of the state has been reported by many newspapers. After the 2010 flood, relief efforts were undertaken by a group called Falah-e-Insaniat which has a strong link with Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Asian Times Online reported ‘Militants See Opportunity in Disaster’ (2010). The International New York Times published ‘The Charitable Face of Pakistani Militants’ (2012) mentioning an offer letter by an NGO Jamaat-ud-Dawa to American President Barack Obama for providing aid to cyclone victims. This NGO has strong links with Lashkar-e-Taiba. Climate change coupled with environmental degradation is posing a question on the health security of Pakistan. The occurrence of dengue has increased since 2006. Confirmed death rates due to dengue since 2010 were 16,580; while 257 casualties in Lahore and approximately 5000 cases and 60 deaths were reported from other parts of the country. The unprecedented increase in vector-borne diseases is quite alarming (The Daily Times 2014). Lack of water and sanitation in slum areas impacts other sections of the population in urban and semi-urban regions as well. Research by the World Bank states that rising temperatures and humidity leads to rising in vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and encephalitis. Studies also observe that an increase of three to four degree Celsius in average temperature may double the reproduction rate of dengue virus. The above-mentioned analysis shows that Pakistan is severely affected by climate change across the sectors and population. Realising the


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conspicuous nature of climate change and natural disasters, the government has formulated certain policies and programmes to tackle its ill-effects.

4.1. State response to climate change The table below shows the top ten natural disasters in Pakistan from 1990-2015. Disaster type

Date

Total deaths

Earthquake

2005

73338

Flood

2010

1985

Flood

1992

1334

Extreme Temperature

2015

1229

Flood

1998

1000

Storm

1993

609

Flood

1995

600

Extreme Temperature

1991

523

Flood

2005

520

Flood

2011

509

Source: Country Profile. EM-DAT. http://www.emdat.be/country_profile/index.html.

The table shows that climate change induced natural disasters played havoc on society but the institutional mechanisms to combat climate change in Pakistan are still in the nascent stage. As a first initiative in the 1960s, the government has implemented the flood control programme. A draft was prepared with strategies, procedures and institutional mechanisms (Tvedt 2006, 207-08). Due to global influence during the 1990s, climate change received more importance in the debates and policies of Pakistan. The immediate manifestation could be evidenced by the different methods adopted in the Eighth five-year plan (1993-93) in the areas of sustainable development. The government also tried to enact certain laws to curb the

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high rate of environmental degradation as well as to protect the natural resources. But none of these policies materialized in the background of continuous turmoil in the political field and the subsequent political instability at the national level. Against the backdrop of Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Pakistan decided to launch perspective planning with sustainable development as a central theme. In the first instance, the Government tried to address the issues of severe drought and water crisis in the provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan. Though the plan was comprehensive, the absence of proper legislation meant that the fate of the plan was doomed (SDPI 2011, 9-19). The Environmental Protection Act of 1997 was another important measure aimed at protection, conservation, rehabilitation and improvement of the environment. It also includes provisions aimed to prevent and control pollution and promoting sustainable development (GoP 1997, 1). The National Environment Protection Council has been a major initiative in the formulation of climate change related laws. Though it took nine years to function; today it is the apex body of environmental legislation. To control the loss due to natural disasters, Pakistan has promulgated the National Disaster Management Ordinance (NDMO) in 2006 directing the State to establish the National Disaster Management Commission (NDMC) with the Prime Minister as the Chairperson (GOP 2006, 2). Today the National Disaster Management Authority acts as the executive arm of NDMC. The Draft National Climate Change Policy promulgated in 2012 is yet another comprehensive document on mitigation and adaptation techniques. But with the implementation of the 18th Constitutional Amendment and the abolition of the Federal Ministry of Environment, no progress has been made in this regard. Barring domestic policies Pakistan failed to implement the National Appropriate Mitigation Acts and National Adaptation Programme of Action both approved by the UN (Thomas Reuters Foundation 2014). Other than the mechanisms and institutions mentioned above, Pakistan has promulgated certain policies- the important ones being the Environment Protection Act (1997), Biodiversity Action Plan of Pakistan (2000), National Action Programme to Combat Desertification in Pakistan (2002), Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2003), National Energy Conservation Policy (2006), National Sanitation Policy (2006), Pakistan wetland programme (2007), Energy Security Action Plan (2005), National Drinking Water Policy (2009), National Water Policy (2005), National Rangeland Policy, National Climate Change Policy (2012) and the National Environment Policy (2005).


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Pakistan signed the UNFCCC in 1992 and ratified it in 1994. Pakistan’s Initial National Communication on Climate Change has also published in November 2003 and the Task Force on Climate Change submitted its final report in February 2010. In its Initial National Communication on Climate Change Policy to UNFCCC Pakistan mentions its active role in international efforts to protect the ‘Global Commons’ (GOP 2003, 68). The primary issue mentioned in its Initial National Communication to UNFCC is that Pakistan has low institutional and financial capacity to adapt to the issues arising out of climate change. So the highest priority was given to improve the adaptation capacity. With a view to overcoming this shortcoming, legislations have been passed during 1994-2003. Other than legislation, Pakistan has claimed that it has incorporated public awareness about climate change through school level education and community development programmes. Though several policies have been put in place during between 2010 and 2014, their application in the local levels is minimal. This reveals the helplessness of the government machinery to tackle natural disasters in the state. The Climate Risk Index 2013 published by German Watch placed Pakistan in the third worst affected country after Haiti and Philippines (German Watch 2013, 4). Despite the frequent natural catastrophes, the newly formed Government under Nawaz Sharif has dramatically cut the funds to combat climate change from Rupees 168.1 million ($1,686,000 USD) in 2012-13 to Rupees 58.8 million ($590,000 USD) in 2013/14. The Ministry of Climate Change has been transformed to a mere division under the Ministry of Home Affairs, even though it was reinstated at a later stage (The Dawn, 2013). In addition to this, the state has also failed to hand over intended nationally determined contributions (INDC) to the UNFCC which were due in September 2015. If Pakistan does not respond adequately to the depleting natural resources and frequent natural disasters, it will have a devastating impact on national security in the form of internal turmoil and the infiltration of militants into the civil society.

References Anthony, Melly, ed. 2006. Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemmas in Securitisation. Hampshire: Ashgate. Buckland, Ben. 2007. A Climate of War? Stopping the Securitisation of Climate Change. Geneva: International Peace Bureau.

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Buzan, Barry. 1983. People, State and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. —. 1990. “New patterns of Global Security in the Twenty first Century”. International affairs 67 (3). Buzan, Bary, Wæver, Ole, & de Wilde, Jaap. 1998. Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc. Chaudhary, Mushtaq. 2012. (26 December 2015). Chipman, John. 1992. “The Future of Strategic Studies: Beyond Grand Strategy”. Survival 34 (1). Deudney, Daniel. 1990. “The Case against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security”. Millennium-Journal of International studies 19. Government of Pakistan. 1997. Pakistan’s Environmental Protection Act 1997. Islamabad: Pakistan. Government of Pakistan. 2007. An ordinance to provide for the establishment of a National Disaster Management System. Islamabad: Pakistan Government of Pakistan. 2010. Agricultural Census. Lahore: Statistics Division, Agricultural Census Organisation. Government of Pakistan. 2010. Final Report of Taskforce on Climate Change. Islamabad: Planning Commission. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 1991. “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as causes of acute conflict. International Security 2 (2). Imran, Zafar. 2013. Climate Change and its Impacts on the Political Dynamics of Pakistan. Maryland: Centre for International and Security Studies Working Paper. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. “Climate Change 2007: Working Group 11: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”. (12 December 2013). J. Parsons, Rymn. 2010. “Climate Change: The Hottest Issue in Security Studies?” Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy 1. Khanal, Prem. 2015. “The economic consequences of Nepal’s earthquake”. (25 September 2015)


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Kreft, Sonke and Eckstein, David. 2013. Global Climate Risk Index 2014, Who Suffers Most from Extreme Weather Events? Weather Related Loss Events in 2012 and 1993 to 2012. Berlin: German Watch. Lacreda, Luiz Drude De. 2001. Mangrove Systems: Functions and Management. New York: Springer. Levy, Marc. 1995. “Is Environment a National Security?” International Security 20 (2). Santana, Rebecca. 2013. “Pakistan’s Power shortage Problem is country’s Biggest Threat”. (5 January 2014). Shahzad, Syed Saleem. 2010. “Militants See Opportunity in Disasters”. (23 August 2013). Shaw, Rajib, ed. 2015. Disaster Risk Reduction Approaches in Pakistan. Tokyo: Springer. Spinage, Clive. 2012. African Ecology: Benchmarks and Historical Perspectives. Hiedelberg: Springer. Tarry, Sarah. 1999. “‘Deepening’ and ‘Widening’: An Analysis of Security Definitions in The 1990s”, Journal of military and Strategic studies 2 (1). The Centre for Reduction of Epidemiology of Disasters. 2015. http://www.emdat.be/country_profile/index.html, Accessed on 26 December 2015. Tvedt, T., & Jakobsson, E., eds. 2006. A History of Water - Volume 1: Water Control and River Biographies. New York: I.B.Tauris. Ullman, Richard. 1983. “Redefining Security”, International Security 8 (1). Walt, Stephen. 1991. “The Renaissance of Security Studies”. International Studies Quarterly 35 (2). World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yusuf, Huma. 2012. “The Charitable Face of Pakistani Militants”. (23 August 2013).

CHAPTER FIVE SECURITY, RISK AND SECURITISATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE NORATTAM GAAN1

1. Introduction The end of the bipolar Cold War structure, with its ironically comfortable definition of global geopolitics as conflict between capitalist and communist global ideologies, has led to a more fragmented, complex, de-territorialized, multi-centric concentration in which the state power coexists with a myriad existence of non-state actors - the international organizations, NGOs, media, web, multinational corporations, the nascent governments and the failed states. In such an environment the previously submerged and downplayed issues, crisis and local and regional tensions emerge. The dominant paradigm of development premised on fossil fuelbased industrialization and limitless consumerism (driven by a revolutionary character of the globalizing liberal market economy at the expense of nature) is for the first time fundamentally affecting a number of the basic, global and regional, physical, chemical and biological systems. Thus, the foreign policy, security policy and economic policy designed with a short-term focus and on the interests of specific spatial areas seem to be challenged. The unity between the geographical space and psychological space was the Westphalian foundation on which national security and identity were carved out. Now, this unity has cracked, and territory no longer exhausts the possible ways of delineating political space than the state exhausts the ways the people themselves for political ends. The political space has been re-conceptualized in terms of psychological distance or “the degree of dissimilarity between cognitive frameworks or ways of looking at, assigning meaning to and coping with 1

Professor of Political Science and Former Head, PG Department of Political Science, Utkal University, Odhisa, India.

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the world”. As territory and identity separate and identities and loyalties overlap and intersect, geographical and psychological distance have become decoupled diminishing greatly the prospect of states as moves of exclusion and spatial exercise in distancing and boundary-making, and also forming and sustaining a moral community. Thus, the conventional understanding of national security in the parlance of realism and neorealism centering on state and its military apparatus was inadequate to provide protection against non-static and non-traditional sources. Many of the natural and human systems with which national security and environmental policy in the broadest sense are to deal with, however, lie beyond these geographical and intuitive boundaries and beyond any time horizon and space. For example, the natural systems whose perturbations result in global climate change have responses measured on time-scales from decades to centuries to millennia. If human life is something more than just what a separate, disparate and disjointed atomistic individual life informs and confined to a specific spatial, and time horizon not at the expense of, but in interconnection with the surrounding inanimate and animate nature, then the integration of environmental issues into a broader framework of national and global security policy may well be novel but a little oxymoronic. Despite this momentum, the link between environmental change and security remains a contested and challenged issue.

2. Security: A Conceptual Analysis Conventionally known as the mainstream approach on security discourse, realism adopts a narrow view of security that puts the state at the center of reference. Any kind of threat from outside is considered as a threat to its survival or existence. If the state is held synonymous with its people, territory, and society, then the threat is designated as a threat to the entire people and the state is legitimized to use force as it conduces adequate to meet the challenge to its existence as a political entity. Barry Buzan et al are of the opinion that: “The invocation of security has been the key to legitimizing the use of force, but more generally it has opened the way for the state to mobilize, or to take special powers, to handle existential threats” (Buzan et al 1998, 21).

Traditionally, by saying “security”, a state representative declares an emergency condition, thus claiming a right to use whatever means necessary to block a threatening development (Waever 1988, 1995b). When the threat to the state is not considered as a threat to its people or the

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very nature of threats other than from outside does not require its military capability to meet the challenge or the utter helplessness of its weapons before the threats, the referent object is no longer the state; it is the people in a wider agenda who come within the ambit of an existential threat. Here the existential threat to people is the threat to the state and its institutions. In the military sector, the referent object is usually the state. Traditional security studies tend to see all military affairs as instances of security. Where there is a military coup against the existing government and its policy, it is suggestive of the fact that there has been a threat to the survival of military forces, which has elevated these forces to a referent object status. In the political sector, existential threats are traditionally defined in terms of the constituting principle of sovereignty but at times the ideology of the state. Sovereignty can be existentially threatened by anything that challenges recognition, legitimacy or the governing authority. In the economic sector, the referent objects and existential threats are not easily identifiable. Firms are existentially threatened by bankruptcy or by changes in the laws that declare them illegal. National economies have a greater claim to the status of referent object when they are bankrupt, and failed utterly to provide the basic needs of the population. Here the survival of the population is the benchmark, any kind of threat to it can be considered as a security referent object. In the social sector, the analyst looks at the systems in terms of patterns of identity and the desire to maintain cultural independence. Here the referent object is the large-scale collective identities-like nations and religion- that can function independently of the state. Collective identities evolve in response to internal and external developments but if these tend to threaten their identity, they are considered as security referent objects. That migration or rival identities can be considered as an existential threat depends on whether the holders of collective identity have relatively a closed or open mind to accept them into their mainstream. In the environmental sector, the referent object is very vast- ranging from the individual species to plants, habitats, maintenance of climate, the biosphere and existence of human beings. Here the securitisation of one is not at the expense of the other. This is concerned about the relationship between the human species and the rest of the biosphere and remains crucial to whether that relationship can be sustained without risking a


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collapse of the achieved level of civilization, total destruction of planet’s biological domain or both. Constructivists and poststructuralists have challenged the narrow realist perspective, suggesting instead that threats are socially constructed. The most innovative and thoughtful attempt to conceptualize the social construction of security issues is the theory of securitisation as analyzed by the Copenhagen school associated with the works of Barry Buzan and Ole Waever. This school assumes importance because it considers the implications of broadening the security agenda to environmental problems.

2.1. Securitisation Securitisation is the shift of security referent object into the center stage of a state’s military apparatus in response to the sources of security threats which affect its normal functioning and existence in an extraordinary way. It ranges from being non-politicized in a spectrum to being politicized and securitized. It takes the form of presenting something as an existential threat to the referent object. This is not securitisation itself but a securitizing move; the issue is securitized only if and when the audience accepts it. In the words of Buzan et al.: “In security discourse, an issue is dramatized and presented as an issue of supreme priority; thus by labeling it as security, an agent claims a need for and a right to treat it by extraordinary means. For the analyst to grasp this act the task is not to assess some objective threats that “really” endanger some object to be defended or secured; rather, it is to understand the processes of constructing a shared understanding of what is to be considered and collectively responded to as a threat. The process of securitisation is what in language theory is called a speech act” (Buzan et al 1998, 26).

What is important to note is that the security speech act is not defined by just uttering the word “security”. It must be presented as an existential threat requiring emergency or special measures and that presentation must be accepted by a sizable audience. Acceptance by the audience means an act of renewing and reinforcing the legitimacy they already consent to the political regime to recourse to extraordinary measures. The sources of security being diversified away from the traditionally understood military construct of the state, the act of securitisation is an inter-subjective establishment of an existential threat within the large-scale political effects providing the set to ensure a negotiation between the authorized agency of

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the state and the audience. Because of its inter-subjective characteristics, the security studies are applied to a variety of sectors. Sectors are “views of the international system through a lens that highlights one particular aspect of the relationship and interaction among all of its constituent units” (Jones and Little 1993, 31). The purpose is to differentiate the types of interactions among these sectors and identify units and characteristics of and rooted in particular sectors. The nature of survival and threat will differ across different sectors and units.

2.2. Subjective, Objective and Inter-subjective Security The main thrust of the above analysis is that securitisation, like politicization, has to be understood as an essentially inter-subjective process. The orthodox view of security holds that security can be understood both objectively and subjectively. Even if one wanted to take a more objectivist approach, it is not clear how this could be done except in cases in which the threat is unambiguous and immediate. No security theory has provided an objective measure of security. Securitisation is a political act, which has consequences in the sense that it causes the actors to act in a different mode than he or she would have otherwise. This is exactly symptomatic of the classical realist nuance that good statesmanship is one which understands the thresholds at which other actors will feel threatened, and therefore how the world looks to those actors, even if one disagrees (Carr 1993; Kissinger 1957; Waever 1995d). But this apparent objectivity becomes complicated because of the fact that different nations and states have different thresholds to define security. In some cases, however, the judgment about the reasonableness of a securitisation assumes importance, because this influences how other actors in the system will respond to a security claim. What is a legitimate securitisation within a given political community may appear paranoid to those outside it. Conversely, outsiders may perceive that a political community securitizes a “real” threat and thus it endangers itself or free rides. The way the securitisation processes of one actor fit with the perceptions of others about what constitutes a “real” threat plays a great role in shaping the interplay of securities within the international system. “Both within and between actors the extent of shared inter-subjective understandings of security is one key to understanding behavior” (Buzan et al. 1998, 31). It will be a futile exercise to define what constitutes a ‘real security’ outside of the world of politics. Such rationalistic universalism is


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of little significance in political analysis. A deep understanding of the processes and dynamics of securitisation will enable one to know who can “do” security on what issue and under what conditions, and possibly to maneuver the interaction among actors and thereby curb security dilemmas. The distinction between subjective and objective is useful to know how to avoid a view of security that is given objectively, and the subjective aspect of security as determined by the actors. The label subjective, however, is inadequate. Individuals cannot decide alone whether an issue is a security issue. Securitisation is inter-subjective and socially constructed. It is a social quality, a part of a discursive. It is a socially constituted inter-subjective realm that holds that the referent object having general legitimacy should survive- to which actors can make a reference and point to something as a threat, and get others to follow or tolerate actions which are otherwise not legitimate. For individuals or groups to speak security does not guarantee success (cf. Derrida, 1977a; Waever 1995b). Successful securitisation is not decided by the securitizer but by the audience of the security speech act. The audience must accept that something is an existential threat to a shared value. Thus, security (as with all politics) ultimately rests neither with the objects nor with the subjects but among the subjects (cf. Arendt 1958, 1959; Waever 1990; Huysmans 1996). The consideration of the discursive formation of security issues provides a new perspective to analyze the environmental security discourse. First, it provides the opportunity to study the entire political process involved in the selection of threats and the indices of which are more urgent and relevant than the others. Second, since security is inter-subjective the awareness of environmental issues can have a relevant role in defining and transforming political communities and their identities. It is the audience which ultimately pitchforks an issue into the security agenda. Finally, as Behnke (2000, 91) points out, securitisation can open the space for a “genuinely political” constitutive and formative struggle through which established political structures and practices associated with security are contested and reinvented. However, for the Copenhagen School, securitisation has problematic consequences. The word “security” denotes a specific logic or rationality, independent of the context or intentions of the speakers. “Security is about survival, urgency and emergency. It allows for exceptional measures, the breaking of otherwise binding rules and governance by decrees rather than

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by democratic decisions” (Trombetta 2008, 588). Since security deals with emergency or extraordinary situations, it is bound to be reactive and emblematic of a decisionist attitude. It is one way of framing and defining an issue, or “a generic structure of meaning which organizes dispositions, social relations, and politics according to a rationality of security” (Huysmans 2006:24-25). Whether an issue is to be securitized or not is determined by and depends on the political community rather than the individuals. Once it is securitized, the logic of security necessarily follows. The logic is borrowed from the Schmittian understanding of the political. For Schmitt, “the concept of the state presupposes the concept of the Political” (1991, 20). Statehood is a political phenomenon and a product, and thus cannot be considered unproblematic. Which leads to the question about the nature of the Political? The answer Schmitt offers is as straightforward as its repercussions complex: “the specifically political distinction on which political actions and purposes are based is the distinction between Friend and Enemy” (1991, 26). The enemy is simply the other, the alien, the outsider which defines the boundaries of our community. Political order, in other words, is based on a violent decision about the distinction between Friend and Enemy, Insider and Outsider. The political is thus an inherently agonistic concept constantly involving explicit or implicit decisions between “us” and “them’. One might reject it as too aggressive and bellicose, or for reducing politics to a conflict leading to the death of political entities. In this realist reading of Schmitt, the states are caught up in an anarchical state of war. For Schmitt, the identification of the enemy, of another political entity, involves the recognition of equality between the entities. The other is not a foe, an adversary that has to be conquered, converted, or annihilated. As an enemy, the other is recognized as an equal, and while war is always a possibility between enemies, the war is always circumscribed, regulated, and part of an overall order. The relationship should be considered agonistic, “in which each opposes the other while respecting the adversary at another level” (Connolly 1991, 178). This formalization of enmity is exactly aimed against the antagonistic relationship of foes with its tendency to total, terminal conflict. In order to be political, and to constitute the ‘the units of the international system’, the distinction between friend and enemy must establish order rather than chaos. Then what is security? Security is first of all about the very designation and delineation of the state and, therefore, its enemies. Security, in other words, treats the state as an institutionalized community in opposition to other states. Security politics is thus not simply about the protection of


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ontologically unproblematic entities, rather, we should think of them as the reiterative performance of statehood (Weber 1998). James Der Derian said, “We have inherited an onto-theology of security, that is, an a priori argument that proves the existence and necessity of only one form of security because there currently happens to be a widespread metaphysical belief in it” (Der Derian 1995, 25).

He continues tracing this onto-theology to a central commitment within Western philosophy- the notion of a center as a site from which the forces of authority, order, and identity philosophically defined and physically kept at bay anarchy, chaos, and difference (1995, 25). Thus, security as the set of practices that mediates between friend and enemy becomes constitutive and performative in the production of statehood. As Schmitt points out, “sovereign is he who decides on the exception” (Schmitt 1996, 13). The Copenhagen School warns about the risk of securitisation and distinguishes between securitisation and politicization. The former means “the issue is presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure” whereas the latter means “the issue is part of public policy, requiring government decision and resource allocations (Buzan et al 1998, 23-24). The School is also wary of the fact that “when considering securitizing moves such as environmental security…one has to weigh the always problematic side effects of applying a mindset of security against the possible advantages of focus, attention, and mobilization (29) and Waever’s normative suggestion is: “less security, more politics” (Waever 1995, 56). In the case of the environment, this suggestion is problematic. It can lead to the de-politicization and marginalization of urgent and serious issues while leaving the practices associated with security unchallenged. Many appeals to environmental security have been made not only with the intent of prioritizing issues but to transform the logic of security and the practices associated with it. And yet, when applied to environmental issues, the process of securitisation does not seem to be analytically accurate. The Copenhagen School in its empirically driven analysis of various sectors in Security: a new framework for analysis has identified several peculiarities in the environmental sector (Buzan et al. 1998, 7194). Amongst these peculiarities, the most noticeable is that few appeals to environmental security have mobilized exceptional measures or inscribed

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enemies in any context. It has suggested that when the environment is involved, ‘“emergency measures” are still designed and developed in the realm of ordinary policy debates’ (83). This suggests that issues can be politicized through an appeal to security, a problematic development for the Copenhagen School, which argues that ‘transcending a security problem by politicizing it cannot happen through thematization in security terms, only away from such terms’ (Waever 1995, 56). Even if the School tends to dismiss these as failed securitisations, this seems to show that the transformation of an issue into a security issue can follow different modalities and different logics, which eschew the confrontational logic of the national security model as suggested by the School. Through the appeal to security, other logics, which characterize different contexts, can be brought into existence and new actors can gain relevance in security policies. Securitisation, as de Wilde has argued, ‘triggers two debates: one about the underlying risk assessment, one about the strategic answer to it’ (2008, 596). Successful appeals to security require developing security policies, identifying appropriate strategies and the means to deal with the problem. These developments are largely sector dependent and reflect different values, priorities, and practices. As Williams has noted, ‘[s]peech-act theory entails the possibility of argument, of dialogue, and thereby holds out the potential for the transformation of security perceptions both within and between states’ (2003, 523). The emergence of new threats such as environmental problems has suggested that reactive measures and an antagonistic understanding of security are not the best ways to deal with these issues because the environmental issues and their devastating effects are beyond the hard-shelled concept of state sovereignty. These elude any attempt to put the environment in a friendenemy mold. Instead, preventive measures appear to be more effective and new means are required. In this context, the growing awareness of the complexity and uncertainty of contemporary threats has prompted scholars and policymakers to use of the concept of risk to conceptualize contemporary security dynamics. Themes like risk management and preventive approaches have become more relevant in security discussions. Thus Beck’s analysis of risk society has been used as ‘a means to conceptualize and understand the transformation of Western security policies’ (Rasmussen 2001, 285).


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3. Risk, Security and Securitisation It is not until very recently that the concept of risk has entered into the realm of security studies. Under a rationalist tradition, the concept of risk has evolved as a basis for decision making under conditions of uncertainty (Daston 1995; Hacking 1990; Bernstein 1998). Risk analysis works as an instrument in decision making by evaluating future actions in terms of risk. As Luhmann (1993, 130) has argued, the risk is conceptualized as “a controlled extension of rational action”. Risk analysis is an estimation of future threats- an estimation that builds on the premise that risks can be classified, quantified and to some extent predicted - and that rational behavior can help to manage or maybe even eliminate risk (Adams 1995; Bernstein 1998; Power 2004). The modern tradition of risk, however, is contested by Beck’s theory of risk society. According to Beck, late modernity is characterized by society’s inability to ensure itself against risks that, on the one hand, exceed the calculable and, on the other, have catastrophic effects that cannot be comprehended. Thus, according to him, the 9/11 terrorist events escaped rational predictions and have demonstrated the limits of modern insurance technology (Beck 2002, 2003). Within IR, this has given birth to a research agenda on ‘reflexive security’ that focuses on the management of the new and constructed risks that transcend national borders (Rasmussen 2002, 2004). An alternative approach addresses risk as an instrument of governance rather than an organizing principle of life. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, the risk is recognized as a means for ordering reality- as “a way of representing events in a certain form so they might be made governable in particular ways, with particular technologies, and for particular goals” (Dean 1999, 177). Practices of security can be understood as combinations of these two strategies. The risk is, therefore, a technology for the provision of security that transcends borders (Baker 2000; Dillon 2005; Peterson 2006). Premised on these perspectives, a challenge for critical security studies is to engender a debate between risk-based and threat-based interpretations of (in) security that will widen the traditional critical security agenda concerned with the mutual constitution of threats and identity (Hansen 2006; Campbell 1998; Krause 1998). “Addressing security as risk management opens up the logic of security and moves from the concern over identity, territory, exclusion, neutralization, and elimination of others,

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placing the analysis on more explicit temporal dimensions” (Critical Security Approaches, Security Dialogue 2006, 469). Risk management locates security in a direct relation to time, owing to its reckoning of futures. A second emergent challenge is that of exceptionalism, which is often present in routine politics of unease (e.g. Agamben 1998, 2005; Van Munster, 2004). Within the discussion of security and exceptionalism, the critical problem of ‘the exception’ is that of radical contingency. As pointed out repeatedly in Foucauldian approaches to criminology, insurance, and welfare, risk management works to ‘tame’ contingency and order both temporal and special relations. Beck’s analysis of risk society, which has been largely inspired by his analysis of environmental problems and ecological catastrophes, suggests that what he defines as ‘risk society’ is characterized by a greater number of risks (such as those produced by more complex and dangerous technologies) with new characteristics. Contemporary risks are unbounded and potentially catastrophic. They may affect parts of the globe distant from the place where they originated. For example, nuclear, chemical and genetic technologies have the potential to bring destruction on such a large scale that no remedial action or insurance can be appropriate to compensate for them. The security dream of first modernity was based on the scientific utopia of making the unsafe consequences and dangers of decisions ever more controllable; accidents could occur, as long as and because they were considered as compensable. (Beck 2006, 334). In a risk society instead ‘the logic of compensation breaks down and is replaced by the principle of precaution through prevention’ (334). According to Beck, a risk society undermines the credibility of institutions and practices dedicated to security provision. First, Beck suggests that it is impossible to disentangle oneself from a web of risk. Contemporary risks affect everybody and it is impossible to create barriers and distance oneself from them- the enemy. For the Copenhagen School, security is about the inscription of enemies and the logic of war. On the other hand, Beck points out that ‘the concept of “enemy” is the strongest possible antithesis to the concept of security’ since ‘enemy stereotypes empower’ as they create ‘the relationships and the behavioural logic of attack and defence, pro, and contra, which first kill the question and then the people’ (1997, 82). Second, Beck challenges the very possibility of having a security logic based on evoking and governing through emergencies. Beck suggests that contemporary threats are beyond insurability and maybe the time has come to work towards the prevention of disorder and catastrophe, and not merely towards their control. Today,


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there are plans for all kinds of emergencies (ecological, medical, military), but there is no politics to prevent them’ (Agamben 2002, 24). The first consideration targets the antagonistic understanding of security described by the Copenhagen School, whereas the second challenge the neo-liberal discourse of risk. This discourse relies on more sophisticated techniques to try to insure even catastrophic risk by shifting it to the capital market. In the case of the environment, this discourse is problematic because it can also paradoxically contribute ‘to continually generate the condition of emergent catastrophe, in order to profit from it’ (Cooper 2004, 8). Risk society challenges the logic of violence, antagonism, and war suggested by securitisation. This suggests a set of security practices- based on risk management and on prevention, which is rather different from those suggested by the Copenhagen School. Are appeals to security stuck in fixed problematic practices that the latter suggests? This article claims that through the securitisation of non-traditional sectors like the environment, different logics of security can be brought into being. Securitisation- broadly understood as the social construction of an issue as a security issue- can be considered as a reflexive process that is not only ‘rule-directed’ but also ‘rule-altering’ (Beck 1997, 134). Securitisation is not about applying a fixed meaning of security as an exceptionality that inscribes enemies in a context; rather, it is ‘a (situated and iterative) process of generating meaning’ (Stritzel 2007, 366). By securitizing nontraditional issues, the incongruence of a specific logic of security appears while different practices are applied. In this framework, the construction of both threats and rules by which security is carried out are open to a process of social construction and transformation. The following sections explore this process, analyzing the development of environmental security and climate security discourses.

4. Evolving perspectives on environmental and climate security One of the first attempts to securitize the environment on a global scale was triggered by the global environmental problems, such as global warming and ozone depletion. The Brandt Report, (1980) suggested that ‘few threats to peace and survival of the human community are greater than those posed by the prospects of cumulative and irreversible degradation of the biosphere on which human life depends’ (quoted in

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Brauch 2003, 81). These new threats highlight the need to redefine the nature of security in an interdependent world facing these new challenges. In the post-Cold War era, the environmental security discourse unveiled the opportunity for debating a common approach to security affairs. For instance, at the United Nations General Assembly in December 1988, Gorbachev stressed: ‘The relationship between man and the environment has become menacing . . . the threat from the sky is no longer missiles but global warming’ (quoted in Myers 1993, 11).

Myers also promoted the creation of an Ecological Security Council. The then USSR Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, at the 43rd UNGA, proposed ‘a discussion on how to turn the United Nations Environment Programme into an Environmental Council capable of taking effective decisions to ensure ecological security’ (quoted in Schrijver 1989, 118). As a result of these appeals to security, several initiatives were launched during the early post-Cold War era. Alarming concerns for the hole in the ozone layer transformed the problem into a threat to human health and promoted fairly successful agreements to deal with the issue at an international level. Concerns for climate change not only led to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of human impact on climate change but also to the signing of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio in 1992 (United Nations, 1992). However, negotiations on climate change proved to be more problematic than those on ozone depletion because acting on climate change would require the transformation of much of the established building blocks on which existing economic structure and way of life stands. Hence climate change was marginalized in the environmental security discourse. Despite the initial momentum and the broad scope of environmental security discourses, the debate was captured by discussions about environmentally induced conflicts. This helped both to frame environmental threats in more familiar terms to national security experts and to consider the environment as a legitimate threat. The academic discussion was largely shaped by the work of Thomas Homer-Dixon and a series of wellfunded research projects, which aimed to study the relationships between environmental degradation and violent conflicts (Homer-Dixon 1991, 1994). Although Homer-Dixon was cautious in suggesting a straightforward


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connection between environmental degradation and conflict, his argument was popularized by Kaplan’s article ‘The coming anarchy’ (1994), which drew a grim picture of a future of human misery, migrations and violent conflict, suggesting that the environment would be the ‘national-security issue of the early twenty-first century’ (58). The dominant paradigm in the environmental security literature harks back to writers like Thomas Malthus, but it has obtained its contemporarily influential formulation in the work of Thomas Homer Dixon and Toronto Group. From a myriad of empirical case studies conducted by them on Haiti, Chiapas, Gaza, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, they concluded that environmental scarcity of renewable resources viz., water, forest, fisheries, and cropland gave rise to a number of deleterious social effects including economic decline, social segmentation and human migration- these social effects in interaction with other political, economic and social factors, can generate conflict and instability. Central to their model was the notion of supply of an ingenuity gap or a disparity between the solutions required to cope with environmental scarcity and the human, social and institutional capital that could be mustered to provide these solutions. This ingenuity gap essentially undermines human adaptive responses. This, according to their studies, means that resource scarcity and limited or inadequate adaptive capacity coalesce together to generate violent conflicts in various regions (Dixon 1999; 1994; Dixon and Jessica Blitt 1998). The environmental degradation is only about these affected life-supporting conditions, the negative impact on human beings and society. Environmental change can mean a loss of quality and degradation. Environmental degradation is thus, understood as a man-made environmental change having a negative impact on human society. A study undertaken by the Swiss Peace Institute’s Environment and Conflicts Project (ENCOP) was in the direction of what the Toronto group suggests. Gunther Bachler, a member of this group, used the word ‘transformation’ in place of degradation. The term ‘global humanecological transformation’ refers to “the introduction of a heuristic concept in recording those interactions between the three levels- nature, human beings and the economy in the regional context- which have led to conflicts between human communities and will… increasingly lead to such conflicts” (Bachler 1993, 5). Thus, the term degradation is used as an indicator of the degree of environmental transformation. This means that “transformation conflicts are caused by fundamental, anthropogenic changes in the environmental

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media and by the interactions between the processes of change and their consequences in the eco-regional context” (Bachler 1993, 16). Another authority, Stephan Libiszewski belonging to the ENCOP, while making a distinction between traditional resource wars and environmental causes of conflict is of the view that “an environmental conflict is a conflict caused by the environmental scarcity of a resource: caused by a human-made disturbance of its normal regeneration rate. Environmental scarcity can result from the overuse of a renewable resource or from too much strain on the ecosystem’s sink capacity, which is pollution. Both can reach the stage of destruction of the living space. Conflicts caused by physical, geopolitical or socio-economic resource scarcity are not environmental conflicts but traditional conflicts of resource distribution” (Libiszewski 1992, 6). As found in the Toronto Group’s research the ENCOP also walks on the same furrow that scarcity gives rise to conflict. Also, it is allegedly silent on human adaptation to resource scarcity. In these studies, it is maldevelopment, a condition similar to Homer Dixon’s ingenuity gap that undermines human responses and enhances conflicts (Matthew, Gaulin and McDonald 2001, 7). Though the ENCOP model is more complex than the Toronto group’s general model, the theoretical argument presented by both is very similar (Nancy and Walts 2001, 15-24). In a 1999 NATO pilot study, this dominant environmental conflict paradigm was found to be in line with the other studies (1999, 232). According to this study,” it is not environmental stress in isolation that characterizes the nature of the conflict between groups but other factors” (Ibid, 22). Here too, political, economic and social factors intervene between environmental stress and conflict. The State Failure Task Force (SFTF), another research group sharing the same dominant paradigm with the preceding studies, reiterates the causal weight of environmental stress through intervening variables (Esty Daniel et al 1999). While the researchers did find that massive environmental damage in a short time frame could directly cause political collapse, the far more common scenario was that environmental stress operates through the intervening variable of quality of life to generate conflict. Though highly critical of the Toronto group, the recent work by Gleditsch and de Soysa appears to have been co-opted by the dominant


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paradigm. According to their studies, resource scarcity, one component of a multifaceted development problem that they call “poverty” reduces agricultural production which in turn leads to conflict. That is, scarcity leads to a negative social outcome which becomes the proximate cause of conflict (Gauli Ted 2000:9). Beyond this, however, the Gleditsch and de Soysa model is similar to the Toronto Group in that there is little room for human adaptation to conditions of scarcity. Indeed, their key independent variable, poverty, is defined by a lack of social and human capital. There is some variation in these models and terms presented by these research groups. But in each case, the general theory linking resource scarcity and conflict is the same. Homer Dixon focuses on an “ingenuity gap”, ENCOP on “mal-development” and Gleditsch and de Soysa on “poverty”. Nevertheless, all these phrases describe a similar process- a limited capacity to respond to scarcity. The model which is critical of all the above models was adopted by Richard A. Matthew et al. which finds flaws in current theory in environmental security on two counts. “First, it focuses on too short a time frame. Second, and belatedly it underestimates human adaptive capacity”. They were averse to accepting the two extremes, Homer Dixon’s lack of adaptive capacity in the poor countries, and Julian Simon and Herman Kahn’s faith in the infinite capacity of individuals to adapt. To them, human adaptive capacity lies somewhere between these two extremes. Julian Simon writes, “there is no physical or economic reason why human resourcefulness and enterprise cannot forever continue to respond to impending shortages and existing problems with new expedients that, after an adjustment period, leave us better off than before the problem arose” (Simon 1996). Homer Dixon responds to this by saying that, “while I acknowledge the extraordinary potential of human resourcefulness and enterprise, I nonetheless argue that some societies – especially poor societies – will not be able to supply the unprecedented amounts of ingenuity they will need to solve their emerging scarcity problems” (Dixon 1999, 114).

This clearly demonstrates that Homer Dixon never maintains that all societies will not be able to cope with the situation. Because of various factors, some poor societies will be in dearth of the required supply of ingenuity to adapt to the situation.

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According to Homer Dixon and his group, the environmental scarcity of resources and its various social effects can make the developing societies vulnerable to the extent that they would not be able to adapt to the situation and find solutions as they are plagued by a lack of supply of ingenuity. What adds to their disadvantage is the fact that many of them are not adequately endowed with the social institutions including the productive research centers, efficient markets and capable states which are necessary for an ample supply of both social and technical solution to environmental scarcity. As argued by this group, environmental scarcity sometimes diminishes the ability of these countries to create and maintain such institutions (Romer 1994, 3-22). Research suggests that conflicts are likely to be sub-national and of low intensity. These results have been corroborated by the projects undertaken by Spillman and Ba¨chler (Ba¨chler et.al 1996; Ba¨chler 1999). These projects identified the circumstances where conflicts are likely to occur and emphasized the conflicting dimension of the development process, suggesting that when people face the rapid changes and challenges imposed by the process of development, conflicts are inevitable. Violence is unlikely to occur along the fault-lines between developed and developing countries but it tends to be localized. More pertinently, conflicts were seen as part of the dynamics that draw groups together rather than a disturbance of an otherwise stable society. This suggests that it is not possible to simply condemn conflicts as such (and intervene to restore order), but more emphasis has to be placed on the analysis of when and why different groups decide to resort to violence, and on how to prevent these developments. These results have largely been used by the study ‘Environment and Security in an International Context’, launched in 1995 by the NATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS) and carried out by research teams in Germany and in the US (Lietzmann and Vest 1999). The project identified a number of ‘syndromes’- sets of complex, pathological relationships between environmental and other social, demographical and political factors- that might help in monitoring problematic situations and provide early warning systems for potential conflicts. Research on environmental conflicts has produced an intense academic debate concerning the empirical validity of the claims, their analytical relevance, methodology and normative implications. The argument that environmental scarcity induces conflicts has been challenged by empirical research showing how environmental degradation often provides an opportunity for cooperation (Hauge and Ellingsen 2001) and, more recently, demonstrating that it is resource abundance rather than scarcity that determines conflicts (Berdal and


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Malone 2000). Nevertheless, this debate is more relevant to the political practices it has determined. During the Clinton administration, HomerDixon’s research was used to promote a more proactive foreign policy (Harris 2001, 121–122). The EU commission, largely influenced by the NATO project, has promoted actions to include environmental considerations into its cooperation for development programmes. The EU has also used environmental concerns to develop and legitimize security capabilities and competencies at the European level. These capabilities include the creation of a European satellite system for the ‘global monitoring for environment and security’ (Council of the European Union 2000). Even if the debate on environmental conflict has been criticized on normative grounds - scholars have argued that the debate has represented people in the Third World as ‘barbaric Southern Others’ (Dalby 1999; Barnett 2001, 67), and erased the responsibility of developed countries, and tried to frame environmental problems in terms of national security - it nevertheless has achieved two things. First, this debate has legitimized new actors and instruments to develop forms of security governance, which downplay the role of the state and of traditional reactive responses. Second, it has promoted the development of human security and of a new paradigm of preventive and intervention measures which are often legitimized by the use of the concept. Duffield and Waddell argued: ‘[h]ow conflict has been understood in the post-Cold War period is central to understanding the concept of “security” within human security’ (2006, 43). Human security shifted the focus of security from the state to the individual and ‘the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily life’ (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] 1994, 22). The first major formulation of the concept appeared in this annual report, which identified environmental security, together with economic, food, health, personal, community and political security as a relevant component of human security and stressed the ‘all-encompassing’ and ‘integrative’ qualities of the concept (24). It states: Human security is a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, a job that that was not cut, and ethnic tension that did not explode in violence, a dissident who was not silenced. Human security is not a concern with weapons; it is a concern with human life and dignity. It is concerned with how people live and breathe in a society, how freely they exercise their many choices, how much access they have to market and social opportunity and whether they live in conflict or in peace (UNDP 1995, 229).

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The debate on environmental conflict has played a relevant role in promoting and legitimating forms of intervention, and the development of the concept of ‘responsibility to protect’ (Duffield and Waddell 2006, 810). The environmental security debate has shown two tendencies. On one hand, the influence of the national security discourse has emphasized the focus on conflicts, transforming the threat to the environment and to the people that depend on it into a threat to global order and stability. On the other hand, the impact on health and problems related to overconsumption has been largely ignored in the environmental security discourse. At the same time, this discourse has challenged a set of security practices which focused on military threats and reactive measures and outlined how military responses and preparation are inadequate to deal with environmental issues. And yet it has contributed in shifting the attention to different kinds of vulnerabilities, suggesting that the instruments to provide stability require efforts to promote both mitigation and adaptation to environmental impact and change, and that the best results are associated with early intervention and preventive measures. This is echoed by Duffield and Waddel, (2006) who have pointed out the existence of two discourses. The first emphasizes the importance of circulation - it suggests that disasters or conflict in one region have the ability, through population displacement, to affect other regions and countries. The second focuses on local consolidation, increasing the resilience of the local population. This discourse reflects environmental values and considerations such as diversity and resilience, which are threatened by unsustainable development. This suggests ‘a more holistic and ecological view of the security problem, one which sees external threats as a piece of a larger security ecology’ (de Lint and Virta 2004, 472). This is not to deny the relationships of power that are deployed in the process of securitisation. Instead, it suggests that other forms of power - like the discursive and symbolic ones incorporated in the environmental discourse - have played a role in determining a less confrontational approach to security. These two aspects - one informed by reactive, defensive measures, the other inspired by precautionary ones - have largely been balanced in the environmental security discourse in Western countries, even if the balance depended on the different capabilities of the actors involved in the construction of the security discourse. The EU, for instance, has traditionally emphasized a preventive approach over a reactive one. As a result, various securitisations of environmental issues have brought about security practices largely inspired by the practices


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developed within the environmental sector to ensure safety, adaptation, and resilience. In this context, the ‘emergency measures’ determined by the appeal to environmental security have been ‘designed and developed in the realm of ordinary policy debates’ (Buzan et al. 1998, 83). Is this development going to be implemented in the recent securitisation of climate change, even if it is occurring in the context of the war on terror, which has renewed a confrontational approach to security? To answer this question, it is necessary to consider how the climate security discourse has been framed.

5. The Challenges of Climate Security The debate about environmental security has been marginalized in the shadow of the war on terror. The latter has made environmental and climate threats appear less urgent and serious. However, over the last few years, concerns over climate changes have gained momentum. Several factors have contributed to this new development: on the one hand, there has been a growing consensus on the dimensions of the anthropogenic impact on climate: on the other hand, since the withdrawal of the US from the Kyoto Protocol, there have been several ‘securitizing moves’ aimed at promoting action to counter climate change and its consequences, on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2004, David King, then UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, claimed that climate change was a far more serious threat than international terrorism (BBC News Online, 2004). This was not only a European move. The same year, an internal report of the US Department of Defense on the impact of ‘an abrupt climate change’ was leaked to the press. Drawing a comparison with paleo-climatic events, the report predicted a rapid climate change: after a decade of slow warming, characterized by severe storms, typhoons and floods - bringing destruction in coastal cities and low-lying islands - the alteration of the Gulf Stream would plunge Northern Europe into a Siberian-like climate and transform key areas in Africa, Asia and Australia into deserts by 2020 (Schwartz and Randall 2003). This report seemed to anticipate the destruction caused by hurricanes Rita and Katrina, which struck the US in the autumn of 2005. Events that had traditionally been considered as natural disasters were increasingly associated with the growing instability of climate. Moreover, they outlined how the US was not able to protect its own citizens and provide effective disaster relief. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth further reinforced the representation of climate change as a threat and a security issue. These developments followed a typical securitisation move by delineating climate change as an urgent,

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existential threat which demands immediate action. When Margaret Beckett was the Foreign Secretary of UK, she promoted an active campaign to prioritize climate change in the international agenda. She was one of the first to employ the term ‘climate security’ (Beckett 2006). Beckett transformed the debate over climate change into a more dramatic one on climate security, contributing to its securitisation, thereby prompting several questions about this securitisation and its impact on security practices. Who or what is the object of security in the climate security discourse? Who is supposed to provide security and by what means? What are the implications of the process of securitisation of the climate? These questions need to be addressed to analyze the meaning and function of climate security. Climate security suggests a concern for the security of the climate which is understood as the maintenance of stable climatic conditions as a prerequisite of all human enterprises, rather than the security of the climate itself. Climate security is evoked to secure people and societies that depend on it. As in the case of environmental security, climate security is about ‘the maintenance of achieved levels of civilization’ (Buzan et al. 1998, 76). In this sense, as de Wilde (2008) highlights, climate security captures a paradox because it is the contemporary way of life that is causing environmental problems. The very way of life and development, defined on a Newtonian and Descartes’ view of the universe, which is mainly responsible for climate change needs to be redefined. Yet, to maintain the existing way of life, it is necessary to change many present global structures. The dilemma then becomes one of whether the existing structures should be changed voluntarily or whether it is preferable to wait until ‘structural change will be enforced violently and randomly by environmental crises’ (595). The problem is even more pressing because action on climate change requires long-term measures: power plants built today would last for decades and innovation in the transport system takes time. This touches the core of the problem and identifies two contrasting approaches to security provisions. The first, the reliance on emergency measures suggests that it is impossible to be prepared for all potential threats and it is preferable to deal with emergencies as they occur; the second - the development of preventive ones - warns of potentially catastrophic impacts. In this sense, securitisation is about moving from one position to the other. This transformation is evident in the debate on the kind of threats that are posed by climate change and in its recent transformation.


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There are two aspects to this transformation. First, much of the debate has been framed in terms of adaptation to climate change, on the assumption that it will be a slow process. This is implicit in the UNFCCC which states that the objective of the Convention is to achieve the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner (United Nations 1992, Article 2).This discourse assumes the relative stability of climate systems- ongoing changes will occur in a predictable way- and relies on human ingenuity and adaptation capability. This approach has been challenged by the possibility of catastrophic events. That is, when a complex system reaches a tipping point, it can have non-linear responses, which result in runaway changes that are very difficult to bring under control again. Examples of such catastrophic events would be the disruption of the Gulf Stream, the weakening of the monsoon systems and the instability of continental ice sheets. The recent securitisation move is based on this dramatic reframing of the threat. The second aspect is the shift of importance between two different and overlapping securitisations. The first one identifies climate change as a threat. The second considers environmental policies as a threat. The latter was evident in the position of the US at the 1992 Earth Summit when George Bush stated that ‘the American lifestyle is not up for negotiation’ (quoted in Lerner 1998, 12). The US subsequently withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, which was considered as a threat to the US economy. This kind of securitisation is also evident in the concern expressed by some developing countries, which argued against the imposition of policies aimed at forcing them to reduce their emissions since these policies can threaten their development process. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change prepared by the economist Nicholas Stern for the British Government and published in October 2006, is an intervention in this debate and has contributed to the securitisation of climate change instead of that of environmental policy. The Stern Review focused on the economic consequences of climate change, an aspect that has often been marginalized in the environmental security discourse, and outlined the economic cost of inaction. In this way the idea that environmental measures can be a threat to economic competitiveness and growth is turned around with a cost-benefit analysis which warned that inaction on climate change could cost the world economy between 5 and 20 percent of

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the global GDP each year, whereas the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emission to avoid the worst impact of climate change could be limited to around 1 percent of the global GDP annually (Nicholas Stern 2006, vi). The Stern Review typifies the difference between the European approach which tends to see environmental policy as an opportunity and that of the US which sees it as a potential threat. As demonstrated hitherto, the identification of threats reveals not only the identities, interests, and values that are supposed to be protected but also the practices and logics associated with security. Hence, it is relevant to explore which specific aspects are identified in the climate security discourse, in order to assess its potential and limits in a process of transformation. The list of threats provided by Margaret Beckett is illustrative. She focused on food security, water issues, security of energy supply, immigration, conflicts and failing states, arguing that ‘a failing climate means more failing states’ (Beckett 2006). In this way, she outlined the complexity of climate change and the variety of people and the vulnerabilities involved and called for a wider and deeper security discourse, which is more attentive to human needs. This approach resonates with the human security discourse and its associated practices. However, what has emerged as the ‘threat’ - since it is represented as the root cause- in the recent development of the climate security discourse is the emission of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide. This is evident in the British statement about the 2006 strategic priorities, one of which includes ‘achieving climate security by promoting a faster transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy’ (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2007, 70). A focus on emissions has the merit of involving industrialized countries and avoiding the removal of their responsibility as suggested by the discourse on environmental conflicts, which focused on the global south, its inadequacy and responsibility. Moreover, it links the discourse on climate security with that on energy security, suggesting that the two issues are interconnected. This focus, however, has two problematic implications. First, it tends to reduce the problem of sustainability to one of the emissions, creating the illusion that it is enough to simply focus on cutting emissions or switching toward non-greenhouse gas energy, such as nuclear or bio-fuel to solve the environmental crisis. This approach downplays the complexity of environmental problems and the impact of the overuse of limited resources. Instead, climate change is only one aspect of a larger humanmade environmental change. As humankind pushes the boundaries of the carrying capacity of the planet, the impact of climate change is going to


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increase especially on those who live in the marginal and vulnerable areas. Reducing emissions will not solve all the other environmental problems or increase the resilience of the vulnerable population. There is a trade-off between focusing on reducing emissions and that on improving resilience and adaptability. In this sense, the focus on emissions tends to limit the holistic perspective suggested by environmental security. The second implication is related to the link between climate security and energy security. This link contains an inherent tension since energy security is traditionally associated with national security and its logic, whereas climate security is supposed to promote a cooperative approach to global issues. Agreements on energy supply are generally the result of bilateral agreements between states. The energy sector contributes a substantial portion of states’ income and policy- states gain revenues from concessions, transit fees and taxes, or is directly involved with national companies. Hence, the current situation of tight energy markets characterized by rising demand, high prices and concerns for terrorist attacks against critical infrastructures is particularly challenging for states, which are divided between promoting privatization and being more involved in energy policy. Besides, there are limited multilateral institutions that deal with energy security, resulting in the higher risks of fostering a zero-sum mentality and an antagonistic attitude which can be problematic in dealing with climate issues. How can these developments be read through the lens of the framework previously elaborated? Can this be considered as a securitisation which is transforming security practices? The renewal of the debate on climate change and security appears to be an attempt to transform it into an existential threat, requiring urgent measures. It has mobilized political action, emergency measures and even attempts to institutionalize the debate at an international level. So far, the securitisation of climate has succeeded in persuading even the reluctant Bush administration to undertake a discussion on emissions reduction. It has also contributed to the formulation of the Bali Roadmap to set a strategy for the post-Kyoto period, the Copenhagen and Durban summits. The UN Security Council, at the initiative of the UK, discussed the potential impact of climate change on peace and security for the first time ever in 2007 (UK Mission to the UN 2007). The most impressive results have been within the EU, which has contributed to the EU developing a common energy policy - an issue that has previously been delayed for decades. Traditionally, energy issues have been considered a prerogative of member states and security of supply has been considered a national security issue. The EU

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Commission is promoting a non-antagonistic approach that relies on liberalization and cooperation to promote a common energy policy and to secure energy supply and climate stability. The impact of this strategy is evident in the reaction to the Ukrainian gas crisis in 2006. When Russia cut the gas supply to Ukraine, due to their dispute over gas prices, the amount of gas transiting through Ukraine and destined for European countries fell dramatically (Stern 2006). Despite the rapid solution to the crisis, it was considered a wakeup call which prompted a significant debate on energy security. Within NATO, the point was discussed in terms of new roles for the alliance, including the possibility of military involvement to patrol the supply routes, suggesting an antagonistic approach (Shea 2006), but within the EU, the crisis provided an opportunity to expedite the development of a common energy policy. The common energy policy set ambitious targets, mobilizing consensus through the double lever of climate security and energy security. In January 2007, the Commission presented the ‘Energy and Climate Package’ (Commission of the European Communities 2007). It included a Strategic Energy Review which focused on both the internal and external aspects of the EU energy policy. In March 2007, EU leaders approved the plan, agreeing on a binding target of 20 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the EU member-states by 2020. Central to the agreement was the recognition that energy and environment policies should go hand in hand. Although the focus is on the EU interest and security, the means to achieve them are market mechanisms, promotion of liberal order and multilateralism. John Ashton, the UK Foreign Secretary's Special Representative for Climate Change, said at a conference on “Climate Change: The Global Security Impact”, at the Royal United Services Institute on 24th January 2007: “There is every reason to believe that as the 21st century unfolds, the security story will be bound together with climate change. Climate change is a security issue because if we don't deal with it, people will die and states will fail.”

Further, Ashton pointed out that defense and security planners must face a paradox when assessing their responses to the problem. Most security threats in today's world are amenable to some extent to a “hard power” or conventional reaction, he said; and demand will rise for such responses to climate change-related security problems. But there is no hard power solution to climate change - you cannot force your neighbor to change its carbon emissions at the barrel of a gun.


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Thus far, appeals to climate security have mobilized actions even if the emergency measures have not exceeded the ordinary policy debate. Hence these appeals can be considered as proper securitisation rather than failed securitizing moves. The securitisation of climate change has avoided the identification of enemies, and involved actors other than states, both in the securitizing moves and in the security provisions. The other relevant aspect of the climate security discourse is the securitisation of threats that are uncertain, widespread and whose impact is difficult to quantify. The appeal to security is intended to develop precautionary measures, as Margaret Beckett stated, ‘I am in no doubt that today being a credible foreign minister means being serious about climate security because the question for foreign policy is not just about dealing with each crisis as it hits us’ (2006). She continued that it is necessary to put ‘in place the condition for our future security and prosperity in a crowded and interdependent world’. This is an application of the ‘precaution through prevention’ approach to security and reflects Beck’s argument on risk society (Beck 2006, 334). The possible adoption of a precautionary approach to security issues has been criticized on the grounds that it can justify preventive military actions, extensive surveillance measures, the inversion of the burden of proof or actions decided on the worst case scenario (Aradau and van Munster 2007). In the case of environment, it is possible that the securitisation of climate change would result in confrontational politics, with states adopting politics to protect their territory against the rise of the sea levels and immigration; with the Security Council adopting resolutions to impose emission targets, and even military action against polluting factories and surveillance systems to monitor individual emissions. This possibility, however, depends on taking for granted a security logic based on enemies and extraordinary measures. What is at stake in the climate security discourse is the possibility of introducing mechanisms to prevent emergencies within a system that tends to rely, on the one hand, on governing through emergencies and, on the other, on insurance and compensation. The securitisation of climate is an attempt to evoke the symbolic power of an environmental discourse based on interdependence and prevention to establish a framework for security and energy governance at the global level. It is about renegotiating the spaces in which risk management and market mechanisms prevail, and those in which intervention and regulations are legitimized. Securitisation remains a very political movement. Its implications largely depend on what is being securitized and what means are employed to provide security.

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6. Conclusion When one point towards threats, the question comes, to whom? It implies the identification of the person, or a body or political community that deserves a shield against these threats. The legitimization of the means to provide security and eventually their institutionalization has come under what we call securitisation. As noted above, various schools have argued with their security logic, such as the antagonistic, emergencybased one evoked by the Copenhagen School. Though the issues of climate change and environmental catastrophe as pointed out by many will create occasions for confrontation, conflict and even war among states or people within a state, there is no gainsaying the fact that all these cannot be viewed within a statist straitjacket. The issues and consequences of climate change are trans-boundary, and it would be very difficult to put all these in a mold of state vs. state or us vs. them. The required response to these devastating issues is not in the line of a military retaliation but concerns the concerted and cooperative efforts of everyone to prevent the rise of such issues and reinvent the very logic and foundation on which the established political-economy has been structured. These developed because, within a particular context, they were the most effective response against a specific representation of threats. This, however, does not mean that they are not open to negotiation when challenged by a new environment and threats. Climate change poses threats that are largely uncertain, diffuse, difficult to quantify and yet potentially catastrophic. This reflects the logic of a risk society portrayed by Beck. It is demonstrated above how the conventional understanding of security in a realist parlance has been challenged by various analysts to transform environmental crises and climate change into a security issue and even an issue of inter-state conflict. Appeals to security have emphasized the relevance of preventive, non-confrontational measures and the importance of other actors more than states in providing security. The referent object of security has shifted from the state to the individual highlighting the significance of human security in the context of climate change. The concept of security being narrowed down to the state has been widened to include the unprecedented changes in the society. While up to about 2006, the prevailing view was that climate change could be contained at levels which would not cause major security problems; dramatic scenarios of a major armed conflict with climate change as “threat multiplier” became frequent in films, policy statements, and academic studies. In her assessment, a discursive shift has taken place with the prediction of a major climate change even in a fairly optimistic political scenario. One


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element of this is the shift away from questions of the causes of climate change and responsibilities towards the analysis of the associated risks and relevant contingency planning. With respect to policies, mitigation has lost its relative importance to adaptation and, in particular, contingency measures. One has to understand the uncertainties around the effects of climate change, including on core values of individuals and societies. Similar to other risks with unknown and disputed probability, climate change may not have the urgency of other issues affecting security. While there is a lot of plausibility to this explanation, it is difficult to explain the recent career of climate change as an agenda in security strategies. Other issues, such as the threat of nuclear war or terrorist action would seem as likely candidates but have received less attention, at least over the last few years, than climate change as a security issue. If uncertainty about the security implications of climate change is a major factor in shaping the divergence between rhetoric and action, more action should come about with more knowledge of the effects of climate change. Another possible explanation is that the use of climate change in security strategies is tactical- that it is driven by concerns that transcend the security agenda. This would imply that the analytical scope of detecting consequences of securitisation needs to be expanded beyond familiar elements or possibly be scrapped altogether. A potentially non-essentialist approach like securitisation, which focuses on the social process that specifies threats, could be relevant in studying how various environmental issues gain priority and mobilize social action. However, the Copenhagen School identifies the ‘securities’ of security with a specific logic determined by the realist tradition. In this way, the School has imposed a problematic fixity that tends to essentially focus on a historical and sector-specific understanding of security and the practices legitimized by it. Even if this logic is still relevant, the analysis of environmental security discourses and the securitisation of climate change have shown that transforming an issue like climate change into a security issue is not about applying a fixed meaning of security and the practices associated with it. Rather, it is a reflexive and contextualized process that generates meanings and practices. Whether an issue is on the securitisation move and is ultimately securitized depends on the gravity of the situation and on the perception of this gravity by the movers. Climate change has been studied from an environmental security perspective, environmental conflict perspective, and finally, from the human security perspective as it is likely to affect the life and livelihood of individuals. As studied by Detraz and Betsil from the national security strategies and the defense documents of some nations, there has been no uniformity in perceiving the implications of the crisis.

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Though all these states have considered this as one of the environmental security threats and of conflict, there has been a discrepancy between rhetoric and practice. The emphasis has been on disaster management and adaptation measures, not tuning the strategic policy structure to address the root causes of the crisis. That is the problem in the Copenhagen School in its understanding of securitisation in statist logic.

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Gaan, N. 2001. “Politics of Governance of Global Climate Change: Not on Equity but on North’s Interests”. India Quarterly LVIII (4). —. 1999. Environmental Degradation and Conflict: The Case of Bangladesh - India. New Delhi: South Asian Publisher. Gaulin, Ted. 2000. “To Cultivate a New Model: Where do Soyasa and Gleditsch Fall Short”. Environmental Change and Security Project Report 6. Gorbachev, M. 1987. “Reality and Guarantees for a Secure World”, Moscow News 39 (3287). Gunther Bachler. 1993. “Conflict and Cooperation in the Light of Global Human- Ecological Transformation”. ENCOP Occasional Paper 9. Harris, Paul. 2001. International Equity and Global Environmental Politics: Power and Principles in US Foreign Policy. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hauge, Wenche, & Ellingsen, Tanja. 2001. “Causal pathways to conflict”. In Environmental Conflict, edited by Paul Diehl and Nils Gleditsch.Colorado: Westview Press. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 1991. “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Conflict”. International Security 16 (2). —. 1994. “Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict”. International Security 19 (10). Huysmans, Jef. 2006. The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU. London: Routledge. Ka¨ko¨nen, Jyrki, ed. 1994. Green Security or Militarized Environment. Aldershot, United Kingdom: Dartmouth. Kaplan, Robert. 1994. “The Coming Anarchy”. Atlantic Monthly 273 (2). Krause, Keith, & Williams, Michael. 1996. “Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods”. International Studies Quarterly 40 (2). Lacy, Mark. 2005. Security and Climate Change: International Relations and the Limits of Realism. London: Routledge. Levy, Marc A., Keohane, Robert O., & Haas, Peter M. 1993. “Improving the Effectiveness of International Environmental Institutions”. In Institutions for Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection, edited by Peter M. Hass, Robert O. Keohane and Mark A. Levy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lerner, Steve. 1998. Eco-Pioneers: Practical Visionaries Solving Today’s Environmental Problems. Cambridge: MIT Press. Libiszewski, Stephan. 1992. “What is an Environmental Conflict?” ENCOP Occasional Paper I (6).

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Lietzmann, Kurt, & Vest, Gary.1999. “Environment and security in an international context”. Report 232 NATO Committee on Challenges of Modern Society. Lipschutz, R D., & Holdren, J.P.1990. “Crossing Borders: Resource Flows, the Global Environment and International Security”. Bulletin of Peace Proposals 21. Lodgaard, Sverre. 1990. “Environmental Conflict Resolution”. Paper presented at the UNEP meeting on Environmental Conflict Resolution, Nairobi, March 30 1990. Moss, Richard H. 1990. “Environmental Security? The Illogic of Centralized State Responses to Environmental Threats”. In Geopolitical Perspectives on Environmental Security, edited by Paul Painchaud. Quebec: Universite Laval. Myers, Norman, 1986. “The Environmental Dimension to Security Issues”. The Environmentalist 6 (251). —. 1993. Ultimate Security: The Environmental Basis of Political Stability. New York: Norton. Oels, Angela. 2009. The securitisation of climate change: Does the Copenhagen School miss the point? Hamburg: Institute of Political Science, University of Hamburg. —. 2010. “Preparing for a +4 degree world: A Foucaultian reading of the "securitisation" of Climate Change”. Paper presented at the 51st Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, New Orleans, Louisiana/USA, February 18-22. Waever, Ole. “Securitisation and Desecuritisation”. Working Paper 5. Copenhagen: Centre for Peace and Conflict Research. Peluso, Nancy, & Michael Watts., eds. 2001. Violent Environments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Porter, Gareth. 1995. “Environmental Security as National Security Issue”. Current History May 1995. Rasmussen, Mikkel. 2001. “Reflexive Security: NATO and International Risk Society”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 30 (2). Rogers Katrina. 1995. “Rivers of Discontent – Rivers of Peace: Environmental Cooperation and Integration Theory”. International Studies Notes 20 (2). Romer Paul. 1994. “The Origins of Endogenous Growth”. Journal of Economic Perspective 8 (1). Rothschild, Emma. 1995. “What is Security?”. Daedalus 124 (3). Schmitt, Carl. 1996 [1932]. The Concept of the Political. Translated by G. Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


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Schrijver, Nico. 1989. “International Organization for Environmental Security”. Bulletin of Peace Proposals 20 (2). Schwartz, Peter, & Doug Randall. 2003. “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and its Implications for United States National Security”, Global Business Network. (5 March 2008) Shea, Jamie. 2006. ‘Energy security: NATO’s potential role’, NATO Review 2006 (3). (5 March 2008) Shiva, Vandana. 1994. “Conflicts of Global Ecology: Environmental Activism in a period of global reach”. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 19 (2). Simon, Julian. 1981. The Ultimate Resources. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. —. 1996. The Ultimate Resource 2. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Soroos, Marvin. 1994. “Global change, environmental security, and the prisoner’s dilemma”. Journal of Peace Research 31 (3). Stern, Jon. 2006. Energy Comment. Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Stern, Nicholas. 2006. The Stern review on the Economics of Climate Change. London: HM Treasury. Stritzel, Holger. 2007. “Towards a theory of securitisation: Copenhagen and beyond”. European Journal of International Relations 13 (3). Thompson, Michael. 1999. “Security and solidarity: an anti-reductionist analysis of environmental policy”. In Living with Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse, edited by Frank Fischer and Maarten A. Hajer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. United Nations. 1992. ‘Framework Convention on Climate change’, FCCC/INFORMAL/84 GE.05-62220 (E) 200705, 9 May. United Nations Development Program.1992. Human Development Report 1992. New York: Oxford University Press. United Nations Development Programme. 1994. Human Development Report 1994. New York: Oxford University Press. United Nations Security Council. 2007. “Security Council holds first-ever debate on impact of Climate Change”. SC/9000, 17 April. Waever, Ole. 1995. “Securitisation and Desecuritisation”. In On Security, edited by Ronnie Lipschutz. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Williams, Michael. 2003. “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitisation and International Politics”. International Studies Quarterly 47 (4). World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER SIX CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES RAVI P. BHATIA1

1. Introduction We are all familiar with the environmental pollution that results in the loss of biodiversity, deforestation and health problems. Another serious environmental consequence is climate change that is observable all over the world. Climate change has posed critical challenges in the physical, biological and agricultural domains. Some of the consequences are listed below: 1. The rise of global surface temperature resulting in extreme weather patterns across the globe. For example, the year 2014 has been globally declared to be the hottest year ever recorded. Similarly, India experienced its eight warmest years in history during the last decade (2000-10) mainly due to climatic changes. 2. Uneven weather conditions and unpredictable natural hazards such as excessive or deficient rainfall, excessively high temperatures and cold winters, increasing frequency of cyclones and blizzards. 3. Melting and retreating of glaciers leading to rising sea levels with the risk of low-lying islands being submerged forcing millions of people to leave their homes. 4. The adverse impact of rising sea levels is the erosion of coastal regions and penetration of saline water into the fresh-water bodies. 5. Rapid desertification rate of agricultural and forest lands. 6. Health hazards faced by people due to changing climatic conditions. 7. Food security due to modifications in cropping patterns. 1

Educationist and Peace Researcher, Retired Professor, University of Delhi.

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The aim of this paper is to discuss the various factors behind climate change and its adverse impact on our lives. An attempt is also being made to analyze how these adverse effects can be addressed. It also discusses some mitigation efforts to reduce environmental pollution and climate change. The emphasis of many developing economies including India is on economic growth and development. The underlying assumption is that economic growth and development is a pre-requisite for employment generation which will help bridge the economic and social disparities in society. This will satisfy the basic human needs of the poor and the vulnerable sections of society. One of the serious concerns of contemporary life is the dilemma of developing and sustaining the environment. Large parts of the world, particularly Asia, Africa and Latin America are either underdeveloped or developing nations. As basic requirements of food, housing, education and healthcare of millions of people need to be met, the development of basic infrastructure like housing, roads, railway lines, educational institutes, healthcare centers has become important. In addition, dams, factories, industrial projects, construction, and mining activities are also being commissioned to provide jobs for millions of people who are entering the job market every year. Transportation is another essential requirement in order to provide resources for the agricultural and modern economies. Power generation plants are also being set up to meet the ever-increasing demands for everyday and industrial use. Modern agricultural requirements such as tractors, tube-wells, fertilizers, pesticides are also dependent on scientific and technological advances which need varied developmental infrastructural projects. All these developmental activities are leading to deforestation and degradation of the environment. Air, soil, rivers have become polluted contributing to climate change and the extinction of several species of flora and fauna. Another adverse impact of environmental pollution is on the health of human beings especially children, and on those working in some hazardous areas like mining, stone crushing and the like. With economic growth as the main focus of our development agenda, the question of sustainability of the environment is generally overlooked. What does this concept mean? This concept has several dimensions economic, social, our relationship with nature and its biodiversity. In order to have development we must ensure that we are aware of the impact on

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the environment or the ecosystem in general - the air, the water bodies, forests and all living beings in general. All parts of this ecosystem are inter-related and any harm to one affects the others also. If deforestation takes place on a large scale its adverse effect will be experienced by the flora and fauna, thereby worsening the air quality too. Another serious consequence of developmental activities and modern lifestyles is climate change. This change is taking place slowly but surely and it is clear now that globally, climate change has several adverse impacts such as the rise of average temperatures, unpredictable weather conditions, melting and retreating of glaciers and rising sea levels. There are several factors contributing to climate change with the main culprit being Green House Gases (GHG) emissions from burning of leaves, firewood and agricultural waste, vehicular traffic, industrial activities, coal-fired power plants, etc. These emissions consist mainly of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide. Industrial activities mainly rely on the burning of fossil fuels that result in the emission of greenhouse gasesprincipally CO2.Industrial effluents also significantly contribute to environmental pollution and climate change.

2. Effects of Climate Change 2.1. Global Warming - Rise in Average Temperatures As indicated above, the emission levels are increasing exponentially as rapid development takes place to meet the ever-increasing aspirations and the basic human needs of millions of vulnerable populations around the world. According to The Atlas of Climate Change by Kirstin Dow and Thomas Downing (2006), carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are responsible for half the global warming and its effect will last for about 200 years. These emissions are caused by the manufacturing, transportation, burning and lighting units. The authors admit that industrialized waste is mainly responsible for this situation but with developing countries also following the path of industrialization, their contribution will also increase owing to their large populations and under-development. Apart from CO2, methane (CH4) and Nitrous oxide (N2O) (also termed as laughing gas) which are produced due to different agricultural and industrial activities, are also responsible factors but fortunately, these

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gases are present in a lesser degree. Other chemicals such as refrigerants, also contribute significantly to global warming. To mitigate the effect of Greenhouse Gases one can limit the use of coal in the production of electric power and increasing the sources of renewable energy- wind, solar and tidal waves. The burning of agricultural wastes also results in the emission of these gases and efforts should be made to reduce this practice. Of course, the process of deforestation for industrial development has an adverse effect on our environment and climate change so the obvious course of action is to increase afforestation.

2.2. Uneven weather conditions Climate change results not only in warming and increasing temperatures but also in uneven and unpredictable weather conditionssometimes excessive, at other times deficient rainfall. Similarly, there may be excessive cold weather conditions and snowfall in some parts while in other regions there are excessive or unusually high temperatures. The impact is most severe on poor populations of the world especially in India which is home to one-third of the world’s poor. The unusual weather conditions, adversely affected agricultural outputs have in turn impacted a country like India, where about 65% people are dependent on agriculture, many of whom have small landholdings. Excessive rainfall in Western India in February-March, 2015 resulted in the destruction of many crops with severe impact on small farmers who do not have the capacity to insulate themselves from crop failures. This also caused floods and landslides leading to the loss of habitations and livelihood. Some regions are submerged and populations are forced to leave their homes. In 2015, the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Orissa, Bihar, and Gujarat experienced heavy rainfall, and in addition to the varying weather conditions, cyclones Phalin (2013) and Hudhud (2014) caused excessive damage and suffering to large sections of the population. Rising temperatures also affect the ecosystem and biodiversity while several species of flora and fauna face extinction threat.

2.3. Melting and Retreating of Glaciers Clearly, the rising temperatures impact the glaciers in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the Himalayas, with catastrophic consequences- excessive water levels of rivers in the peak season, and insufficient water in the lean


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seasons. In addition, sea water levels have risen considerably with some low-lying islands already submerged and many more facing the risk of submergence as water levels continue to rise. Under such conditions, people may shift to the nearby higher islands but at the cost of their agriculture and their livelihood. Several island states like Maldives, Mauritius, and parts of Andaman and Nicobar islands are facing a similar threat. Kiribati, a small island nation in the central Pacific Ocean is under severe threat due to coastal erosion and as the waters continue to rise menacingly, its very existence is at a major risk. Its President Anote Tong had written to the UN ahead of the Paris meet on climate change, expressing the fear and concern of its 100,000 inhabitants, and to put a moratorium on new coal-mine activities. This is essential if this nation is to be saved from being submerged. As reported in the Times of India (August 14, 2015), Professor Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics has supported the President’s call and termed the use of coal as bad economics. Pope Francis has also called for limiting the burning of fossil fuels, which, he stresses, are highly polluting. A few years back, the former President of Maldives lamented that it is not only several species of plants and animals that are at risk; the whole country faces extinction as the sea waters rise. In Papua New Guinea, the inhabitants of Carteret Islands had to be evacuated and moved to a neighboring island as sea-waters submerged the island.

2.4. Erosion of Coastal Regions and Penetration of Saline Water Another adverse impact of the rising sea waters is seen in the coastal regions of the world. India, with its long coastline is obviously affected due to erosion resulting in the inflow of saline sea waters into the farms and mangroves along the coasts. This will damage fruit trees and affect agricultural productivity in coastal regions. The poorer sections inhabiting these regions are more at risk since they live just next to the coast and face high tides. Erosion of coastal regions leads to loss of habitations, livelihood and the sense of cultural identity. Fishing and hunting in these regions will also be affected as some species of fish will move to regions that are safer for breeding for the rising water levels pose a challenge to fishing. Even major coastal cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata or Dhaka in Bangladesh will also face these challenges as the sea levels rise and saline waters enter their drinking water supplies. The economic health of people

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residing in these cities which otherwise have an intense economic activity will also be affected.

2.5. Health Hazards, Problems of Food Security and Cultural Loss As sea levels rise and saline waters penetrate coastal regions, various changes in agriculture, horticulture and weather conditions are inevitable. Due to climate change, the weather and biodiversity will be altered with negative impact on agriculture, fishing and hunting patterns and eventually on the health of people living in these regions. This will further lead to problems of food security. Certain historical and archaeological sites will also be submerged adding to the cultural and economic loss.

2.6. Mitigation Efforts, Issues of Livelihood and Peaceful Existence What steps are required to avoid the crisis that the world is facing from climate change and its adverse consequences? The steps need to be analyzed in terms of policy measures, economic and health costs, use of technology and the expanding use of renewable sources of energy. In short, we need mitigation efforts to reduce and curtail the greenhouse gases which are primarily responsible for climate change. This is essential in order that the increase in world’s temperature remains within 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. There have been several international conferences to consider these aspects, one being the one on Climate Change held in Lima, Peru at the end of 2014, and attended by 190 nations. Called the Conference of Parties (COP), it was held under the aegis of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and it took several important decisions that will be formally finalized in the COP-21 meet in Paris, in December 2015. Some of the critical decisions arrived at in Lima consisted of commitments called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) made by various countries especially the USA, China, and India to reduce GHG emissions during the next few decades. Other decisions included the increasing use of renewable energy, reduction of dependence on fossil fuels- coal, gas and oil, and setting up of a global Green Climate Fund (GCF), to achieve the objective of reducing and curbing GHG emissions.


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An informative article by Shyam Saran in The Indian Express on August 10, 2015, on the outcomes of the Lima Conference and the intended negotiations to be carried out in Paris, discusses what India needs to do in order to carry out our developmental programme while sustaining the natural environment. Some of these initiatives are already underwayafforestation efforts, increasing use of clean energy and curbing open-air burning among others. Another significant step was taken at the September 2015 session of the UN. The UN reiterates the need to codify a set of Sustainable Development Goals, not just the Millennium Development Goals (2000).

2.7. Gandhian Approach to the Protection of the Environment Apart from his contributions in diverse fields of politics, religious amity, and basic education, Gandhi was also an environmentalist of his times, a person who wished to sustain and protect the environment. He led a simple and frugal life, did not waste anything and minimized his wants. Some of his sayings towards this objective are well known: • Nature produces enough for peoples’ needs, but not for their greed. • A characteristic aspect of modern civilization is an indefinite multiplicity of wants. • The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our forefathers, but on loan from our children. So we have to hand over to them at least the same way it was handed over to us. Gandhi was critical of modern civilization which leads to degradation of the environment. He wrote (Young India), “The distinguishing characteristic of modern civilization is an indefinite multiplicity of wants whereas earlier civilizations were forced to have an “imperative restriction upon and a strict regulation of these wants…” (quoted in Bhatia 2014). Interestingly, a similar idea was expressed by a Native American chief, Chief Seattle of the State of Washington, in a communication to President Pearce of the USA in 1855. He wrote, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” (quoted in The Hindu September 7, 2006). Gandhi always kept his surroundings clean- whether at home or in the ashrams that he built and where he met his followers. He himself used to clean his own room and toilet and encouraged others to follow his example.

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3. Conclusion As discussed above, there are severe risks involved due to climate change and its resultant consequences. The consequences are multidimensional- social, cultural, political and economic, health and food security. Most countries especially developing countries are at an immense risk and serious efforts must be undertaken to address these challenges. While the use of renewable energy and afforestation efforts will reduce but it will not avoid climate change, countries must pool their resources and formulate appropriate policies to reduce and limit global warming to below dangerous levels. Here global concerted efforts, especially under the aegis of the UNFCC for reducing the emission of Greenhouse Gases and utilization of appropriate technologies, are required. Whatever political and economic costs that ensue must be squarely faced urgently. Otherwise, it may be too late to avoid the catastrophe we are facing. Another requirement is to avoid excessive consumerism and exploitation of our natural resources. This was clearly advocated by Gandhi who preached and pursued a simple life avoiding wastage of resources. This is essential not only for protecting and sustaining the environment but also for reducing the vast disparities between the affluent and the vulnerable sections of our population.

References Bhatia, Ravi P. 2014. “Seeking Peace in a Healthy Environment”. Journal of Education Research and Behavioral Sciences. Vol. 3(5). Dow, Kirstin & Downing, Thomas E. 2011. The Atlas of Climate Change Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge. Berkeley: University of California Press. The Hindu. September 7, 2006. September 7, 2006. “We borrow the earth from our children”.

CHAPTER SEVEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND SECURITY: DEBATES, APPROACHES AND CHALLENGES SAURABH THAKUR1

1. Introduction The European refugee crisis and the long-standing civil conflict in the Middle East have been dominating the headlines in recent years. The potential cause of this mass influx in Europe, one of the largest since World War II, has been examined mainly through the political lens- a civil war, a civilization divide, the fundamentalist terror of ISIS, and an internal strife between the sects and states in the Middle East. The situation has developed into a full-blown security crisis that has revealed a divide within the European Union over the right response; some states have already resorted to military solutions. It certainly makes for a good reading but reduces the ground reality to a few simple caricatures and catchphrases, and therefore, ignores the underlying factors that may have triggered the crisis in the first place. The recent research indicates that a long-standing drought between 2006 and 2010, one of the worst in Syrian history, has contributed significantly towards the escalation of chaos in the region, forcing masses of people to flee the rural hinterlands and take shelter in the urban centers. The onset of the civil war in 2011 further claimed more territory and human lives, forcing the already distressed population to seek refuge elsewhere, thus resulting in the refugee crisis. The United Nations estimates that nearly half of Syria’s twenty-two million people have been affected by this conflict, and nearly six million have been displaced (Fountain 2015). Colin Kelley, a climatologist at the University of California, who carried out the study of drought in the region, strongly argues that ‘there’s strong evidence for global warming

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having an impact on this region, and that this most recent drought is due in part to this long-term trend (Zastrow 2015). The debates surrounding climate change and its causal potential on issues like conflict and migration hinge on a skewed set of evidence, which fails to predict any concrete relationship. Could it be argued that in the absence of drought in the region, the concurring violence could have been averted? Could one prove that the European crisis is a direct result of distress migration, which is pushing people out of their homes and regions? In the wake of weak evidence, the political causes seem far more acceptable. What can be argued in favour of environmental factors is that the crisis in the Middle East may be a result of socio-economic, political and orthodox religious precursors, but in each case the trigger has been a mix of interrelated factors, including the long-standing drought, worsening water crisis, crumbling agricultural production, food insecurity, and distress migration to failing urban centers. The question, therefore, is it beneficial to view climate change issue through the lens of security? The case of the refugee crisis in the Middle East presents us with a unique opportunity; such tragedies are going to be one of the key indicators of how we perceive threats and insecurities as states and as individuals in the 21st century, and how we choose to respond to them. Dalby (2010, 7) argues that during the coming decades, as the climateinduced stress increases, it will become particularly critical to our understanding of the responses - the traditional political choice, which will treat such issues as a national security threat and employ military force, fences and walls as solutions. But this political choice is fraught with danger and a clear case of ‘misleading analogies from the past’ which will ‘determine their priorities in the coming decades’. This ‘siege mentality and the invocation of security first’ is problematic and ‘tragically likely’ (Dalby 2010, 7-8). The linking of environmental change and security policy is a relatively recent development. In his seminal essay, “The Coming Anarchy”, Kaplan clearly brought into focus this linkage when he argued: ‘It is time to understand the environment for what it is: the nationalsecurity issue of the early twenty-first century’ (Kaplan 1994).

The scientific consensus on the issue is constantly under the scanner. There is an emerging consensus among states by those who want to put climate on the high tables of world politics, and at the same time, it is challenged by the climate change skeptics and even those who argue for a

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more parochial approach. What holds true, even though the empirical evidence is sparse and rarely conclusive, is the fact that climate change is an issue that will increasingly be a part of the security policy, because as Myers (2004, 5) argued, it is ‘hard to demonstrate environment security with empirical evidence, it is much harder to demonstrate that the opposite is the case.’ This paper will look into the major debates that have enriched this fledgling field of study. For instance, how do we conceptualize environmental security? What will be the key referent objects once we acknowledge it as a threat? Has securitizing the climate change issue helped in broadening and deepening the scope of our understanding of its future implications? This paper will take up the key criticisms that have dominated the discourse and argue for the inclusion of environment change as a critical security issue because ‘to err on the side of caution and set the threshold between large-scale social problem and national security threat high so that the number of possible transnational threats potentially affecting national security is winnowed down significantly’ (Fidler 2012, 16).

2. The Environment and Security Linkage: An Inconclusive Debate The concept of security is an “essentially contested concept” (Gallie, quoted in Buzan 1991), which changes across time and space. The argument goes that environment security is not a concept; rather one must understand it as a debate. The schools of thought vastly differ on ‘who or what is to be secured, what is to be secured against and also the nature of the threat itself’ (Floyd 2008, 1). To borrow the phrase from Marc Levy (1995a) is it ‘time for the third wave of environment and security scholarship?’ The inconclusive debate surrounding this topic is largely a result of a two-fold process: the resistance from the traditional lobby, which continues to employ the conventional understanding of security, and the human security paradigm, which has not come up with precise mechanisms or evidence, often limiting the challenge to rhetoric. The end of the Cold War gave impetus to many contesting voices, which argued for broadening and deepening of the security agenda. It was a result of the growing environmentalism, especially in the developed North, which challenged ‘state’ as the singular object of security. This has

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been clearly stated in the Brundtland Report (1987), which incorporated new threats like environmental pollution, scarcity, and degradation of natural resources. The early writings of scholars like Richard Ullman, Norman Myers (2004) and Jessica Tuchman Mathews, presented an emotive, yet largely rhetorical case for broadening the definition of national security interests and bringing about a paradigmatic shift in the priorities of policymaking. Environmental changes dominated the political debates and media temples; making a strong case for a ‘global’ response to the problem that was man-made and had, ‘social consequences across distant places, groups and time horizons’ (UNEP 1997). This was a take on the capabilities approach which upheld human freedom and argued that “development is not so much something that can be done to others, but is instead something that people do for themselves, given sufficient ‘economic opportunities, political liberties, social powers, and the enabling conditions of good health, basic education, and the encouragement and cultivation of initiatives” (Sen quoted in Barnett et. al 2010). The nowfamous piece by Robert Kaplan in 1994 was able to spark a new debate, which, emboldened by the next wave of research brought environment threat closer to the domain of security studies. Thomas Homer-Dixon published in 1991, an influential study of the environmental impact on armed conflict. It portended a bleak future wherein, international security was under severe stress due to a growing disparity between the global North and the South, which was, in turn, going to aggravate the disputes over resources and instigate class and ethnic clashes. He distinguishes three types of conflicts (Homer-Dixon 1991, 106-111): • Simple scarcity conflicts over resources. • Group-identity conflicts among different cultural groups triggered by migration. • Relative-deprivation conflicts caused by a declining wealth production due to the impact of climate change. These results stunned the academic community, and in the past two decades have come under severe criticism. Considerable researches were carried out throughout the 1990s. The ENCOP Project under Gunther Bächler came up with a core-periphery framework, which studied the relationship between the environmental impact of development and social change in the global South. They argued that the worst cases of ‘maldevelopment’ were going to be the remote areas, mountain communities, and grasslands.


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Bächler (1998, 24) emphasized the importance of degradation in one or more of the following fields: • Overuse of renewable resources; • Overstrain of environment’s sink capacity (pollution); • Improvement of the space of living. The NATO carried out extensive research and argued that ‘the notion of the environment as a causal factor in a conflict was simply too broad to be a useful analytical category, but also suggested that it is an important factor in contemporary social change and that it mattered in many ways’ (Dalby 2002, 5). Towards the beginning of the Twenty-first Century, the debate took a more interdisciplinary stance, with scholars from different fields like security studies, development economics, political ecology, geography, peace and conflict studies, coming together in recognition that environmental change and resource scarcity were less likely to lead to interstate conflicts or widespread resource wars that had been projected in the first place. Research now focused on insecurity that is a direct result of environmental factors and necessary policy initiatives and mitigation measures (Brauch 2010, 30-34).

3. Critique: A Case against Linking Climate Change and Security Marc Levy (1995a, 3) argued that it would be a stretch to call environment security a debate. He marked three potential types of threats: existential, physical and political. The existential threat, he argues, only acts as a rhetorical device and political implications like refugee crisis and resource wars are unlikely to threaten the US national security. He critiques Homer-Dixon and his Toronto School’s hypothesis, saying that it is ‘virtually identical to the conventional wisdom that prevailed before the research was carried out.’ The only linkage that can be substantially important is the physical linkage; like in the case of the ozone crisis and climate change and here again, he argues that the issue is best dealt as a part of ‘low politics’. Daniel Deudney’s essay, (1991) The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security provides one of the strongest criticisms of the linking. His argument is divided into three main parts:

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1) Linking environmental degradation to national security is analytically flawed because such degradation does not connect to protecting the state from violence from other states. 2) Environmental degradation is unlikely to cause a war between states. 3) Appealing to national security to increase attention on environmental problems subdues environmental interests and gives a higher value to “national security mindsets”, incapable of appreciating the central messages of environmentalism. He argues that the traditional understanding of security is set against the external organized violence. Therefore, the environmental disasters are threats, but they cannot be included within the national security framework, as it will ‘degenerate into analytical vacuity because of a lack of clear parameters’ (Fidler 2010). Most of the empirical researchers have shown a weak link between climate change and conflicts on the ground, in most cases where the link has been established, it is not a causal relationship. Most critics argue that it is not wise to formulate a coherent security policy due to its simplistic linkages between scarcity, economic stress, and migration that purportedly ‘weaken states’ and cause conflicts and violence. The stresses induced in such a manner can easily be dealt with by human ingenuity, trade, substitution of raw materials, and technological innovation (Deudney 1991). There is yet another school of thought, which does acknowledge the threats induced by climate change but differs from the fundamental strategy to deal with the crisis. Shiva (1995) argues that the roots of environmentalism lay in the regional spaces, and cites the example of the Chipko Movement in India in the 1970s. She argues that the local has disappeared from environment debates, and the dominant discourse, i.e. ‘global’ is a political space that is overpowered by the ‘dominant local’ seeking global control. It does not represent human interests; rather, it acts as an instrumental tool, to further the parochial self-interests, thereby sabotaging the entire Movement. The linkage with security studies is also condemned as it is seen as militarization of the environmental threat, which runs counter to the human security theme. These critics favor a more sub-regional approach - ‘small is beautiful’ - and an active involvement of non-state actors.


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These criticisms do point towards some of the main failings of environmental security, most of which represent a very parochial viewpoint, mostly US national security oriented, as is the case with Levy (1995a) and Deudney (1991). These critics vehemently hold on to the traditional understanding of security, which is outdated in the post-Cold War world and very rarely acknowledges the vulnerability of the weak developing states, which are not strategically important in US foreign policy. In his critique of Deudney’s case, Fidler (2010, 6-7) points out two fundamental problems: First, he criticises a linkage effort that does not agree with the traditional definition of national security which is analytically or normatively appropriate. He mounts this criticism without defending the appropriateness or value of the conventional approach. In fact, Deudney’s rhetoric at times draws attention to the unsavory nature of the conventional wisdom he wields against linkage advocates. These tactics heighten the willingness to scrutinize the conventional wisdom rather than accepting it in the seemingly unquestioning manner adopted by Deudney. He further takes on the criticism by reversing the argument on the votaries of the traditional understanding of security. Deudney’s analysis takes the easy road of criticizing linkage advocates for not using a definition they, in fact, reject. The deeper justification for applying the conventional view of national security appears limited to the proposition, ‘obvious to common sense’ which ‘security from violence is a primal human need because the loss of life prevents the enjoyment of all other goods… Advocates for thinking about transnational pathogenic threats as security issues could easily, for example, reformulate this assertion as follows: security from disease is a primal human need because the loss of life prevents the enjoyment of all other goods’.

4. Security: Approaches and Challenges The concept of security and the broadening of its themes and agenda in last two decades have proven to be contentious. The Cold War understanding of security as an external, existential, armed threat, managed to undermine the social and political connotations of what it means to be secure. The ‘reasons of state’ were the overpowering influence in security, necessary to maintain a stable world order. The discipline of environment security was able to overcome this resistance only with the dismantling of the Cold War Era world order, but

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the contestations, regarding its importance and effectiveness continued, as the traditional understanding of security still held sway within the policy circles. The Hobbesian understanding of the world persists; even as we enter the age where humankind is the driving force in the planetary system: the Anthropocene. To start with, the Anthropocene creates changes or reinforces multiple interdependence relations within and among human societies…Some of these new interdependencies emerge from functions of the Earth System that transform local pollution into changes of the global system that affect other places that have (much) less contributed to the problem, with examples being climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, the global distribution of persistent organic pollutants and the global spread of species with potential harm to local ecosystems…In short, the Anthropocene creates a new dependence of states, even the most powerful ones, on the community of all other nations (Biermann 2014, 1).

Anthropocene is a critical challenge to our understanding of security. It is no more restricted to a single domain, which focuses on the protection of the domestic from external threats, an understanding which is wrapped in time, rather than space. If security could be bottled down, it would stress on ‘protection’ more than the ‘threat’ a term which can be politically and culturally loaded. Dalby (2012) argues instead that: The threat to the climate and the disruption of ecologies in many places is carbon-fuelled modernity; that’s us, not them! Indeed, modernity caused climate change is precisely what is threatening agricultural populations in Asia and Africa in particular, and there isn’t much those peoples can do about it despite their resulting insecurities.

The environmental risk is not external; in fact, we have become an intrinsic element in our own insecurity. The insecurity that prevails especially in the most vulnerable societies, and weak states, is not necessarily a result of armed conflict. In fact, the conflict is the symptom of the larger malaise. Dalby (2012) argues that insecurities are contextand space-dependent; Anthropocene is a non-traditional approach to security, which has drawn considerable opposition, bordering on derision, but in light of the burgeoning evidence, it has managed to spark a debate that is crucial to make the future secure. This approach consists of two separate viewpoints: the Wideners and the Deepeners. The former stress on broadening the scope of security studies by including new issues within its fold, for example, climate change; whereas, the latter are more concerned with the


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referent object within security itself whose security is under threat (Biswas 2011, 3). Critical security studies question the singular referent object, the state, and make a case for prioritizing the individual’s need for feeling secure, which in turn will require the scholars to ponder the question: what makes an individual (as referent object) insecure and what measures will be required to provide security? It overturns the traditional focus and changes how we perceive security. Table 1: Different approaches to the Concept of Environmental Security Name Ecological security Common security Environmental science National security Greening defense Human security

Entity To Be Secured Natural environment Nation state Nation state Nation state Armed forces Individuals

Major Source Of Risk Human activity

Scale Of Concern Ecosystems

Environmental change War

Global/regional

Environmental change Green groups

National

Environmental change

National

Organizational Local

Source: Collins (2006:189)

Does the linkage benefit the debate relating to climate change? Once it is agreed that climate change is a major threat to security, it is even more critical to question whether linking it with the traditional study of security has helped in forwarding its agenda? The widening of security and inclusion of more referent object has fundamentally altered the field of security studies, but how has this altered our response to climate change and what is its contribution to the fledgling academic and political discourse in this field? This is where the concept of securitization, developed by Buzan and Weaver (1998) under the Copenhagen School, becomes crucial in forwarding this debate. The critical idea here is to view security as a speech act: its entire existence is by the virtue of it being said. This speech act alone catapults an issue into the center and vaults an emergency

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response, beyond the state’s typical response. The effectiveness of the speech act is dependent on how the actors formulate the ‘grammar of security and construct a plot that includes existential threat, the point of no return, and a possible way out’ (Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde 1998, 33). The authors included environmental change as one of the key sectors that could be securitized in this manner. The states within the EU: the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, have included climate change as a security threat. The United Kingdom and France have incorporated it into their respective national security strategies, and Germany is in the process of doing the same (Brito 2009, 7). The major benefit herein is the political awareness that comes with broadening of the concept and a sense of urgency which can set in motion a more robust response. Although, it has been argued that securitizing climate change has proved to be detrimental to its growth and it has stalled the political process that it targeted in the first place (Levy 1996). The argument also stands that such an elevation manages to draw an overtly military response and turns into a breeding ground for fostering divide, like drawing fences on the borders for refugees and creating a sense of insecurity, which leads to the exclusion of the weaker members of society. However, in the EU case, ‘the securitization of climate change did not generate militarized strategies to address the issue. EU action on climate change continues to focus on mitigation and adaptation measures’ (Brito 2009, 22). The potential benefits of the securitization of climate are still under a scanner, but it is argued that studies like the IPCC report and more, have indeed managed to create an academic discourse which has fuelled a widespread public debate on the issue.

5. Conclusion It is important to point out the inherent weakness of this linkage between environmental issues and security- the word ‘environment’ is a catchall category. The lack of clarity as to what can or cannot be incorporated into the security framework often weakens the case for its inclusion and turns it into a mere rhetoric. It is important, therefore, that the debate is taken to the next level. This paper argued that it is important that we do not allow the traditional definitions of security and environment, which still adhere to the Cold War mentality, and chart a fresh course for future response to the insecurities staring at us. The realization that environmental degradation will bring about new threats to our security and the acknowledgment that we are responsible for this insecurity will result in a new framework of security, a fresh discourse on


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the merits of state-centric security. It is critical, therefore, that we redefine and broaden the scope of security. The geopolitical reality dictates us to accept the state as the agent of change, but at the same time, it should not limit the vision and scope of our security policy which needs to be strengthened against future threats, including the non-traditional ones. Dalby (2014, 9) proposes that the notion of the environment as an independent variable is obsolete, and this is apparent in the evidence which proves the overbearing influence of human action: Humanity is now a new geomorphic agent on the planet, and while relatively speaking we are a small force in comparison to the forces of nature, human actions are quite large enough to reshape how the biosphere is organized, and in the process decide, whether we intend to do so or not, what the climate will be and how acidic the oceans will be in coming centuries and hence how the stage for the human drama will be arranged.

One of the shortcomings, which faced fierce criticism, has been the lack of concrete evidence which could establish a causal relationship between environmental change and security. It is now clear that the neoMalthusian warnings of a bleak future have not withstood scientific evidence. One can also observe the return of the real politik with the rise of China, fundamentalist terrorism, which favors a backward push in the national security policy towards the hardboiled Realist orientation. As the research has indicated, there is no ‘smoking gun’ in this case, no singular cause that can be pinpointed as the root of the problem. What is apparent is the rise of the geopolitics of climate change. The overtly national security-centric discourse leaves very little leeway for the alternate ideas to grow, without taking into account the geopolitical and geo-economic equations. Resource wars and climate change will prove to be fatal for the weakest and the vulnerable, and cannot be ignored as merely peripheral concerns. The evidence from the developing world provides us with enough doubts to take action. It is, therefore, wiser now to err on the side of caution.

References Barnett, J., Matthew, R., McDonald, B., & O’Brien, K.eds. 2010. Global environmental change and human security. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Biermann, F. 2014. “The Anthropocene: A Governance Perspective”. The Anthropocene Review 1(1): 57–61.

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Biswas, N. R. 2011. “Is The Environment A Security Threat? Environmental Security Beyond Securitization”, International Affairs Review XX (1): Winter. Brauch, H.G. 2010. “Environmental security”. Human Security Concentration Overview Course, Sciences Po: Paris. Brito, R. 2009. "Securitizing Climate Change". Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA - ABRI Joint International Meeting, Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro Campus (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, (12 December 2015). Buzan, B. 1991. People, States and Fear. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Buzan, B., Wæver, O., & Wilde, J. 1998. Security: a New Framework for Analysis. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Collins, A., ed. 2006. Contemporary Security Studies. Canada. Oxford University Press. Dalby, S. 1994. “The Politics of Environmental Security”. In Green Security or Militarized Environment, edited by J. Kakonen. Aldershot: Dartmouth. —. 2001. “Environmental change and human security: Rethinking the context of sustainable development”. Paper presented at The Canadian Institute of International Affairs National Policy Conference on “The Environmental Balance Sheet”. Chateau Laurier, Ottawa. —. 2002. “Security and Ecology in the Age of Globalization”. ECSP Report 8: 95-108. —. 2010. “Reading Robert Kaplan's Coming Anarchy” in The Geopolitics Reader, edited by Tuathail,G.O. et al. London: Routledge, 1998. Dalby, Simon. 2014. “Environmental Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century”. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 39(1). Dalby S. 2014. "Rethinking Geopolitics: Climate Security in the Anthropocene”. Global Policy 5.1. Deudney, D. 1991. “The Case against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 19: 461-476. Fidler, D. P. 1990. “Transnational Threats to National Security: Daniel Deudney’s Case against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 19: 461-476. Floyd, R. 2008. “The Environmental Security Debate and its Significance for Climate Change”. The International Spectator 43(3): 51-65.


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Fountain H.2015. “Researchers Link Syrian Conflict to a Drought Made Worse by Climate Change”, (21 December 2015). Homer-Dixon, T. 1991. “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict”. International Security 16 (4): 76-116. —. 1999. Environment, Scarcity, and Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jonsson, E.S. 2009. “Environmental Security: A Conceptual Investigating Study”. Master thesis in Political Science Jönköping University. Kaplan, Robert. 1994. “The Coming Anarchy”. The Atlantic Monthly 273(2): 44-76. Levy, M. 1995. “Is the Environment a National Security Issue?” International Security 20 (2). —. 1995a. “Time for a Third Wave of Environment and Security Scholarship?” Environmental Change and Security Project 1: 44-46. —. 1996. "Correspondence: The Author Replies" [re: Homer-Dixon], International Security, Spring: 195-198. Myers, Norman. 2004. “Environmental Security: What’s New and Different?” In Background paper for The Hague conference on environment, security and sustainable environment. Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books Shiva,V.1993. “The Greening of Global Reach”. In Global Ecology: A New Arena of Political Conflict, edited by W. Sachs.London: Zed publications. United Nations Development Program. 1994. Human Development Report. NewYork: Oxford University Press. United Nations Environment Programme. 1997. Global State of the Environment Report. London: Earthscan. Zasrtow M. 2015. “Climate change implicated in current Syrian conflict”, (30 November 2015).

CHAPTER EIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE AND ROLE OF NON-STATE ACTORS: THE CASE OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE SMRITI SABBARWAL1

1. Introduction Climate Change is regarded as one of the most dangerous and devastating threats for all species on this earth. To put it very simply, the phrase ‘climate change’ means that the climate is changing. In recent times the planet has witnessed a lot of catastrophic events which actually exemplify the fact that climate change is no longer a distant hazard but a reality for the present generation to tackle. Apart from the scientific explanations which account for the many reasons which cause climate change, anthropogenic reasons or human-induced climate change is the most established and significant cause. The burning of fossil fuels (such as coal) to augment the development of industries, construction of dams to increase generation of energy are all activities undertaken by human beings for their own well-being. The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC states that human-induced climate change is by far the most serious factor for the rapidly increasing forces of climate change. The adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 was seen as the first step towards recognition of the fact that human beings were responsible for the adverse impacts of climate change. State dominance in the Climate Summits or Conference of Parties (COP) meetings of the UNFCCC have largely rendered the outcomes of these deliberations rather inadequate to have any kind of tangible impact 1

Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.

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on the climate change discourse. This can be seen in the adoption and ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The United States of America was labeled as one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases (responsible for aggravating climate change). The Kyoto Protocol called for immediate cuts in the emission of these greenhouse gases. However, the United States did not ratify the protocol, thereby stalling the entire international efforts. It took eight years for the Kyoto Protocol to be actually enforced. The climate change regime at the international level is replete with such incidences where states have been responsible for ‘not’ taking action. The inability of the states to take positive action in the UN climate summits or international conferences has been somewhat taken into account by the increasing role of non-state actors. Comprising of many groups, such as non-governmental organizations, business groups, media and so on, these non-state actors have been attributed to the success of making climate summits moving. Armed with their activities like lobbying, advocacy, networking, implementation, these non-state actors have not only helped the climate change regime to show positive results but have also been able to make the international climate change regime a bit amenable towards vulnerable communities such as forest dwellers, indigenous peoples and other local communities who are severely affected by climate change. Indigenous peoples are one of the most vulnerable and poor sections who are not always found to be in cordial relations with their states. Their animosity against their states is because of a number of reasons - the primary one, being the kinds of rights2 demanded by them (right to selfdetermination and collective group rights). Many indigenous groups across the world are located in the ecologically rich yet fragile areas such as the Amazon region, grasslands, coral reefs, marine ecosystems and so

2 The animosity between indigenous peoples and their host states is on account of the nature of rights demanded by these groups, principally the right to selfdetermination and collective group rights. Right to self-determination has been a major bone of contention between indigenous peoples and their states. The right to self-determination for states means a right to secession or breakdown of their territorial sovereignty. Historically, self-determination was attached with the decolonization phase hence states have been of the view that any notion of selfdetermination means independent statehood. However, for the indigenous peoples, independence is not the goal; rather it is important to have a right to govern them without undue interference from the state. The right to self-determination was the principal reason for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to be delayed for almost two decades.

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on. Their inhabitance in these regions for centuries has made them natural custodians of their ecosystems. However, the exclusion of these indigenous groups from the international framework has made their situation more disadvantageous. For example, the REDD regime as one of the mitigation techniques to combat climate change has not taken into consideration the many indigenous groups who dwell in these forests (Andersen 2009, 20). Climate change has played havoc with the lives of these communities through changes in their cultural lifestyles, livelihood patterns, food habits, and physical spaces. It has resulted in the complete destruction of their hunting and fishing activities, desertification and flooding of their traditional homelands, food and water shortages, extinction of flora and fauna, and social and economic displacement (Williams 2012, 650). NonState actors, particularly NGOs such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Climate Action Now have attempted to bring a change in the bleak conditions of the indigenous peoples vis-à-vis climate change by making them important stakeholders in the international processes. Given this background, the three parts of the present paper analyses the growing role of non-state actors in the international climate change regime. The first part gives a brief introduction to climate change and the various debates that are associated with the calamity. The second deals with the concept of non-state actors and describe the functions played by them in the international arena. The third part presents the case of the indigenous peoples as a case-study and explains how by creating parallel spaces and hosting side events these non-state actors have played an important role in making them important constituents of the international climate change regime. The paper concludes with the contention that nonstate actors cannot replace the states because they do not have decisionmaking powers, these non-state actors have nevertheless become a powerful, ubiquitous feature of present-day international negotiations.

2. Climate Change: A Brief Introduction The term ‘climate change’ means a change in the climate caused largely due to increase in the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere increases largely by the burning of fossil fuels mainly for industrial activities and vehicular transportation. This has resulted in increased carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, which enhances the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ leading to rising temperatures (UNPFII 2007, 3).


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According to the report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is estimated that the mean global surface temperature has increased by 0.3-0.6oC since the late 19th Century to the present, and an increase of 0.2-0.3oC in the last 40 years (UNPFII 2007, 3). The rapid incidence of climate changes witnessed in recent years is inadvertently linked to human activities, often referred to as anthropogenic climate change or human-induced climate change (Johns 2003, 585). In recent times, climate change has manifested itself in various ways: melting of ice glaciers, rising sea levels, increase in the incidences of floods, droughts, wildfires and increased levels of global warming. The obvious examples of the ever increasing forces of climate change include the drought in the Horn of Africa in 2011, wildfires, floods and droughts in Latin American countries like Chile and Colombia. In India, the Mumbai floods in 2005, Uttarakhand floods in 2013, the Leh cloudburst in 2010, with the most recent being the Jammu and Kashmir floods in 2014, are clear illustrations to show that the dangers associated with climate change have reached our doorstep (Bhushan 2014). It was only in the 1970s that serious discussions began on the challenges and prospects of global warming. Since then climate change has appeared predominantly in the diplomatic and academic discourses. The North-South dichotomy in the climate change discourse has plagued the climate change debates since the very beginning. This is most evident during international negotiations held under the rubric of UNFCCC where developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have been very adamant about the issue of climate change being caused by the ‘reckless development attitude’ of the developed countries and the effects of this attitude being now borne by the poor developing countries. As a result of this developed-developing distinction, not much has been achieved in the negotiations on climate change over the years.

3. Role of Non-State Actors in Climate Change Discourse Non-state actors have become an integral part of international relations. In general, non-state actors are defined as “those individuals or organizations that have powerful economic, political or social power and are able to influence at a national and sometimes international level but do not belong to or allied themselves to any particular country or state” (Pearlman & Cunningham 2012, 6).

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The origins of the functioning of these non-state actors, mainly nongovernmental organizations could be traced to the early part of the Eighteenth Century when the anti-slavery movement was started by the Anti-Slavery Society (Willetts 1996; Charnovitz 2006). Since then these non-state actors have multiplied both in numbers and diversified their roles and functions. For the purposes of this paper, the term non-state actor would mean the NGOs - the ‘climate change’ discourse - is replete with action taken by NGOs (international, as well as national, environmental as well as indigenous peoples’ organizations). Defining NGOs is not an easy task. There have been a lot of ambiguities in defining as to what NGOs actually are. In academic literature, NGOs are often defined in the negative i.e. what they are not. For example, NGOs are not government supported or government-aided organizations and they are certainly notfor-profit organizations which do not support government funding in their activities (Charnovitz 2006; Willetts 1996; Yamin 2001; Raustiala 1997; Martens 2005). For the purpose of this paper, an NGO is defined as “a non-profit entity whose members are citizens or associations of citizens of one or more countries and whose activities are determined by the collective will of its members in response to the needs of the members or of one or more communities with which the NGO cooperates” (United Nations 1994). Since the early 19th century, NGOs have been involved in a number of issues such as women rights, refugees, development aid, narcotics, environment, trade issues and so on (Charnovitz 2006, 186-188). The engagement of NGOs in the domain of environment goes back to the mid1940s when the outbreak of the Second World War had caused global environmental degradation. The formation of NGOs such as International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) around this time exemplifies this point. It would be sufficed to mention that the work of NGOs became more intense since the 1970s1 as a result of the environmental movements. The involvement of NGOs particularly in the climate change discourse is quite 1 The Stockholm Conference on Human and Environment was organized in 1972. This was the first attempt made by the international community to take into account the tremendous work done by NGOs. Hence this conference started with the active involvement of NGOs on the environment theme which has continued since. The Rio Conference of 1992 was the next important event and thereafter, international conferences have witnessed a surge in the involvement and participation of NGOs.


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recent simply because growing debates on the question of climate change is a phenomenon that took place in the 1990s. Many academic scholars credit NGOs for the benefits they have in terms of first-hand information and knowledge which make these NGOs stand out (Betsill & Corell 2001, 75). This is especially true in case of the climate change regime because NGO reports on such issues have had a greater impact through awareness campaigns and generation of knowledge about the problem as opposed to the IPCC reports which were written in such a scientific and technical language that it became difficult for common people to understand the gravity of the issue. Agenda-setting is the foremost function played by these NGOs. The Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 is a fine case in point because had it not been for the lobbying activities of IUCN, states would never have agreed to the adoption of this instrument which is so important to conserve the world’s biodiversity. NGOs are also conscience- keepers, experts, lobbyists, partners and enforcers of environmental treaties (Yamin 2001, 153-160). NGOs participate in the climate change negotiations through their constituencies as observer organizations. Since 1995 when the first climate change summit took place in Berlin, the participation of NGOs has increased manifold. As of 2013, there were around 1600 NGOs which participated annually in the climate change summits. Climate change summits are highly official conferences where state parties are present along with many groups of constituencies. Given such circumstances in high plenary meetings, NGOs often resort to inside/outside advocacy tactics. Inside tactics mostly relate to lobbying state delegations and people with decision-making authority; outside tactics are related to the mobilization of public opinion through the media. In recent climate change summits (2009 onwards) NGOs have resorted to the means of organizing parallel NGO Forums, side events, and exhibits, participating in protests and demonstrations in order to make the states amenable towards their goals (Betzold 2013, 5). A detailed account of these types of activities undertaken by NGOs is explained in the next section with reference to indigenous peoples.

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5. Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change: Role of Non-State Actors It is estimated that there are over 370 million indigenous peoples spread across 90 countries across the globe (UNPFII 2006). They are known by different names, for example, the Lakotas in the Great Plains of North America, Aymaras in Bolivia, Inuits in Canada and Greenland, Saami in the Scandinavian countries, Adivasis in India, Ogoni in Nigeria, Orang Asli in Malaysia, Masai in Kenya, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia, Maoris in New Zealand, and many more. Indigenous peoples are the original inhabitants of their lands and they share an emotional/spiritual bond with their lands and natural resources. Because of their original occupancy, the indigenous peoples in Canada and America are also known as the First Peoples or Native Americans. They had been forcibly removed from their lands after the advent of European colonization. There is a lot of debate and contention on the exact definition 2 of indigenous peoples; this paper prefers to accept the definition that these peoples are ‘those who inhabited a country or a geographic region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived, the new arrivals later became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement or other means’ (Das 2001, 26). In contemporary times, indigenous peoples are regarded as one of the most vulnerable sections of the populations in the states, marked by extreme poverty, the absence of medical and health assistance, and low education standards. In spite of being culturally rich, indigenous peoples are considered to be the reservoirs of traditional knowledge, they continue to remain marginalized and impoverished. The case of indigenous peoples as a domestic issue gaining prominence at the international level is a clear and true example of the

2

The definition of indigenous peoples was a matter of conflict between the states and indigenous peoples at the time the Declaration was being drafted. This is because the states wanted the indigenous groups to be defined and this was unacceptable to these communities. This is because of the varying heterogeneous diversity that exists among indigenous groups, defining indigenous peoples was considered an uphill task. Indigenous peoples themselves do not want their category to be defined. Therefore self-identification is seen as an important marker as to who the indigenous peoples are rather than relying on a definition given by states or other international organizations.


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‘boomerang model’ 3 suggested by Keck and Sikkink (1998). This is because as is espoused in the model, indigenous peoples raised an international issue in the1970s because their concerns and issues were not paid attention to by their own states. The indigenous peoples finally reached the international level (by presenting their concerns to the ILO, United Nations) through active lobbying and activism organized both nationally and internationally through their own organizations (commonly referred to as indigenous peoples’ organizations). Thus it can be reflected that NGOs have contributed to the cause of indigenous peoples (by highlighting their issues at international platforms) in addressing their environmental concerns (by assisting them to have a place in the international climate change summits). Most of the indigenous peoples of the world inhabit areas which are rich in biological diversity. One can find indigenous peoples in the rainforest areas of Brazil, Central America, South-east Asia, Philippines, and Indonesia. These regions being the traditional and ancestral homelands of the indigenous peoples clearly exhibit the kind of pious and virtuous relationship they have with their natural environment. In reciprocity, these regions of high biodiversity are also dependent on indigenous peoples because of the latter’s unadorned way of life and their traditional knowledge through which they have been able to sustain their environment since time immemorial (Perrett 1998, 378). The physical location of these indigenous peoples in areas of high biodiversity makes them highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The Arctic region is a testament to this. Land that was once easily walked upon is now marred with marsh/slush ice fields. This has rendered the movement of the Inuit people in the region rather difficult (Martinez 2014). Climate change in the Arctic has caused changes in the migratory patterns of reindeers which are a food source for the Inuits in the region. 3

The boomerang model as espoused by Keck & Sikkink talks about how issues which do not gain recognition at the national level reach the international level with help, assistance and networking between local and international NGOs. This networking results in a ‘boomerang effect’ whereby local issues gain international attention with the help of NGOs. Thus, where local NGOs contribute authentic information and local knowledge, international NGOs often pool in large number of resources for the local issue to be heard at the international level. These networks, also known as transnational ‘coalitions’ have proved to be very effective in the international realm and contribute to the effective functioning of NGOs in a big way. The case of indigenous peoples is an illustration of this boomerang pattern.

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Similar cases can be found in Africa, Pacific Rim Islands and Latin American countries where indigenous peoples living in the tropical forests and those living in the islands have been displaced from their original traditional land. Rising sea levels have played havoc with the lives of people in the Pankhali region in Bangladesh and the island nations of Maldives. Around three thousand residents of the Carteret Islands in the South Pacific have already been evacuated to Papua New Guinea (Martinez 2014, 74). This physical displacement of indigenous peoples from their generations’ old habitat has had a very disturbing impact on their psyche and lifestyle. Thus, while climate change may mean just physical destruction, from the vantage point of the indigenous peoples it embodies not just physical, but emotional, psychological, spiritual and cultural destruction (Nilsson 2008, 12). Climate change has a direct impact on indigenous peoples. For example, the physical destruction of their habitats (as was the case with the Tuvalu island communities when rising sea levels led to the complete submergence of Tuvalu Islands in the South Pacific thereby displacing them). Climate change heavily impacts the agricultural activity of indigenous peoples. For example, glacier melts in Bolivia have permanently altered the hundreds of years old sustainable agricultural lands (Martinez 2014). Variations in climate affect crop production which has had an adverse effect on the food security or food sovereignty of many indigenous communities residing in developing countries. Climate change also has a destructive impact on the traditional tribal foods such as fungi, berries, algae which have now become scarce due to the erratic change in weather conditions (Kathy 2013, 550). Climate change has also affected their cultural and spiritual ways of life. Indigenous peoples worship sacred groves in mountains, glacial lakes, and waters. Often their deities are found in high altitude mountainous regions. Receding mountains due to forces of climate change have led to the physical destruction of cultural spaces of indigenous peoples (Nilsson 2008, 12). This was the case with the indigenous communities in Tibet and upper Himalayan region. The climate change mitigation measures discussed among states as the best means available to combat climate change has also had a serious impact on the lives of indigenous peoples. Developing alternative forms of renewable energy is seen as the best viable mitigation measure by states. However, this development of renewable energy sources such as the creation of hydro-electric dams, generation of nuclear power installations,


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growing oil palm plantations all takes place on the lands of indigenous peoples without taking their free, prior and informed consent4 (a principle enshrined in their Declaration of 2007) (Brugnach 2014, 6). The grim situation of communities, vis-á-vis the growing threat of climate change warrants a solution. The solution to the problem could be the inclusion of indigenous peoples as stakeholders in the official climate change summits. Indigenous peoples are no doubt the victims of climate change events but armed with their hundreds of years of accumulated traditional knowledge5 , indigenous peoples could play a pivotal role in combating and thwarting the ill-effects of climate change. For example, in South America, the Makushi people move from their savannah homes to forest areas during droughts based on their traditional knowledge. In Bangladesh, the concept of floating gardens has been instituted by the indigenous communities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts to save their agricultural produce from flooding (UNPFII undated, 1). It is here that the role of NGOs becomes prominent. When the UNFCCC was negotiated in 1992 there was no discussion on the impacts of climate change on indigenous peoples per se, even though indigenous peoples were labeled as ‘Major Groups’ in Agenda 21. It was only in 1998 that the indigenous peoples attended climate change summit. Since then, they have kept a close eye on the proceedings of international climate change summits and through regional caucuses organized by NGOs, they issued many declarations such as The Hague Declaration, and The Anchorage Declaration, requiring the attention of the states towards their environmental concerns. These Declarations, though they are not binding on the states, they serve as a gentle reminder to the states about their responsibilities towards the environment. 4

The characteristics of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (commonly known as FPIC) are: a) free i.e. the consultation process between state or project officials and indigenous peoples should be voluntary and the consent of the indigenous peoples should be given freely under no pressure, b) prior i.e. permission from the respective indigenous peoples is to be taken before the project is given a green signal to the borrowing state, c) informed i.e. the people who are going to be affected should have full knowledge of what is going to happen to their area, and their livelihood. 5 Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of indigenous peoples is understood as ‘the process of participating fully and responsibly in such relationships (between knowledge, people, all of Creation). It is not just about understanding relationships, it is the relationship with the Creation. TEK is inseparable from the people who hold it’.

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In 2001, indigenous peoples were able to form their own constituency, the ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Organization’ (IPO). The main function of the constituency was to ‘facilitate the exchange of information between the Secretariat and other observer organizations’. One very important role of the constituency was seen in its role of ‘providing formal input into the negotiating process through formal submission of their positions to the secretariat’ (Schroeder 2010, 324-325). These inputs seek to notify, support and influence voting of member countries. The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) was constituted as the main body of the indigenous constituency in the UNFCCC process which was kept open to those indigenous activists who wishes to deliberate in the international negotiations on climate change. The IPO was actively involved in the deliberations in the COP15 in 2009 at Copenhagen in order to include indigenous peoples’ concerns in the international process (Martinez 2014, 72). The concerns of these communities were brought out at the forefront by NGOs such as the Climate Justice Action, Climate Justice Now and 350.org at parallel events or ‘side events’ (Martinez 2014, 79). These side events have become very popular and informative over the years. The side events now serve as an official forum for non-state actors to voice their concerns. Some of the issues raised at these side events often find their way into the main agenda (for example issues related to adaptation of climate change and REDD) (Nasiritousi et al. 2014, 179). These are covered daily by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin which is used as a platform to keep the general public informed about the proceedings in the official meetings. During the 14th and 15th COP meetings, 200 side events were organized of which six dealt with the issues of indigenous peoples (Schroeder 2010, 325). In fact, the concerns of indigenous peoples were raised substantially during the COP12 in 2006 owing to two side events which implicitly talked about their needs and concerns relating to climate change6. 6

In 2006, two side events held special importance for indigenous peoples as their issues were indirectly highlighted. First, the ‘Impacts of carbon trading on indigenous people’ was organized by the Institute of Cultural Affairs. The second event which had a bearing on the indigenous people was the ‘Livelihood adaptation: How to include local coping strategies in reducing climate impacts’. These two side events discussed the rights of these peoples to be impacted by climate change. More explicitly, the Nairobi Work Programme which discussed the local and indigenous knowledge to be considered in the adaptation methods to combat climate change was adopted.


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While side events are organized inside the venue of official discussions, parallel events are increasingly organized by NGOs outside the venue. During the 15th COP in Copenhagen, an Indigenous Peoples Day was organized by NGOs as a part of this parallel event to demonstrate the centrality of indigenous peoples in the climate change talks (Schroeder 2010, 325). The protest march organized during the COP15 can also be labeled as a part of a parallel event. Thus even though non-state actors particularly NGOs have played a major role in alleviating the interests of indigenous peoples at the international level, there are some challenges that need to be taken care of. Not all non-state actors at climate change discourses work in favor of these peoples. There are other categories of non-state actors like a business and industry groups (BINGOs). And in the climate change processes such as UNFCCC, there is no doubt that such business groups are more influential than the environmental groups or NGOs (Betzold 2013, 7). The discussion on REDD is a clear illustration of this. Business groups favor REDD as a mitigation measure to combat climate change without the inclusion of the communities who dwell in these forests. Putting a curb on the burning of fossil fuels such as coal thwarts their financial interests. Also, the loyalty of NGOs representing indigenous peoples in these climate change negotiations is a big question mark. NGOs have constantly been attacked by states as a ploy to disturb the sovereignty equation. It is also not clear as to why international NGOs such as Climate Action Network dwell on issues of indigenous peoples- is it out of real concern and giving voice to the voiceless, or just to gain legitimacy in international affairs?

5. Conclusion The inclusion of NGOs in the climate change regime is a twentiethcentury phenomenon. Climate change is a challenge which has to be dealt with by the states in cooperation with all the stakeholders. However, the failed meetings in Copenhagen or Durban over the years have shown the incapability of the states to tackle the problem of climate change on their own. NGOs have helped to solve this problem by opening up a dialogue between states in closed-door meetings. Based on their knowledge, information, and networking skills these NGOs have been able to bring forth the hitherto unheard voices of many vulnerable communities. Indigenous peoples share a sacred bond with their pristine environment which has been endangered due to climate change. In fact, there have

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already been casualties in terms of a direct and indirect physical, social, cultural, spiritual and psychological impact on the well-being of indigenous peoples. Thus a better way for the NGOs to fight climate change is to get their concerns heard at the international level. By way of lobbying states, presenting testimonies of indigenous peoples, and hosting side events dedicated to the cause of indigenous peoples, the NGOs have been able to create a constituency for them in the climate change negotiations. However, a lot more needs to be done to improve their conditions. The continued role of NGOs in this regard would be definitely beneficial for the indigenous peoples. And this can be achieved by better cooperation between states and these non-state actors. A more simplistic way would be to get more indigenous peoples’ organizations accredited with ECOSOC. There are some international IPOs which are currently accredited. However, there is a need on the part of the United Nations to engage with those local indigenous peoples’ organizations which work on issues related to the environment in general and climate change in particular.

References Abate, Randall S., & Kronk, Elizabeth Ann. 2013. “Commonality among Unique Indigenous Communities: An Introduction to Climate Change and its Impact on Indigenous Peoples”. In Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: The Search for Legal Remedies, edited by R. Abate and E. A. Kronk. Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Andersen, Nicholas. 2009. “REDDy or not? The Effects on Indigenous Peoples in Brazil of a Global Mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation”. Journal of Sustainable Development 2 (3):18-28. Betsill, Michele M., & Corell, Elisabeth. 2001. “NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: A Framework for Analysis”. Global Environmental Politics 1 (4); 65-85. Betzold, Carola. 2013. “Non-State Actors in International Climate Change Negotiations: A Synthesis” National Centre of Competence in Research Working Paper No. 61. Bhushan, Chandra. 2014. “Mumbai, Leh, Uttarakhand & now J&K: Is climate change causing these extreme rainfall events”, (30 August 2015). Brugnach, M., Craps. M., & Dewulf, A. 2014. “Including Indigenous Peoples in Climate Change Mitigation: Addressing Issues of Scale, Knowledge and Power”. Climatic Change.


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Charnovitz, Steve. 2006. “Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance”. Michigan Journal of International Law 18: 183-286. Das, J. K. 2001. Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples. New Delhi: APH Publishing. Doolittle, Amity A. 2010. “The politics of Indigeneity: Indigenous Strategies for Inclusion in Climate Change Negotiations”. Conservation and Society 8: 286-291. Downie, Christian. 2014. “Transnational actors in environmental politics: strategies and influence in long negotiations”. Environmental Politics 23 (3): 376-394. Gough, Clair, & Shackley, Simon. 2001. “The Respectable Politics of Climate Change: The Epistemic Communities and NGOs”, International Affairs 77 (2): 329-345. Gupta, Joyeeta. 2003. “The Role of Non-State Actors in International Environmental Affairs” ZaoRV 63: 459-486. Hansungule, Michelo, & Jegede, Ademola Oluborode. 2014. “The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Peoples’ Land Tenure and Use: The Case for a Regional Policy in Africa”. International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 21: 256-291. Johns, TC, et al. 2003. “Anthropogenic climate change for 1860 to 2100 simulated with the HadCM3 model under updated emissions scenarios”. Climate Dynamics 20: 583-612. Kathy, Lynn, et al. 2013. “The Impacts of Climate Change on Tribal Traditional Foods”. Climatic Change 120: 545-556. Keck, Margaret E., & Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. New York: Cornell University Press. Martinez, Doreen E. 2014. “The Right to be Free of Fear: Indigeneity and the United Nations”. Wicazo Sa Review 29 (2): 63-87. Nasiritousi, N., et al. 2014. “Pluralising climate change solutions? Views held and voiced by participants at the international climate change negotiations”. Ecological Economics 105: 177-184. Nilsson, Christina. 2008. “Climate Change from an Indigenous Perspective: Key Issues and Challenges”. Indigenous Affairs l.1 (2): 8-15. Pearlman, Wendy, & Cunningham, Kathleen Gallagher. 2012. “Nonstate Actors, Fragmentation and Conflict Processes”. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 56 (1): 3-15. Perrett, Roy W. 1998. “Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice”. Environmental Ethics 20, (4): 377-391.

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Powless, Ben. 2012. “An Indigenous Movement to Confront Climate Change”. Globalizations 9 (3):411-424. Raustiala, Kal. 1997. “The “Participatory Revolution” in International Environmental Law”. Harvard Environmental Law Review 21: 537586. Richardson, Benjamin J. 2001. “Indigenous Peoples, International Law and Sustainability”. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law 10 (1):1-12. Schroeder, Heike. 2010. “Agency in international climate negotiations: the case of indigenous peoples and avoided deforestation”. International Environmental Agreements 10: 317-332. Stavenhagen, Rodolfo. 2009. “Indigenous Peoples as New Citizens of the World”. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 4 (1): 1-15. UNPFII. 2006. “Who are Indigenous Peoples”, (21 August 2015). UNPFII. 2007. Climate Change: An Overview. New York: United Nations. UNPFII. Undated. Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: Backgrounder. New York, United Nations. Willetts, Peter. 1996. “Introduction”. In The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organizations in the UN System, edited by Peter Willetts. London, Hurst & Company. Williams, Jay. 2012. “The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous People- the Implications for the Cultural, Spiritual, Economic and Legal Rights of Indigenous People”. The International Journal of Human Rights 16 (4): 648-688. Yamin, Farhana. 2001. “NGOs and International Environmental Law: A Critical Evaluation of their Roles and Responsibilities”. Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (RECIEL) 10 (2): 149-162.

CHAPTER NINE CLIMATE CHANGE—A THREAT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF INDIA: UNDERSTANDING AND IDENTIFYING THE KEY THREATS TO INDIAN NATIONAL SECURITY EMANATING FROM CLIMATE CHANGE PAVAN KUMAR1

1. Introduction The question of survival and security are the fundamental questions before any individual, community, group or state. This has always been the question of debate, discussion and writing in all fields of knowledge. Apart from being an intellectual exercise, questions or survival and security lead to conflicts and wars among individuals, groups, and state. The threat perception has been changing from time to time, but states (be it in the form of city-state, nation-state or some other form) are always the key actors in security. Over a period of time, space and ideology, ideas of threat have manifested in different forms. National security is about protecting the boundary from external actors. But what should be done when the external actor is a state? How do we recognize the enemy? How to solve the threats in absence of a clear enemy? There is no one single actor who can be made responsible for climate change. Climate change is a problem which will impact all the actors and has the capacity to pose a threat to a nation’s national security. This paper is an attempt to understand these questions in the light of climate change and the Indian national security.

1

Center for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

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2. Security and Survival In international Politics Issues of security are a primary objective for individuals and states alike. The state is a larger group which claims to provide security to its citizens. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes writes that the psychology of individuals and states in an anarchic environment makes them fearful and uncertain about the intentions of the others. It is a state of war, of all against all. So a leviathan is required to solve the problem of anarchy in the state of nature. But in the state of nature of international politics, states are left with only one option for their survival, to safeguard its national interest (Hobbes ch.1, 13 cited in Forde 1992). This analysis was later given a systemic shape by Kenneth Waltz (1979) in his Theory of International Politics. Waltz provided the background for considering the state as the primary unit for survival and security. Later, after the end of the Cold War, this analysis was challenged. There was large scale poverty, unemployment and civil wars across the globe. States whose primary responsibility was to give protection to their citizens were seen as the aggressors.

2.1. Survival in International Politics International relations as a discipline have always been dominated by a state-centric view of Realism. The realist state is the coherent and unitary actor. For theoretical usefulness, the state is considered to be the most important actors in the international system. States are the units whose interactions form the structure of the international political system (Waltz 1979, 93-95). The question of survival is about the survival of states in the international system which is anarchic in nature. There is no world government or rule of law which can punish the violator and this leaves the state in a position to adopt self-help as the only way out for survival from the outside threats. Thomas Hobbes writes that there is a jungle out there and there is no rule of law in anarchy or state of nature (Hobbes ch.1, 13 cited in Forde 1992). Self-help is necessarily the principle of action in an anarchic order.

2.2. Concept and Definitions of Security Security is equated with survival in the realist theory of international relations. Whenever we discuss security, it concerns the security of the state from external threats which is the result of realist domination in the

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discipline (Booth 2007). But it is not merely about survival. The meaning of security goes beyond survival. In an article on “National Security”, Arnold Wolfer (1952) described it as an ambiguous symbol. For the realist theory, the state was a unitary and rational actor and because of security dilemma states cannot trust each other and the only solution for survival is building up more arms for its own survival or selfhelp. National security, thus, means the reduction of threats in military terms. The modern approach, which characterizes the period after the end of the Cold War, has extended the concept of national security beyond the above scope and defines it in a holistic sense. Apart from military concerns and the national perspective, it covers almost all the non-military aspects and non-state factors of security from economic security to environmental security, and from social security to human security. In this case, there is no difference between national security and overall security (Booth 2007). In Ian Bellamy’s (1981, 102) words: “…security itself is a relative freedom from war coupled with relatively high expectations that defeat will not be a consequence of any war that should occur”.

In the UNDP reports it says: “In the final analysis, human security is a child who did not die (because there was no shortage of food and medicine), a disease that did not spread, a job that was not cut (no unemployment), an ethnic tension that did not explode in violence (ethnic tolerance), a dissident who was not silenced (democracy). Human security is not a concern with weapons––it is a concern with human life and dignity’’ (UNDP 1994, 229).

In the powerful words of Ken Booth, survival is about life and security is about living. Survival is about continuing to exist. It is an existential condition. But what is the importance of the individual if he/she is living without any dignity and basic rights in conditions of fear, inequality discrimination, exploitation, and oppression?

3. Climate Change: Causes and Impacts Before going into the details of climate change and its impact, it is necessary to understand what we mean by climate and climate change.

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Climate can be defined as the general or average weather conditions of a certain region. It includes temperature, rainfall, and wind pattern over a long period of time. If it is happening for a few days then it cannot be considered as climate change. But if there is a pattern in temperature, rainfall, and winds then it is climate change. The climate system is a complex and interactive system. It consists of the atmosphere, land surface, snow and ice, oceans and other bodies of water, and living things (Climate Emergency Institute). According to the Oxford Dictionary, climate change is defined as: changes in the earth's weather, including changes in temperature, wind patterns and rainfall, especially the increase in the temperature of the earth's atmosphere that is caused by the increase of particular gases, especially carbon dioxide. (Oxford Dictionary 2000)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) identifies 10 indicators of climate change, which are following1. Sea level. 2. Melting of Glaciers, 3. Tropospheric Temperature 4. Snow cover 5. Temperature over land 6. Ocean heat content 7. Sea ice 8. Sea Surface Temperature 9. Humidity 10. Temperature over oceans (NOAA) According to the estimation of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this Century might see a rise in temperature from 0.3ºC to 6.4ºC. In Southern Asia, the mean annual increase is projected to be around 3.8℃ in the Tibetan plateau, 3.3℃ in South Asia, and 2.5℃ in South East Asia (Pai 2008). These changes in global temperature will affect all spheres of life from food security, health, and water availability to the refugee problem, floods, drought and conflict over resources. Climate change is a complex process. It happened over a long period of time and involved many factors. Emission of Green House Gases is considered to be the main cause of global warming. Global warming means an increase in average surface temperature. There are two types of causes which are responsible for the changes in the climate and these can be categorized as natural causes and man-made causes. In natural causes,


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volcanic activity, solar output, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun are the main causes of climate change. Under man-made causes, emission of greenhouse gases is the most important factors. Greenhouse gases include water vapor, CO2, methane, and ozone. These gases keep the earth warm. In the absence of these gases, this planet would have frozen. It keeps the earth warm by absorbing the needed heat from solar heat. But as the amount of these gases increase the amount of heat presence on the earth’s surface also increases.

3.1. Measures taken to Mitigate Climate Change The United Nations took the lead in 1992 by creating United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC). It started as a voluntary effort of the member nations to curb the emission of greenhouse gases. Countries from the developing world asked for more space for developing and developed countries were left to do more (UNFCC). In 1997 countries signed a legally binding treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gases emission. It legally binds the developed countries to reduce greenhouse gases emissions. 3.1.1. Timeline of Cooperation on Climate Change • 1988, November - IPCC established with the help of WMO and UNEP. • November 1990 - IPCC and Second World Climate Conference Call for Global Treaty. • December 1990 - UN General Assembly Negotiations on a Framework Convention Begin. • May 1992 - Convention Adopted. • June 1992 - UNFCCC Opens for Signature at Rio Earth Summit. • March 21, 1994 - UNFCCC Enters into Force. • April 1995 – Berlin - Germany's then Environment Minister, Angela Merkel, presides over the first Conference of the Parties (COP 1) in Berlin, where Parties agreed that commitments in the Convention were "inadequate" for meeting Convention objectives. • December 11, 1997 - Kyoto Protocol adopted to curb the greenhouse gases. • July 2001 - at Bonn. A major breakthrough is achieved at the Sixth COP meeting in Bonn, with governments reaching a broad political agreement on the operational rulebook for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

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• November 2001 – Marrakesh - The Seventh Conference of the Parties results in the Marrakesh Accords. It set the stage for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Here operational rules for International Emissions Trading, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation along with a compliance regime and accounting procedures were formalized. • January 2005 - EU Emissions Trading Launches. • February 16, 2005 - Kyoto Protocol Enters into Force. • January 2006 - Clean Development Mechanism Opens. • December 2009 - Copenhagan - Joint Implementation Mechanism Starts. • December 2010 Cancun - The Sixteenth Conference of the Parties results in the Cancun Agreements, a comprehensive package by governments to assist developing nations in dealing with climate change. The Green Climate Fund, the Technology Mechanism, and the Cancun Adaptation Framework are established. • December 2011 - Durban. • December 2012 - Doha. • September 27, 2013 - IPCC Releases 2nd Part of Fifth Assessment Report. • September 2014 - UN Secretary-General's Climate Summit.

4. Impact of Climate Change on Indian National Security There have been alarming effects of global warming on the climate of India. Out of 35 states and UTs, 27 are disaster prone. Most of the disasters are water related. At some places it is because of floods and in others, it is because of droughts. Every year millions of people are displaced due to floods in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal. Due to lack of water for farming, farmers in Bundelkhand, Telangana, Maharashtra and other parts live in abject poverty. The process of global warming has led to an increase in the frequency and intensity of these climatic disasters. According to surveys, in the year 2007-2008, India ranked the third highest in the world in the number of natural disasters, with 18 such events in one year, resulting in the death of 1103 people due to these catastrophes (Haji Saud 2013). The following can be considered as threats to national security due to climate change: a) Displacement - During the last century, the average sea level has risen by 1.5-2 mm/year (Douglas 1997). There are predictions that this will speed up in the coming years as glaciers start melting at a faster


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pace. It is likely to contribute to the movement of people within and beyond borders. Large-scale migrations will lead to a possibility of social disruption, problems of border control, pressure on public goods and services and rivalry over resources. The IPCC while reporting on coastal areas like the Maldives point out that: “Because of their low elevation and small size, many small island states are threatened with partial or virtually total inundation by future rises in sea level. In addition, increased intensity or frequency of cyclones could harm many of these islands”. (IPCC 2014)

Many low lying countries will also face submergence of coastal areas. States like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the South will face a huge crisis over land. More than 17% of the land will be lost in the next 40 years and this may lead to displacement of more than 18 million people. b) Melting of Glaciers – Due to the increase in global surface temperature, the Himalayan glaciers have started melting; it is already responsible for the perennial rivers which are the foundation of lives in many parts of Asia. Rivers like the Ganga and Brahmaputra which originate in the Himalayan glaciers will also be adversely affected and this will further impact the life of those people downstream. c) Floods- Increased global surface temperature, which will lead to melting of global at a much faster rate. This will eventually result in increased flood patterns across the globe. Period

1953-57 1958-62 1963-67 1968-72 1973-77 1978-82 1983-87 1988-92 1993-97 1998-2002 2003-06

Average area affected in thousand hectares 6664 6448 4342 7832 9606 9588 9162 8531 6821.4 5382.5 2867.5

Average population in millions

Average human loss in thousand

Average cattle loss in thousand

16.76 11.714 12.636 34.53 44.956 46.518 55.80 37.42 33.66 26.89 23.864

399 648 347.2 1503.8 3022.2 2379 1775.6 2109 1992.2 2143.25 1563.75

33 31.8 6.4 98 186.2 249 105.2 96 73 59.03 34.14

Impact of Flood in India (1953-2006)

Average economic loss in millions rupee 140 148 98 1162 2542 6382 17540 14928 16090 16863.3 N.A

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d) Food security - Changes in climatic patterns will severely affect agricultural production across the globe. Countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh which are already struggling with the problem of food insecurity will find it difficult to provide for its people. e) Droughts - Around 68% of India’s land area is drought prone and 33 percent is chronically drought-prone. Areas of Rajasthan and Bundelkhand experience longer and very intense droughts in the country. In the last 20 years, more than 3 lakh farmers have committed suicide in the country in these drought-prone areas (Sainath 2015). Climate change has increased the occurrence of these droughts which will impact the economy and lives of the people. f) India – Pakistan Conflict over Water Sharing - The sharing of Indus water among India and Pakistan was one of the bones of contention in the history of these two countries (Pai 2008). As the climate crisis worsens, this water conflict may lead to a full-scale war. g) India-China Conflict over Water - Tibet is the source of many Asian rivers including the Brahmaputra and Indus. But China has recently started many inter-basin and inter-river projects on the Tibetan plateau (Chellaney 2009). China is also building dams on every river, except the Indus and Salween. This threatens the water availability scenario in India and other neighboring countries. As India and China are water-stressed economies this can lead to conflicts of interest between the countries. h) Sea Level Rise- Sea level is expected to rise from 0.1 to 0.9 m. This rise will have a significant impact on the people living in the coastal areas. A one-meter sea level rise is projected to have the capability of displacing approximately 7.1 million people in India. About 5,764 Km of land is expected to be lost, along with 4200 Km of the road (GoI 2004b, cited in Chauhan 2011). The coastal areas of Mumbai (with a population of 11.9 million in 2015), Calcutta (14.1 million in 2011) and Chennai (4.6 million in 2011) lie only a few meters above sea level. People face the risks of storm and flood disasters. According to Myres (1993), approximately 142 million people may inhabit coastal India by 2050 and India’s total number of flood zone refugees alone could be anywhere between 20 and 60 million (Myers 1993, cited in Chauhan 2009).


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5. Steps taken by India At the international level, India is party to the UNFCC and the Kyoto Protocol. On the domestic front, India established the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change (PMCCC) to evolve a coordinated nationallevel response to this issue in 2007. The purpose of this Council was to provide oversight on key policy decisions. The Government launched the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), containing ‘eight national missions’, with the aim of addressing climate change in a manner that would also generate development ‘co-benefits’ (GOI 2008, Cited in Sengupta 2012). These eight national missions are as follows1) National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency: New institutional mechanisms to enable the development and Energy Efficiency strengthening of energy efficiency markets. 2) National Solar Mission: deploy 20,000 MW of solar electricity capacity in the country by 2020. 3) National Mission on Sustainable Habitat: It focuses on the promotion of the introduction of sustainable transport, energyefficient buildings, Sustainable Habitat and sustainable waste management in cities. 4) National Water Mission: Integrated management of water resources and an increase of Mission water use efficiency by 20 percent. 5) National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem: Observational and monitoring network for the Himalayan Ecosystem environment so as to assess climate impacts on the Himalayan glaciers and promote community-based management of these ecosystems 6) National Mission for Green India: Afforest an additional 10 million hectare of forest lands, wastelands and community lands 7) National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture: Enhancing productivity and resilience of agriculture to reduce vulnerability to extremes of weather, long dry spells, flooding, and variable moisture availability. 8) National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change: Challenges arising from climate change, promotes the development Knowledge on Climate Change and diffusion of knowledge on responses to these challenges in the areas of health, demography, migration, and livelihood of coastal communities.

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6. Conclusion India, as a developing country is facing and will continue to face many problems in terms of development. Natural disasters which result from climate change will put a burden on its progress. India has been a key actor from the global South in international politics and it needs to maintain that position, otherwise, it will not be able to garner the support for the change in policies which affects climate change. At the same time, it has to maintain and strengthen its ties with the developed world but not be at the cost of millions of its citizens of the South.

References Bellamy, Ian. 1981. “Towards a Theory of International Security”. Political Studies 29 (1): 100-5. Booth, Ken. 2007. Theory of World Security. London, Cambridge University Press. Chauhan, S. 2009. “Climate Change, Disasters and Security: Issues, Concerns and Implications for India”. Conference paper presented at Environmental Policy: A Multinational Conference on Policy Analysis and Teaching Methods, (24 September 2015). Chellaney, Brahma. 2009. “Climate Risks to Indian National Security”. In Indian Climate Policy: Choices and Challenges, edited by David Michel and Amit Pandya. Washington D.C.: The Henry L. Stimson Center Climate Emergency Institute. “Global Warming and Its Impacts on Climate of India”, (24 September 2015). Cook, John. 2010. “10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change”, (25 September 2015). Douglas, Bruce C. 1997. “Global Sea Rise: A Redetermination”. Surveys in Geophysics 18 (2): 279-292 Forde, Steven. 1992. “Classical Realism”. In Traditions of International Ethics, edited by Nardin and Mapel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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Haji Saud, Anisah Sajidahbinti. 2013, “Global warming and its Impacts on Climate of India”, (29 September 2015). Hobbes, Thomas. 2006 [1651]. Leviathan. London: Green Dragon IPCC. 2006. 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, (29 September 2015). Marz, John E. 1980. Beyond Security: Private Perceptions Among Arabs and Israelis. New York, International Peace Academy Mearsheimer, J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: Norton. Myers, N. 1993. “Environmental refugees in a globally warmed world”. Bioscience 43. Nasrullah, M. Mirza. 2008. “Water, War and Peace: Linkages and Scenarios in India-Pakistan Relations”. Working Paper No. 37, Hiedelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics, University of Hiedelberg, NOAA. Pai, Nitin. 2008. “Climate Change and National Security: Preparing India for New Conflict Scenarios”. The Indian National Interest Policy Brief, Sainath, P. 2015. “The slaughter of suicide data”, (18 September 2015). Sengupta, Sandeep. 2012. “Climate Change and India’s National Strategy”. In Grand Strategy for India: 2020 and Beyond, edited by KrishnappaVenkatshamy and Princy George. New Delhi: IDSA and Pentagon Security International. Solomon, et al. 2007. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, UNDP. 1994. Human Development Report 1994. New York: Oxford University Press. UNDP. 2011. Human Development Report 2011: Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. UNFCC. “UNFCCC: 20 Years of Effort and Achievement Key Milestones in the Evolution of International Climate Policy”, (27 September 2015). Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics. New York: Random House. Wolfer, Arnold. 1952. “National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol”. Political Science Quarterly 67 (4): 481-502.

CHAPTER TEN CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON AFRICAN AGRICULTURE ALEMU ABOTA ADARE

1. Introduction There is significant concern about the impacts of climate change and its variability on agricultural production worldwide. First, issues of food security figure prominently in the list of human activities and ecosystem services under threat of dangerous anthropogenic interference on the Earth's climate. Second, each country is naturally concerned with potential damages and benefits that may arise over the coming decades from climate change impacts on its territory as well as globally, since these will affect domestic and international policies, trading patterns, resource use, regional planning and ultimately, the welfare of its people (Jacobs & Flammini 2014). Current research confirms that while crops would respond positively to elevated CO2 in the absence of climate change the associated impacts of high temperatures, altered patterns of precipitation and possibly increased frequency of extreme events such as drought and floods, will probably combine to depress yields and increase production risks in many world regions, widening the gap between the rich and poor countries. A consensus has emerged that developing countries are more vulnerable to climate change than developed countries, because of the predominance of agriculture in their economies, the scarcity of capital for adaptation measures, their warmer baseline climates and their heightened exposure to extreme events. Thus, climate change may have particularly serious consequences in the developing world, where some 800 million people are undernourished. Of great concern is a group of more than 40 'least-developed' countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the domestic per capita food production has declined by 10% in the last 30 years (Gunther 2005).

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The impact of climate change on Africa is likely to be severe given the direct effects, high agricultural dependence, and limited capacity to adapt. Direct effects vary widely across the continent, with some areas (e.g. Eastern Africa) predicted to get wetter, while much of Southern Africa gets drier and hotter. Crop yields will get adversely affected and the frequency of extreme weather events will increase. Adaptation to climate change is primarily a private sector response and should involve relocation of people, changes in the sectoral structure of production, and changes in crop patterns. The role of the government is primarily to provide the information, incentives, and economic environment to facilitate such changes. Adaptation will be impeded by Africa's fragmentation into small countries and ethnic groups, and by poor business environments. To alleviate this there is a need to design emissions-trading frameworks that support greater African participation than at present, and that includes the land-use change. The growing evidence from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the climate will change as greenhouse gases accumulate, has added urgency to the need to understand the consequences of warming (Pradeep 2008). Initial studies of climate change, using a variety of methods, identified Africa as one of the most vulnerable locations on the planet to climate change because it is already hot and dry, a large fraction of the economy is tied to agriculture, and the farming methods are relatively primitive. The livelihoods and welfare of hundreds of millions of Africans depend on how climate change will affect African agriculture. There have been predominantly two different methods used to measure the economic impact of climate change on African agriculture: the Crop Simulation Approach and the Ricardian Approach. The Crop Simulation Approach uses the direct effect of climate change on individual crops. Studies reveal that the yields of the major grains grown in Africa would fall precipitously with warming. The Ricardian Approach measures the relationship between net revenues from crops and climate using cross sectional evidence. This study also found that hot and dry climate scenarios would reduce crop net revenues in Africa. The Ricardian studies, however, generally estimate smaller damages than the crop simulation models. One explanation for this difference is the handling of adaptation. The Ricardian model captures endogenous adaptation, measures that farmers actually take to adjust to climate change. This adaptation is efficient. In contrast, the crop simulation studies examine only exogenous

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measures arbitrarily added by the researcher that are not necessarily efficient responses to climate change (Parry et al. 2004).

2. Impacts of Climate Change on Agricultural Resources Results from various assessments of impacts of climate change on agriculture based on various climate models and SRES emissions scenarios indicate certain agricultural areas that may undergo negative changes. It is estimated that, by 2100, parts of the Sahara are likely to emerge as the most vulnerable, showing agricultural losses ranging from 2 to 7% of GDP. Western and Central Africa is also vulnerable, with impacts ranging from 2 to 4%. Northern and Southern Africa, however, are expected to have losses of 0.4 to 1.3% (Smith 2015).

2.1. Land resources The agro-climatic assessment with climate projections shows a northward shift of thermal regimes, reducing significantly boreal and arctic ecosystems (60% reduction of current total 2.1 billion hectares). In contrast, tropical zones expand, which means, for example, that apart from a very small stretch in South Africa and a narrow fringe along the Mediterranean coast, the Tropics will cover almost all of Africa. Currently, almost 1 billion people live worldwide in arid lands; more than 180 million people in Africa alone. Under the current climate, AEZ estimates 1.1 billion hectares of arid and dry semi-arid land, i.e. with less than 120 days’ length of growing period, defined as the number of days in a year with temperature and soil moisture conditions favourable to crop cultivation (Gunther 2005).

2.2. Environmental constraints Under the current climate, AEZ computes that two-thirds of the global land surface - some 8.9 billion hectares suffer severe constraints for crop cultivation: 13.2% is too cold, 26.5% is too dry, 4.6% is too steep, 2.0% is too wet and 19.8% has poor soils (Thornton 2008). Climate change will have positive and negative impacts, as some constraints will be alleviated while others may increase. Other studies indicate that with rapid climate change these constraints may change respectively to 5.2, 29.0, 1.1, 5.7 and 24.5%. Due to climate change the agro-ecological changes will result in water deficits in some areas and surplus in others as well as increased or reduced infestation of disease pathogens and parasites. Regional analyses


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of AEZ results indicate expansions of land area with severe constraints as follows: Central America and the Caribbean (1-3% increase; AEZ simulations for current climate: 270 million hectares); Oceania and Polynesia (0.5-4.5%), Northern Africa (2-3.5%; AEZ simulations for current climate: 550 million hectares) and Western Asia (up to 1%; AEZ simulations for current climate: 435 million hectares). In Southern Africa, AEZ projects up to an additional 11% of a total land area of 265 million hectares to be at risk of being severely constrained for crop agriculture. In sub-Saharan Africa, there is a decrease of constraint-free prime land with highest suitability for crop cultivation; increase in land with moisture stress; and expansion of land with severe climate, soil or terrain constraints, and unfit for rain-fed agriculture under the current climate. In addition, decrease of good land (the sum of very suitable and suitable land), land with severe climate, soil or terrain constraints, and the extent of sub-Saharan land with severe environmental constraints to crop agriculture declines by about 15 million hectares.

2.3. Crop production The level of rainfall has a critical impact on the rate of crop yields, reducing levels of food productivity. Ethiopian farmers have adopted the range of adaptation measures, including altering crop varieties, adopting soil and water conservation and changing the planting and harvesting periods. A survey of 48 crops grown in the Nile River basin of Ethiopia showed that farmers who took up adaptation methods produce between 93-300kg per ha than those who did not alter their farming techniques, reflecting a 10-29% difference in output. Factors that increased the farmers’ capacity to adapt included: Availability of information on local climate forecasts, Access to formal and informal institutions e.g. agriculture extension services and Access to inputs, seeds, fertilizer (Thornton 2015). With the exception of the results for the NCAR model, simulations under all remaining climate scenarios indicated that Sudan, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Chad, Sierra Leone, Angola, Mozambique and Niger, would lose cereal production potential by the 2080s, across all the emission scenarios. These countries currently have 87 million undernourished, which is equivalent to 45% of the total undernourished in sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast, Zaire, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Cote d'Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Guinea were all projected to gain cereal-production potential

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by the 2080s. These eight gaining countries currently have 73 million undernourished which is equivalent to 38% of the undernourished population in sub-Saharan Africa. The study indicates the spatial heterogeneity of impacts on cereal production capacity, allowing for crops witching and changes in crop calendars, in the 2080s relative to the current climate. Two important factors arise from further aggregating such results. First, the net balance of changes in cereal production potential for subSaharan Africa was projected to be negative, with net losses of up to 12%. Second, there will be large variations in outcomes, with up to 40% of subSaharan countries losing significant shares of their agricultural resources (Smith 2015).

3. Climate Change and Food Security Africa's geography makes it particularly vulnerable to climate change, and 70% of the population relies on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods. Tanzania's official report on climate change suggests that the areas that usually get two rainfalls in the year will probably get more, and those that get only one rainy season will get far less. The net result expected is that 33% less maize - the country's staple crop - will be grown. Some fairly robust conclusions emerge from the analysis of climate change impacts on the number of people at risk of hunger. First, climate change will most likely increase the number of people at risk of hunger. Second, the importance and significance of climate change impact on the level of undernourishment depends entirely on the level of economic development assumed in the SRES scenarios (Ericksen & Challinor 2011). For the wealthy societies of the SRES scenario, where even currently poor regions are assumed to reach economic levels exceeding in per capita terms current OECD incomes, hunger is a marginal issue and remains so even with climate change. In contrast, the outcome of simulations is quite different for the high population SRES second scenario. Under this set of demographic and economic assumptions, the level of the undernourished, even without considering climate change, remains at a high level throughout the entire simulation period to 2080. In the reference projection (without climate change), the number of undernourished was estimated at 768 million for 2080. With climate change, this number increases by nearly 120 million, equivalent to some 15%, under both HadCM3 and CSIRO climate projections. Climate change projections with the Canadian CGCM2 model resulted in an additional 50 million undernourished (IPCC 2000).


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In simulation experiments, it is possible to impose different levels of climate change (i.e. for the full range of emission scenarios and climate model outputs) on any socio-economic development path. This allowed us to establish a relationship between the level of climate change and estimated number of people at risk of hunger with regard to different development path assumptions. The full range of climate-change impacts on crop suitability and productivity for all four IPCC emission scenarios was assessed in AEZ. For all four levels of climate change, production impacts were imposed on the socio-economic development path of scenario A2. For instance, for the large climate changes projected by the HadCM3-A1FI scenario for the 2080s, the additional undernourished people amount to 175 million. This indicates that under socioeconomic conditions of development path A2, the number of undernourished population may increase more than linear with the level of climate change. In summary, showing the additional number of people at risk of hunger in 2080 plotted against different levels of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and associated climate changes (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005).

4. Conclusion Results suggest that socio-economic development over this century will greatly alter production, trade, distribution and consumption of food products worldwide, as a consequence of population growth, economic growth and diet changes in developing countries. Climate change will additionally modify agricultural activities, probably increasing any gaps between developing and developed countries. Adaptation strategies, both on-farm and via market mechanisms, will be important contributors to limiting the severity of impacts. The climate change issue is global, longterm and involves complex interaction between demographic, climatic, environmental, economic, health, political, institutional, social and technological processes. It has significant international and intergenerational implications in the context of equity and sustainable development. Climate change will impact on social, economic and environmental systems and shape prospects for food, water and health security. The capacity to mitigate and to adapt to climate change impacts is strongly related to the future development paths. The socio-economic and, even more so, the technological characteristics of different futures strongly affect emissions, hence the extent and pace of the impacts of climate change, as well as the capability of societies to adapt to and mitigate

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climate change. Recent developments in geographical information systems, data acquisition by remote sensing and the increasing quality and spatial coverage of global resource databases has enabled modelling to identify potentials and environmental constraints to crop production at regional and national levels. The integration of these assessments in the global food economy together with projections of future climate change and variability enables evaluation of impacts of climate change on agriculture and provides a basis of prioritizing regional and commodity specific agricultural research for adaptation and mitigation. Climate change and variability may result in irreparable damage to arable land and water resources in some regions, also leading to serious local consequences for food production. These losses will be felt most profoundly in developing countries with low capacity to cope and adapt. While the international community has focused on climate change mitigation, the issue of adaptation to climate change is an equally pressing issue and must be put on the international negotiation agenda. This is of critical importance to many developing countries that have contributed little to greenhouse gas emissions thus far and yet, it is these countries that will bear the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change and variability.

References Ericksen, P.J., & Challinor, A.J. 2011. “Agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa in a 4°C+ world”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369: 43-48. Gunther, F. 2005. Food Crops in a Changing Climate: Philosophical Transactions. New York: The Royal Society, Biological Sciences. Jacobs, A. & Flammini. 2014. “Agriculture, forestry and other land use emissions by sources and removals by sink”. FAO Statistics Division Working Paper Series ESS/14- 02. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human WellBeing: Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Parry, M.L., Rosenzweig, C., Iglesias, A., & Fischer, G. 2001. “Millions at risk: Defining critical climate change threats and targets”. Global Environmental Change 11. Pradeep, K. 2008. “How Will Climate Change Shift Agro-Ecological Zones and Impact African Agriculture?” Policy Research Working Paper, The World Bank Development Research Group Sustainable Rural and Urban Development Team.


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Smith, J. 2015. “Crops, crop pests and climate change - why Africa needs to be better prepared”. CAFS Working Paper 114: 15-19. Thornton, P.K. 2015. “Climate change impacts on African crop production”. CCAFS Working Paper 119: 221-225 —. 2008. “Croppers to Livestock Keepers: Livelihood Transitions to 2050 in Africa due to Climate Change”. Environmental Science & Policy 12(4): 243-251. IPCC. 2000. Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER ELEVEN IMPACT OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY ON FARMING: WHAT THE FARMERS OF MEGHALAYA PERCEIVE? S.M. FEROZE, SAO EVALWELL DKHAR, RAM SINGH, PYNBIANGLANG MARBOH, P.M.N. RANI AND KOIJAM JOHNY SINGH1

1. Introduction Climate change is the reality of the contemporary times. A number of studies reported that the global mean temperature has been increasing, rainfall has become erratic in nature, the area under arid zones is increasing and the mean sea level is on the rise. In India, various studies observed an increasing trend in temperature (Hingane et al. 1985, 521528; Rupakumar et al. 1994, 677-80; Pant et al. 1999:172-184; Singh and Sontakke 2002, 287-313) and an increase in temperature by 2-4⁰C is projected for India by the 2050s. Climatologists expect the number of rainfall days to decrease with significant regional variation. In the NorthEastern region, the number of rainy days is likely to decrease by 1–10 days and the intensity of rainfall in the region is likely to increase by 1–6 mm/day (INCCA, 2010). The farmers in the hills still depend on the local varieties of cereals and mostly practice organic agriculture. The productivities of crops are much lesser than their national averages; hence, hill agriculture becomes more vulnerable to the changes in climatic parameters. In the absence of 1 School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya

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alternative occupations in the hills, the livelihood of the people is expected to be adversely affected by changes in climatic conditions. Meghalaya is basically an agricultural state with about 75% of its population depending entirely on agriculture for their livelihood. The total cultivable area of the state is 5.27 lakh ha and rice is cultivated on 1.09 lakh ha of area with productivity of 2.33 MT/ha. The irrigated area is about 65 thousand ha with cropping intensity at 119%. The State is also known for its fruit crops viz., orange (Khasi Mandarin), pineapple and banana; vegetables and spices like potato, ginger and turmeric. Any variability in rainfall and temperature is expected to affect the farming in Meghalaya. Hence, the present study was conducted to study the trend in rainfall and temperature in Meghalaya and its impact on farms and the farming community in the study area.

2. Methodology The study was conducted in Meghalaya which lies between the 24057'N to 26010'N latitude and 89046'E to 92052'E longitude. Meghalaya has a population of 29.64 lakhs with 23.69 lakh population (79.92%) living in 6839 villages and the population density is 132 persons per sq. km. (Census, 2011). As in 2011, about 86% of its population belong to ST community. The sex ratio is at 986 females per 1000 males and the literacy rate in the state has improved to 75.5% in 2011from 62.6% in 2001. About 18.5% of the people live under the below poverty level. Khasi, Garo and Jaintia are the major tribes of the state. The state has an area of 22429 sq. km. out of which 77.1% is covered by forest, as in 2013 (FSI, 2013). The Khasi Hills form the central part, Jaintia Hills the eastern part and Garo Hills form the western part of Meghalaya. The height of the central plateau of the Khasi Hills is around 1500 m, with the highest point at Shillong peak with an elevation of 1965 m. The height of the Garo Hills range from 450 to 600 m, and Nokrek (1412 m) in Tura is the highest peak. Simsang, Ringge, Ganol, Manda, Damring and Janjiram are the important rivers of Garo Hills. Kynshi, Umiam, Mawphlang and Umngot are the important rivers of Khasi Hills.

3. Climate Change in Meghalaya Meghalaya has received normal annual rainfall of 2331mm during 1975-2009. Maximum of the rainfall was concentrated during the monsoon season (69.3%), followed by pre-monsoon and post-monsoon

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season. The maximum variation in seasonal rainfall was observed in the post-monsoon season (51.1%) and minimum in monsoon season (29.8%). 4500 4000

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The annual rainfall has exhibited positive trend in Meghalaya during 1975-2007 but the annual rainfall has significantly declined during 20082013 in the state (Fig. 1). The normal annual minimum and maximum temperature were 18.2 and 27.90C, respectively, in Meghalaya. The variations in seasonal and annual minimum temperature were higher than the variations in maximum temperature. Fig. 2 indicates that the trends for


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minimum and maximum annual temperatures were positive and significant in Meghalaya during the study period. 29.0 y = 0.02x + 27.69

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3.1. Climate Change Impacts on Farms and Farming Community: Learning from FGDs 3.1.1 Case Study 1: Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture in West Jaintia Hills District To understand the impact of climate change on agriculture in West Jaintia Hills District, a FGD was conducted at Nongkhroh village (25036’N latitude and 92007’E longitude), located in Thadlaskein Block around 30 km from Jowai. The Nongkhroh village has a population of 1296 and sex ratio of 1006 females per 1000 males. The literacy rate in the village is very low at 41.59 %, compared to the state literacy rate of 74.4 %. About 98.5 % of the total population belongs to the ST category (GoI Census 2011). The average maximum temperature and minimum temperature

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prevalent in the block was around 24.8 and 8.50C, respectively. The annual rainfall in the area ranges from 2500 to 3000 mm. A total of 22 farmers, comprising of 12 males and 10 females, of Nongkhroh village participated in the FGD. The average age of the participants was 38 years for female farmers and 37 years for the male farmers. Only one of the farmers has graduated and the others have less than primary level of education. The people of Nongkhroh village are mainly dependent on agriculture and rice, maize, ginger, turmeric, mustard, soybean, tomato, and broomsticks, which are grown in rain-fed condition. They revealed that water stress was the major problem that the farms in the village experience. The farmers perceived that rainfall was getting lower year by year and the arrivals of the monsoon have been late now as compared to previous decades. They were also in agreement over the rise in temperatures both, in summer as well as in winter seasons. The increasing incidences of droughts and hail storms have adversely affected the agriculture in the village. Non-availability of irrigation facility added to the problem. Most of them said that they manually irrigate their crops with buckets during periods of low rainfall. The farmers mainly cultivate hybrid rice, available at the block office at 50% subsidy. They informed that the productivity of hybrid rice is higher than the local cultivars viz., Kbabhoi, Laispah and Khyriem, but they were of the opinion that the local rice cultivars perform better in low rainfall/drought situations. The productivity of the hybrid rice drops from 1400 kg/ha during normal conditions to 700-800 kg/ha during drought conditions, which was around 50 % reduction in productivity. Pests and diseases have also increased in the village maybe due to climate change. In the cultivation of rice, shoot borer was the major pest infecting the crop and in the case of ginger, soft rot was widely reported. The increasing incidence of late blight and wilt in case of tomato was also widely reported and they also informed that they have limited access to chemical measures. Pigs, cattle and poultry were the major animals reared by the inhabitants of the village. Rearing goat was not permitted in the area because the animals tend to over graze and could destroy the crops in the fields. Low availability of green fodder during periods of drought was the major hindrance in case of livestock rearing.


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The stream flowing around 0.25 km from the village is the major source of drinking water in the village. Drinking water has become scarce during low rainfall periods and the respondents also reported about the deteriorating water quality during drought. Supply of water to the village through pipes was almost non-existent. Working as wage labourers in the MGNREGA programme and in the surrounding villages and towns were the major mitigation strategies adopted by the respondents during periods of low rainfall/drought for sustaining their livelihood. Although a majority of the farmers were aware of climate change in their village, apart from changing sowing and harvesting time, no adaptation strategy was taken up by them. Concerned authorities should take up measures to help reduce vulnerability towards climate change by providing better irrigation facilities, training programmes supported by appropriate input delivery. 3.1.2 Case Study 2: Climate Change and Potato Cultivation in East Khasi Hills Potato is one of the staple diets of the people of Meghalaya and the crop has been cultivated for generations by the farmers of the state. This crop covered an area of 18.13 thousand ha in the state and the annual production and yield of the crop was 172.9 thousand MT and 9.53 MT/ha, respectively in 2012-13. East Khasi Hills District is the highest producer of potato with annual production and productivity of 115.8 thousand MT and 10 MT/ha, respectively. An FGD was conducted at Mawlynrei village to understand the impact of climate change on potato cultivation. The village is located at 25034’33’’N latitude and 91056’47’’E longitude, in East Khasi Hills District at the elevation of 1536 m. Mawlynrei has a population of around 3437 with a sex ratio of 1032 females per 1000 males. The literacy rate in the village is relatively higher at 82.3% than the State’s average of 74.4%. Vegetables like potato, tomato, peas, beans, maize, ginger, etc., are the major crops cultivated by the farmers of Mawlynrei. The temperature in Mawlynrei varies from 240C in summer to a low 40C in winter, and the annual rainfall in the area ranges from 2500 to 3000 mm. Ten potato cultivators, comprising six male and four female farmers, of Mawlynrei village participated in the FGD. The average age of both male and female farmers was 52.8 and 37.0 years, respectively. Four of the respondents were illiterate; three had education up to middle level and

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two up to primary level. They cultivated potato on an average 0.49 ha of land. The planting season for potato was during February and March as zaid crop and during August and September as rabi crop. Most of them were cultivating potato as jhum cultivation under rain-fed conditions. The local cultivars such as Phan Saw Khasi and Phan Smit were the popular varieties. They harvested about 10 to 14 MT potato from one hectare of land and majority of the farmers sold their potato harvest in Rynjah market, after keeping some for home consumption and seeds for the next season. They stored the potato when the price dropped and sold their produce when the price rose. All the farmers were aware of climate change, and reported that the temperature has been rising in the area. The amount of rainfall has also decreased and the arrival of rain has often been delayed. All the participating farmers stated that potato cultivation was affected in the village due to change in climate. During low rainfall or long dry spells, the tubers shrivel up and the productivity reduces by 50%. Some farmers are of the opinion that low rainfall could lead to situations when they may not even recover seeds for the next season. The varieties they used were suited to low temperature and increase in temperature led to reduced production as the size of potato got smaller. The farmers reported that pests and disease infestations on potato crop have increased in the village in recent years which may be due to climate change. Some of them were not able to cultivate potatoes this season because almost all of their seed tubers were infected by tuber moths in storage. Incidences of late blight and brown rot has also increased in the area resulting in some farmers adopting the use of chemical pesticides. Lack of proper training with regards to management of pests and disease left the farmers vulnerable to such situations. They also informed that the productivity of the land has drastically reduced over the years. The yield they get now with the application of fertilizers was the same as the yield they used to get without application of fertilizers, 10 years back. They opined that now potato cultivation is not possible without any application of fertilizers such as urea and Diammonium phosphate (DAP). The respondents reported that due to the negative impacts of climate change, many farmers in the village have reduced the area under potato cultivation and diversified towards growing vegetable crops like tomato, peas, beans, cole crops, etc., Among the vegetables, tomato was most


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favoured by the farmers in this village as they grow it mainly as kharif crop and they are able to harvest the crop multiple times which helps to improve their income level. The potato production has been negatively affected by the rising temperatures and low rainfall. Pest and disease infestation is another constraint in case of potato cultivation. Hence, proper irrigation, pest and disease management, seed treatment and proper storage techniques are the areas where they may be trained to minimize their vulnerability to the climate change. 3.1.3 Case Study 3: Climate Change and Ginger Cultivation in RiBhoi District Ginger is an important cash crop grown in Meghalaya. The crop covers an area of 9.58 thousand ha in the State, with production and productivity of 60.1 thousand MT and 6.27 MT/ha in 2012-13, respectively. Spice is cultivated in Ri-Bhoi district in an area covering 991 ha with a production and productivity of 10.04 thousand ha and 10.13 MT/ha, respectively. Ginger is consumed as a spice or used in the production of ginger oil, ginger paste and ginger powder in the state. Mrs Phylla Shangwan, a 53 year old farmer of Shangbangla village of Ri-Bhoi District in Meghalaya, has been cultivating ginger and pineapple for more than 20 years. She cultivates ginger in a one acre land as jhum or shifting cultivation and uses around 1 MT rhizomes as seed which yields around 4 MT. She explains that in the case of jhum, the productivity of ginger cultivation increases because of the higher organic content in the soil. She shifts the area under ginger every year and the jhum cycle is of only one year. The cultivar which the farmer grows is a local popular variety known as Sying Bhoi. Labour during planting and harvesting season is available in the village itself at Rupees (INR) 250-300 for male labourers and Rupees (INR) 150-200 for female labourers. The crop is either sold in the Nongpoh market in a smaller quantity or directly to the village trader from the home of the farmer. Last year (2014), she sold ginger at 60-70 Rupees (INR)/kg in both the two channels. Mrs. Phylla Shangwan was aware that the climate has been changing in her village in the recent years. She informed that rainfall has become erratic in nature and both, the amount and time of arrival of rainfall vary year to year. According to her, the temperature in the village has been decreasing which does not confirm to the temperature data.

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Ginger is cultivated in Shangbangla village as a rain-fed crop. She stated that the yield of ginger significantly drops from 4.0 MT to 2.5-3.0 MT per acre during low rainfall years. The quality also deteriorates during the drought season because the size of the ginger decreases. This fetches half the price that she obtains for normal healthy rhizomes. Incidences of pest and diseases in ginger have also increased in the area. The farmers explain that incidence of soft rot (Pythiummyriotylum) and aphids (Aphidoidea ssp.) have increased over the years causing on an average of 20 % crop damage. She has never used any chemical pesticides for management of the pests and diseases. Although ginger cultivation has been one of the primary sources of livelihood for the farmers of Shangbangla village, the impacts of climate change may have adverse effect over the socio-economic stability of the people if the concerned authorities do not take note of such changes. Proper scientific training on seed treatment, water conservation, pest and disease management techniques such as Integrated Pest Management are crucial, in order to mitigate climatic change and reduce vulnerability of the farmers. 3.1.4 Case Study 4: Climate change and Pineapple Cultivation in RiBhoi District Ri-Bhoi district is the highest producer of pineapple in Meghalaya. The area under pineapple was 3.86 thousand ha with a production and productivity of 41.6 thousand MT and 11.3 MT/ha, respectively, in the district in 2012-13. Shangbangla village is located (25°57'7"N latitude and 91°51'51"E longitude) in Ri-Bhoi District of Meghalaya at an altitude of 523 m above msl. The picturesque village lies on both sides of Guwahati-Shillong National Highway 40 about 8 km from Nongpoh, the district headquarters. The village covers a total geographical area of 7.15 sq. km. with 250 households. Pineapple is one of the main crops cultivated along the hill slopes by the farmers of the village. Ginger, tomato, orange, litchi, bay leaf and betel nut are the other major crops cultivated by the villagers. Twelve farmers comprising six male and six female farmers participated in an FGD conducted in Shangbangla village to understand the impacts of climate change on the pineapple cultivators. The age groups of the farmers who participated in the FGD ranged from 37 to 76 years with an average age about 55 years. The average area cultivated was


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approximately 2.47 ha per household. Most of the farmers were cultivating pineapple for more than 15 years. Two of them have been growing pineapples since 1970. The majority of the people still follow the traditional method of jhum (shifting) cultivation for pineapples under rainfed conditions. During the last decade, the area under pineapple cultivation has increased due to high demand of the fruit. In most of the pineapple growing areas of the village, the age-old indigenous cultural practices are still in use. The farmers usually plant 10000 suckers/ha of the queen variety of pineapple and replants the suckers after 10 years, but some of them replace the suckers after 15-20 years. The main local markets are at Nongpoh town and along the national highway, where a large number of vendors, mostly women sell pineapples on the roadside. The primary buyers for pineapple crops are traders from the state of Assam, Jaintia Hills and Shillong in Meghalaya. The pineapples cost Rupees (INR) 200/kuri (1 kuri=20 pieces) if they are smaller sized and Rupees (INR) 300 if bigger. The pineapples are also sold in their road side small retail shops at an average price of Rupees (INR) 10-20 per piece, during flush season and the price soars up to Rupees (INR) 30-40 during off seasons. The major problem faced by the farmers in terms of marketing of the pineapple is the lack of proper storage facility in the village as the shelf life of the ripened pineapple is short. All the participants were aware of climate change in the area. The farmers showed mixed perception regarding temperature, with some expressing rise in temperature and others reporting a fall in the temperature in the village over the years. Rainfall in the area has become erratic in nature and they recall encountering drought like situations every few years. They are of the opinion that the late arrival of rainfall delays the planting time. The participants of the FGD reported that the size of the fruits become smaller and the sweetness of the fruits reduce too during the periods of low rainfall. During summer, high temperatures and excess sunshine sometimes destroy leaves of the pineapple plants which when followed by rainfall have a tendency to rot. Under such circumstances around 50% of the pineapple plants could get damaged. Some of them cover the leaves with weeds during weeding to reduce loss through sunburn of the leaves. Rats and elephants are the major threats in their pineapple fields. Rats eat the succulent portions of the young pineapple plants which could lead

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to a loss of about 20% in the first year. The invasion of elephants in pineapple fields has increased since 2006 leading to a loss of up to 50%. The State Government provides immediate help of Rupees (INR) 2001000 for each farmer who has incurred losses due to elephant attack. The farmers in the village are dependent on pineapple for their livelihood. The majority of them are engaged in farming activities throughout the year, as they harvest pineapple in two different periods on different plots of lands. They worked as wage labourers in the fields of others within the same village when the crops in their own fields fail during the periods of drought or low rainfall. The daily wage rate of Rupees (INR) 250 and Rupees (INR) 150 are earned by the male and female farmers respectively. The wage rate has been higher for males because the male workers are engaged in more laborious work, such as ploughing and land preparation.

4. Conclusions The annual rainfall has exhibited positive trends during 1975-2007 in Meghalaya but the rainfall has significantly declined during 2008-2013. The trends for minimum seasonal temperatures were positive during the study period. The farmers of the state also perceived that rainfall is decreasing and temperature is rising. The case studies revealed that the productivity of rice, ginger, potato and pineapple get negatively affected during the period of low rainfall or droughts in the state. It is not possible to stop the changes in climatic factors, what is important is to be ready to adapt with the changes which may be autonomous or planned. The change may be in the form of new varieties suitable to water stress and late rain and the construction of irrigation channels to prevent failure of the crops.

References Government of India (GoI) Census. 2011. Census of India, Ministry of Home Affairs. New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Forest Survey of India (FSI). 2013. India State of Forest Report- 2013. Dehradun: Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment (INCCA). 2010. Climate change and India: A 4x4 assessment- A Sectoraland Regional Analysis for 2030s. New Delhi: Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India.


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Rupakumar, K., Kumar, K. K., & Pant, G. B. 1994. “Diurnal Asymmetry of Surface Temperature Trends over India”. Geophysical Research Letters 21: 677-680. Hingane, L. S., Rupakumar, K., & Ramana Murthy, B. H. V. 1985. “Long-term Trends of Surface Air Temperature in India”. Journal of Climatology 5: 521-528. Singh, N., & Sontakke, N. A. 2002. “On Climatic Fluctuations and Environmental Changes of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, India”. Climatic Change 52: 287-313. Pant, G. B., Rupakumar, K., & Borgaonkar, H. P. 1999. “Climate and its Long Term Variability over the Western Himalaya during the Past Two Centuries”. In The Himalayan Environment, edited by S. K. Dash and J. Bahadur. New Delhi: New Age International (P) Ltd.

CHAPTER TWELVE CLIMATE CHANGE: IMPACT ON STREAMFLOW AT BHAKRA MOHAMMED SHARIF1

1. Introduction Global climate change is expected to cause adverse impacts on many aspects of the natural environment, including the water resources. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing mankind today. As described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007), the magnitude as well as frequency of extreme events is likely to change due to climate change. The magnitude and temporal distribution of water availability at reservoir sites is likely to be impacted as well. Currently, reservoirs are managed, designed and operated on the assumption of stationary of hydro-meteorological variables. This assumption cannot be justified in view of the recent climate change. The overarching aim of the present research was to evaluate changes in streamflow at Bhakra - the major reservoir in Satluj River basin - under the influence of changing climate in the basin. The Bhakra reservoir is the lifeline for water supply in three major states in Northern India, including Punjab, India’s ‘Bread Basket’. Since the Satluj River originates in the Himalayas, the streamflow availability at Bhakra is highly vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. The Bhakra Dam is built on River Satluj which originates in the Himalayas where the impact of global warming can be devastating. 40% of all the people in the world get their drinking water supplies from rivers and spring systems that are fed by the glacier and snow melt waters. At Bhakra, the contribution of glacier and snow melt to the waters in Satluj is in the order of 60% (Singh and Jain 2002). Therefore, any change in the 1

Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi.

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flow regime, either in magnitude or in timing, could have a serious impact on the livelihoods not only of those engaged in the agricultural sector but for the economy as a whole. Changes in timing, with or without changes in magnitude, could also have serious implications for water management, especially in case of the operating rules for large reservoirs such as Bhakra which control the flow to several irrigation systems in Northern India. Raje and Majumdar (2010) studied the impact of climate change on the operation of Hirakud reservoir in the Mahanadi river basin, and concluded that the reliability of hydropower and irrigation is likely to decrease as a result of climate change if the standard operating policy using current rule curves is employed. Singh and Jain (2002) found that the contribution of glacier melt to annual runoff at Bhakra, the major reservoir in the basin, is approximately 59%, and therefore any changes in magnitude and timing of water availability at the reservoir arising from changes in temperature or precipitation could have significant implications affecting its operation. Rao and Ramaseshan (1985) studied strategies for conjunctive utilization of groundwater and surface water available in the Bhakra reservoir. The results of the study indicated around 8% increase in irrigation due to the integrated operation of ground and surface water resources. Several studies have reported the application of hydrological models in planning and managing the water resources (Easton et al. 2008; Faramarzi et al. 2009; Koch et al. 2012) and analyses of the impact of climate change on water components (Abbaspour et al. 2009; Vaghefi et al. 2013). Tolson and Shoemaker (2007) applied SWAT 2000 to simulate the transport of flow, sediments and phosphorus to the Canyonville Reservoir in Upstate, New York. Githui et al. (2009) simulated streamflow in Western Kenya by using the SWAT model to evaluate the potential effects on water resources caused by global climate change in the last few decades. Jha et al. (2006) used SWAT model to assess the effects of potential future climate change on the hydrology of the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Calibration and validation of SWAT were performed using monthly stream flows for 1968-1987 and 1988-1997 respectively. Koch et al. (2012) applied SWAT model to the partially tile-drained Warnow catchment in North-eastern Germany to evaluate the effect of tile drainage systems on stream-flow composition on a sub-basin scale. The model performance was also tested after excluding tile drainages from the calibrated model setup. Gosain et al. (2006) simulated the impacts of climate change under the IPCC and identified A2 and B2 scenarios on the stream flows of 12 major river basins in India using the SWAT hydrological model. Jain et al.

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(2010) applied SWAT with an interface with ArcView GIS software (AVSWAT2000/X) to model runoff and sediment yield from an area extending from Suni to Kasol, an intermediate watershed of Satluj River located in Western Himalayan region. Raneesh and Santosh (2011) used projections of a GCM under A2 and B2 scenarios as an input to the SWAT model to evaluate the effect of climate change on streamflow and vegetative growth in the humid tropical zone of India. Rostamian et al. (2008) applied the SWAT model to Beheshtabad and Vanak watersheds in the Northern Karun catchment in Central Iran to predict runoff and sediment, and found that predicted runoff values were much better than those for sediment. Narsimlu et al. (2013) used SWAT model to simulate hydrologic regimes in the Upper Sind River Basin in Central India to evaluate future impacts of climate change on water resources. Temperature changes are generally accompanied by changes in precipitation and runoff amounts. Therefore, it is important to characterize the hydroclimatic variables and to understand its variation in the future under different climate change scenarios and its impacts on basin hydrology. The reliability of critical water resource infrastructure is likely to be decreased under the potential impacts of climate change in most parts of the world, including India. Therefore, assessment of climate change impacts becomes necessary, particularly for a climatologically sensitive basin such as the Satluj basin. Therefore, the major objective of the present study was to simulate streamflow at Bhakra under A2 emission scenario. Most of the previous studies have concentrated on the Indian part of the basin. In this study, the modeling process for the simulation of streamflow considers the entire Satluj Basin, including the Tibetan part of the basin which had hitherto not been considered.

2. Study Area The study area for the present research is the Satluj river basin in the Himalayan region. The Satluj River is a major river of the Indus system, which originates in the Mansarowar Lake in Tibet. The Bhakra is the major reservoir in the basin, which was built to meet the water needs of several states in Northern India. The catchment of the river up to the Bhakra Dam site lies between North latitudes 30 and 33 and east longitudes 76 and 83 . It enters India near Shipkila at an elevation of about 6608 metres and continues to flow in Himachal Pradesh through Wangtoo and Kian before reaching Bhakra Dam. The principal tributaries of the Satluj are the Spiti Kashming, Baspa, Bhabha, Nogli, Korpan,


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Nauti, Sholding, Seer, Bharari, Ali and Ghamber khad. The elevation of the bed is about 4570 metres near Lake Mansarowar, 2530 metres near Shipkila, 915 metres near Rampur, 460 metres near Bilaspur and 350 metres near Bhakra Dam site. The bed slope of the river is flat from Shipkila to Jangli dam site for a distance of about 42 km, which is of the order of 1 in 175. It becomes steep between Jangli Dam site and Rampur, the slope being 1 in 87 and is again flat from Rampur to Kol Dam site with a slope of 1 in 300. The slope is flattest in the Bhakra reservoir area, the portion downstream of the Kol Dam, where the bed slope is 1 in 500. A gross fall of 2180 metres is available in the river bed from Shipkila to Bhakra in a length of about 320 km. The valley is narrow in the portion from Shipkila to Pooh and from Thopan to Rampur. In the segment between Pooh to Thopan and between Rampur to Bhakra the valley is comparatively wide, and it further expands in the segment immediately upstream of Bhakra. A schematic of the Satluj River basin is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Schematic diagram of the Satluj River basin

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3. SWAT SWAT is a process-based spatially semi-distributed hydrological and water quality model designed to compute and route water, sediments and contaminants from individual drainage units (sub-basins) throughout a river basin towards its outlet (Arnold et al. 1998). The conceptual framework for SWAT consists of a two stage modeling approach; the first involves generation of components such as runoff, sediments, nutrients, pesticides, etc., and the second is the routing of these components through a stream network. The SWAT ArcGIS interface is used to partition a catchment into a number of sub-catchments using a digital elevation model (DEM). This is an automated process with a model user defining the threshold area for sub-catchment delineation (Neitsch et al. 2011). Sub-catchments are linked by a network of nodes and channels to represent a stream network in a catchment area. SWAT uses hydrologic response units (HRUs) that comprise specific land use, soil and slope characteristics describe the spatial heterogeneity in terms of land cover, soil type and slope class within a watershed. The model estimates relevant hydrologic components such as evapo-transpiration, surface runoff, and peak rate of runoff, groundwater flow and sediment yield for each HRU. SWAT requires the following types of data.

4. Methodology For this study, the outputs of PRECIS - a high-resolution regional climate model developed by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research and the Met Office, United Kingdom - has been used. The PRECIS data used herein was produced by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, India for the thirty grid cells covering the entire Satluj River Basin with a resolution of 0.4425°×0.4425° (equivalent to about 50 km x 50 km). The data set generated through PRECIS includes precipitation, maximum and minimum temperatures, relative humidity, solar radiation and wind speed on a daily time scale for the control period (1961-1990), and for the end-century (2071-2099) period. Both the time slices use the SRES scenario A2 which describes an extensive fossil-fuel use, and is considered as the high-emission scenario.

4.1. GIS Data Layers The data derived using the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) has been utilized for this research (Rabus et al. 2003). These


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digital elevation data are available for download from http://www.cgiarcsi.org/data/srtm-90m-digital-elevation-database-v4-1. The SRTM consisted of a specially designed radar system that flew onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour during an 11- day mission in February, 2000. The land use data were obtained from the database of the University of Maryland Global Land Cover Facility with one km. grid cell.

4.2. Climate Data The observed daily climate data (precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature) for a period of 25 years from 1985 to 2009 was obtained from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), and the Bhakra-Beas Management Board (BBMB). The observed streamflow data were obtained from the Central Water Commission, Government of India. Both of these data are available for the Indian part of the Satluj basin. The data for the Tibetan part of the basin has been downloaded from http:// globalweather.tamu.edu/ - the website that provides global weather data.

4.3. Model Calibration and Validation The calibration and validation of SWAT model were carried out using the observed streamflow data at Bhakra for the period 2000 to 2010. Since a large number of parameters that describe different hydrological conditions and characteristics across the basin are included in the SWAT model, the purpose of calibration is to determine the range of physically plausible parameter values. With a properly calibrated model, uncertainty in model simulations could be significantly reduced. During the calibration process employed in this study, the model parameters are adjusted, in order to obtain model results that correspond better to runoff observed in the field. A combination of graphical techniques and statistical indicators were used for model performance evaluation. Graphical techniques provide a visual comparison of simulated and measured constituent data and a first overview of model performance (Moriasi et al. 2007). The performance of our model has been assessed by comparing the observed and simulated monthly flows during calibration and validation periods as shown in Figures 2 and 3, respectively.

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Figure 2: Observed and simulated streamflow for the calibration period (19882000)

Figure 3: Observed and simulated streamflow for validation period (2001-2009)


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The results of calibration for the period 1988-2000 indicated that most of the simulated monthly streamflow were in good agreement with the observed streamflow. For a short period in 1998, the model overestimates the observed flows, but overall, the capability of the model to simulate monthly streamflow has been adequately demonstrated. A comparison of observed and simulated streamflow for the calibration period (1988-2000) and the validation period (2001-2009) are presented in Figures 2 and 3, respectively. Results shown in Figure 2 indicate adequate calibration over the range of streamflow supplied to the model. There is, however, overestimation of peak flows in some cases. As was the case during calibration, the model tends to overestimate peak flows during the validation period as well. The simulated flows during the calibration period closely matched the corresponding observed flows, with less over prediction of peak flows as compared to the validation period. The simulation results clearly indicate a relatively better match between observed and simulated streamflow during calibration than validation.

5. Results The projections of climate variables, namely precipitation, TMX, TMN, wind speed, solar radiation, and relative humidity obtained from PRECIS were used as inputs to SWAT in addition to other processed inputs such as DEM, land use, and soil map to predict streamflow under A2 scenario for a given future period of interest. With these projections constituting the driving data set for the SWAT model, simulation of streamflow at Bhakra – the major reservoir in the basin – was carried out using the calibrated and validated model. The output produced by SWAT included daily evapo-transpiration, snowmelt and water yield data, which was aggregated to obtain monthly streamflow sequences under A2 scenario. Figure 4 shows the spatial distribution of percentage change in streamflow in sub-watersheds of the Satluj river basin for the end century period under the A2 scenario. Relative to the baseline period, the percentage change in streamflow near the vicinity of the Bhakra dam ranged from 24.4% to 36.0%. Lower percentage changes could occur in some sub-watersheds located in the south-eastern parts of the watershed (Figure 4). From the spatial distribution of percentage changes presented in Figure 4, it is clear that the average streamflow at the outlet of the basin are likely to increase substantially in the end of the century period under the A2 scenario.

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Figure 4: Percent change in annual streamflow under A2 scenario

A comparison of the average monthly streamflow for the end century period projected under A2 scenario with those for the baseline period is shown in Figure 5. All months except June, show an increase in the streamflow for the end of this century period relative to the baseline. For June, the projected average streamflow is around 500 cumec lower than the baseline. In absolute terms, the largest increase in streamflow is projected for the monsoon months, namely July, August and September. It is noteworthy that a particular month showing a higher increase in absolute terms may not necessarily be as high in percentage terms.


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Baseline Streamflow (cumec)

4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500

Dec

Nov

Oct

Sep

Aug

Jul

Jun

May

Apr

Mar

Feb

Jan

0

Figure 5: Average monthly streamflow for the baseline (1961-1990) and end of century (2071-2099) under A2 scenario

Table 1 shows the absolute and the relative change in the seasonal and annual streamflow under the A2 scenario. The winter streamflow are likely to increase by 36.1% by the end of the century. The study indicated that the streamflow in the pre-monsoon season would increase by 33.9% by the end of the century. For the post-monsoon season, the streamflow are expected to increase by 7.33%. The substantial increase in streamflow in the end century period in the non-monsoon seasons may be attributed to larger glacier melt contribution caused by projected higher temperatures. For the monsoon season, the streamflow are projected to increase by around 9.19%. Overall, there would be significant increases in the streamflow for all the seasons considered here.

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Table 1: Absolute and relative changes in the seasonal and annual streamflow under A2 scenario Scenario Baseline (1961-1990) A2 Scenario (2071-2100) Absolute Change (m3/s) Relative change (%)

Streamflow (m3/s) JF MAM JJAS OND Annual 133 895 2687 1118 1421 181 1198 2934 1200 1608 48 36.09

303 33.85

247 9.19

82 7.33

187 13.16

6. Conclusion With PRECIS-projected climate data as input, the validated SWAT model was used to simulate streamflow at the basin outlet under A2 scenario for the end century period. The results indicate that the winter streamflow relative to the baseline are likely to increase by 36.9% by the end of this century. The increase in the streamflow for the pre-monsoon and post monsoon seasons was 33.9% and 7.33%, respectively. For the monsoonal season, the streamflow are projected to increase by around 9.19%. The results presented herein clearly indicate that projected changes in the climate would alter the streamflow patterns in the basin, which in turn is likely to impact future water availability at Bhakra. With increased streamflow volume at Bhakra, the vulnerability of the basin to high magnitude flooding events is likely to increase under the A2 scenario. The results of simulation clearly indicate that SWAT provides a comprehensive, robust and user-friendly framework for evaluation of water management strategies. The practicality of SWAT, a potentially useful tool for planning and management of water resources was clearly demonstrated through simulation of streamflow at Bhakra. The results of the present study can be profitably utilized by the water managers and policy makers involved with the development of mitigation and adaptation strategies in the basin. Because of the limitation in data availability, this study has considered the output of SRES A2 scenario as simulated by a single RCM, namely PRECIS. To capture the large variability in the prediction of future climate scenario among different RCM models, future studies should employ a greater number of RCMs and emission scenarios. It can be concluded that SWAT is an effective tool that can aid in the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies in the basin.


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References Abbaspour, K.C., Faramarzi, M., Ghasemi, S, S., &Yang, H, 2009. “Assessing the impact of climate change on water resources in Iran”. Water Resources Research 45: W10434. Arnold, J, G., Srinivasan. R., Muttiah, R. S., &Williams, J. R. 1998. “Large area hydrologic modeling and assessment: Part I Model development”. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 34 (1): 73–89. Easton, Z. M., Fuka, D. R., Walter, M, T., Cowan, D. M., Schneiderman, E. M., & Steenhuis, T. S., 2008. “Re-conceptualizing the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model to predict runoff from variable source areas”. Journal of Hydrology 348(3-4): 279–291. Faramarzi, M., Abbaspour, K. C., Schulin, R., & Yang, H. 2009. “Modelling blue and green water resources availability in Iran”. Hydrological Processes 23: 486–501. Githui, F., Gitau, W., Mutua, F. and Bauwens, W. (2009) “Climate change impact on SWAT simulated streamflow in western Kenya”. Intern. J. Climatol., 29:1823-1834. Gosain, A. K., Rao, S., & Basuray, D. 2006. “Climate change impact assessment on hydrology of Indian River basins”. Curr Sci 90(3):346– 353. IPCC. 2007. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jain, S. K., Tyagi, J., & Singh, V. 2010. “Simulation of Runoff and Sediment Yield for a Himalayan Watershed Using SWAT Model”. Journal of Water Resource and Protection 2(3), 267–281. Koch, S., Bauwe, A., & Lennartz, B. 2012. “Application of the SWAT Model for a Tile-Drained Lowland Catchment in North-Eastern Germany on Subbasin Scale”. Water Resources Management 27(3): 791–805. Moriasi, D. N., Arnold, J. G., Van Liew, M. W., Bingner, R. L., Harmel, R. D., & Veith, T. L. 2007. “Model evaluation guidelines for systematic quantification of accuracy in watershed simulations”. Transactions of the Asabe 50(3), 885-900. Narsimlu, B., Gosain, A. K., & Chahar, B. R. 2013. “Assessment of Future Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources of Upper Sind River Basin, India Using SWAT Model”. Water Resources Management 27(10): 3647-3662. Neitsch, S. L., Arnold, J. G., Kiniry, J. R., & Williams, J. R. 2011. “Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), theoretical documentation”.

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Blackland Research Center, Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory. Rabus, B., Eineder, M., Roth, A., & Bamler, R. 2003. “The shuttle radar topography mission—a new class of digital elevation models acquired by spaceborne radar”. Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 57: 241–262. Raje, D., & Majumdar, P. P. 2010. “Reservoir performance under uncertainty in hydrologic impacts of climate change”. Advances in Water Resources 33 (3): 312-326. Raneesh, K. Y., and Santosh, G. T. (2011) “Study on the impact of climate change on streamflow at the watershed scale in the humid tropics”, Hydrological Sciences Journal 56 (6), 946-965. Rao, P. S., & Ramaseshan, S. (1985). “Study of Bhakra reservoir operation”. Sadhna 2: 179-206. Rostamian, R., Jaleh, A., Afyuni, M., Mousavi, S. F., Heidarpour, M., Jalalian, A., & Abbaspour, K. C., 2008. “Application of a SWAT model for estimating runoff and sediment in two mountainous basins in central Iran”. Hydrological Sciences Journal 53(5): 977–988. Singh, P., & Jain, S. K., 2002. “Snow and glacier melt in the Satluj River at Bhakra Dam in the Western Himalayan region”. Hydrological Sciences Journal 47(1): 93–106. Tolson, B. A., &Shoemaker, C. A. 2007. “Cannonsville Reservoir Watershed SWAT2000 model development, calibration and validation”. Journal of Hydrology 337 (1-2): 68-86. Vaghefi, S. A., Mousavi, S. J., Abbaspour, K. C., Srinivasan, R., & Yang, H. 2013. “Analyses of the impact of climate change on water resources components, drought and wheat yield in semiarid regions: Karkheh river basin in Iran, Hydrol”. Process.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE RURAL LIVELIHOOD IN MEGHALAYA PYNSHONGDOR L. NONGBRI1

1. Introduction Climate change has become a global concern, especially since the international forums (UNFCC, COP 13, IPCC, and FAO) urged us to take immediate collaborative actions to meet the challenges of climate change. Climate change contributes to increase frequency and severity of disasters with adverse impacts on humans, natural ecosystem and quality of human survival. Following any disaster, the poor suffer from malnutrition as they fail to procure food (crop loss/damage, high price of essentials, etc.). Deforestation, over-fishing, over-grazing, salt build-up, water-borne diseases from irrigation, endangered wildlife from loss of habitat, loss of genetic diversity, water pollution, air pollution and climate change - all have impacts on food production, lives and livelihood of the people of Meghalaya, India. Meghalaya is a part of the region that has been designated as one of the eight Global Biodiversity Hotspots - the Indo-Burma Hotspot, containing high biodiversity and endemism. Meghalaya has a geographical position that favors immigration and introduction of different species. Thus more than 35% of the Indian mammal species are found in the state apart from the vast richness of plant species. Traditionally, people of Meghalaya have always recognized the natural wealth it has been bestowed upon; the presence of Sacred Groves - for setting aside natural areas – is an example of the integration of the concept of ecological sustainability into the culture of human communities.

1

Assistant Professor, St. Anthony’s College, Shillong, India

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Meghalaya has a fragile eco-system covering an area of about 22,429 sq. kms. It is one of the wettest places in the world. The average rainfall at Sohra (Cherrapunji) during the last 35 years has been 11,952mm (470 inches) and there were several years when it was substantially more than this. The last few years since 2005-06, have shown a declining trend in rainfall. Experts attribute this to the phenomenon of Global Warming and deforestation. However, short duration heavy rainfall has brought about a destructive effect on agriculture, which is the main vocation in the State. Meghalaya’s rich natural resources, high potential horticulture that favours the growth of temperate, tropical and sub-tropical fruits and vegetables and its fodder plains including tea bushes, are highly sensitive to climate change. The economy of Meghalaya is basically agrarian. Since 70% of the State’s population depends on agriculture, employment and income generation also depends on agricultural developmental activities to a great extent. Rice is the predominant crop of the State. Other dominant crops are potato, pineapple, ginger, maize, areca nut, jute, bamboo, and a wide variety of fruits, flowers and spices. The agriculture sector in Meghalaya contributes 22% to the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). Though, 70% of the population depends on agriculture, the net cropped area is only about 9.76% of the total geographical area of the State. The State is also vulnerable to the impact of a changing climate and has faced the wrath of freak weather events in the recent past. The State is prone to floods and soil erosion making the sector more vulnerable. Cloudbursts resulting in flash floods may lead to loss of life and agricultural yield. Around 815,000 hectares in Meghalaya have been affected by soil erosion. The degree of adaptability of the State towards climate change disasters is low due to a fragile geo-environmental setting and economic under-development. In this region, the Temperature–Humidity Index (THI) is likely to increase during April-October with more than 80 leading to severe impacts on livestock health and productivity. However, Meghalaya is trying to strengthen the institutional set up such as the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) which is concerned with the micro planning on various sectors and agriculture and livestock being one such sector.

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2. Agriculture and Livestock in Meghalaya Meghalaya is prone to floods and soil erosion; hence agriculture is vulnerable to their effects. The State is deficit in food grains by 1.37 lakh tonnes annually to feed a population of 2.3 million (Meghalaya Agriculture Profile 2006). This is due to a lot of constraints, such as the undulating topography, transport and communication problem, population dispersal pattern, inadequate credit support, poor marketing system, support mechanism, etc. To overcome these hurdles, future programmes are proposed, like increasing agricultural/horticultural production and productivity, research system on the development of economically viable and location specific technologies in rain-fed, flood prone areas, and increasing the utilisation of irrigation potential etc. The land-use pattern of the State is broadly characterised as follows: 1) The land holding is mostly operational with little concept of permanent ownership under a traditional land tenure system. Under such holding patterns there is no incentive for the holder to reclaim cultivable wastelands, utilise and develop fellow lands. 2) Broadly, the low lying areas are put under paddy and pulses during the Kharif season, and paddy, vegetables and oilseeds during the Rabi season depending on the availability of residual moisture and irrigation facilities. 3) Gentle slopes up to 20% are put under other crops like wheat, paddy, maize, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, etc. which not only contribute towards food security but also yield substantial revenue returns per unit of land and labour. On such slopes, the concept of watershed management of land and water is encouraged. 4) Horticultural crops are taken up on slopes above 20% and Border Areas, which are traditional horticultural areas, have received special attention. 5) Forest cover in the State (42%) is below the national norm of 60% recommended for hilly areas. This is because a sizable proportion of the forest area is reportedly under shifting cultivation resulting in the depletion of forest cover. A very meagre proportion of the geographical area (9.75%) is the net sown area, including area under shifting cultivation. The potential net sown area could be increased if and when the fallow lands are utilised for cultivation purposes. The cultivable waste land of the State is 20.1% of the geographical area a part of which might be progressively utilised

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for cultivation purposes in the long run. The cropping intensity of the State is 121%. Meghalaya is an agrarian economy and there is a high demand for livestock like pig, cattle, goat, poultry essentially required for the overall food supply of the people. Pork consumption in particular is very high. The population of the State is mostly meat-eaters and the consumption of milk is negligible. It indicates the need for requirement of livestock management in the State. The livestock population is dominated by cattle (indigenous and crossbred cattle) and pig population is also considerable. Temperature and rainfall variations have increased the incidence of vector-borne diseases. To minimize the impact of climate change on animal health and reduce the vector borne diseases, the State plans to carry out some research study on impact of climate change in livestock, piggery and poultry, ensure vaccination of farm animals against contagious diseases, de-worming and early disease warning systems, develop a breeding policy and use biotechnology to breed genetically climate resilient breeds of farm animals, and increase the availability of and access to vaccines. The topography, climate and Socio-economic conditions of Meghalaya make the people depend more on livestock and dairying activities mainly because of the traditional agricultural practices functioning in hilly areas which include only about 10% of the land. Heavy rainfall in the hills of Meghalaya not only causes soil erosion but also makes it acidic by removing the soluble basic part of the soil by the solvent action of the runoff water and loss of productivity. Under such circumstances, livestock management and dairy farming are the alternative options taken up by the villagers for sustenance.

3. Rainfall, Flood and Drought Pattern Climate models predict 2-3.50C increase in temperature and 250500mm increase in precipitation in the North Eastern region (Ravindranath et al. 2006; IPCC technical paper V). Increase in rainfall may not have significant impact on the forest areas of North East which are already experiencing high rainfall but change in temperature regime may cause severe impact and significant changes (Ravindranath and Sukumar 1996). The most damage in the past few years have been caused due to high variability in rainfall, sometimes causing flash floods and extensive damage to crop, livestock and human life.


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Analysis of the monsoon rainfall (June-September) distribution trend for the period of 27 years (1983-2009) shows a drastic rise in monsoon rainfall from the year 2001. (ISPRS Archives XXXVIII-8/W3 Workshop Proceedings: Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture). During 19832000, the mean monsoon rainfall was far below 1000mm benchmark except the year 1991 (1154.7mm). The monsoon rainfall significantly increased during the years 2001-2009 up to 1102.6 to 1937.7mm. It indicates that the monsoon rainfall has shifted to post monsoon season. It plays havoc with the crop planning and water management. Under influence of global climate change even high rainfall areas are facing drought like situations in the current years and the reverse i.e. flood is frequenting mostly in low rainfall areas. Since the beginning till the end of July 2009, most of the Northeastern states in India had a drought-like situation. Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya witnessed severe meteorological drought. Other states have recorded moderate drought. Till July, 20, 2009 Manipur recorded 67% rainfall deficiency followed by Nagaland (-63), Meghalaya (-56), Assam (-34). Rainfall occurring earlier or later has adversely affected sowing and harvesting of crops, and harvestable grains have been damaged. Moreover, there are reports that natural wetlands are shrinking in many parts of the region. Some ecologists have observed that there is an appearance of a number of invasive species and changes in their distribution pattern in the region. Some have reported an increase in diseases and pests in citrus species. One significant impact which many plant scientists agree to is the change taking place in the phonological phases in plants (ICIMOD 2008). Ravindranath et al. (2010) indicates that in most parts of Meghalaya the probability of drought is relatively high. Higher incidence of drought leads to higher exposure to vulnerability to climate change especially for the poor who have less adaptive capacity. A combination of drought and higher temperature will lead to increased evapo-transpiration. This causes extreme moisture stress during the critical crop growing stage and reduces yield.

4. Impact of Climate Change on Crop Yield Indian Institute of Science has used INFOCROP, a crop growth simulation model, to simulate impacts of climate change on rice production in Meghalaya. INFOCROP is a generic dynamic crop model developed to simulate the effects of weather, soils, agronomic management practices

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(including planting, nitrogen, residues and irrigation) and major pests on crop growth, yield, soil carbon, water and nitrogen, and the associated environmental impacts. It can be used for a variety of applications at field, farm and regional levels. The various inputs required by the model include rice variety sown, location, the soil and type of sowing, irrigation, fertilizer application, pest type and diseases. Two model runs were performed - first simulation called “baseline” using climate data averaged over the period 1975-2005 and fixed CO2 concentration at 370 ppm and second simulation incorporating changes in precipitation and temperature for 2035 and CO2 concentration of 466 ppm. Projected changes in rice yield can be attributed to the increase in temperature and CO2 concentration coupled with the change in rainfall pattern for the region. Climate change could have positive as well as negative impacts on the rice yield. Figure below shows the district-wise impacts of climate change on the rice yield in Meghalaya.

% Change in Yield

Impact of Climate Change A1B Scenario on Rice Yields by 2030s in Meghalaya

% chng in proj rice yld, East Garo Hills, -9%

% chng in proj % chng in proj rice yld, West rice yld, West Garo Hills, -9% Khasi Hills, -9%

% chng in proj rice yld, Jaintia Hills, -7%

% chng in proj rice yld, East Khasi Hills, -8%

% chng in proj rice yld, South Garo Hills, 0.40%

% chng in proj rice yld, RiBhoi, 7%

District Figure: Impact of climate change on rice yields by 2030s under A1B scenario (% change in projected yield over current yield)


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The rice yields are projected to decrease by about 7% to 9% by 2030s and this is the scenario in almost all districts of Meghalaya except South Garo Hills, which shows a marginal increase of 0.40%. Thus the production of rice, one of the main crops of the State is projected to be adversely impacted by climate change. The results represent the output of only one crop model. Different crop models give different outputs depending on the input parameters used.

5. The Way Forward 1) Improved institutional set up: Coordination, cooperation and convergence among the related departments of the Government, the Development Base NGO is the need of the hour in streamlining various programmes meant for the farmers. As of now, the Government departments are working in isolation- the Department of Agriculture is not in coordination with the Veterinary Department, the Forest and Environment Department is isolated from the Water Resources Department. This creates duplicity of programmes at the field level. After having said this, the creation of the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) is a welcome step. Various line departments have been brought into one fold and the technical agencies both national and international have been roped in as a resource team. However, in the whole MBDA intervention, the grassroots development base NGO with a mass support has not really been accommodated. 2) Introduction of a System of Rice Intensification: The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) emerged in the 1980s as a synthesis of locally advantageous rice production practices encountered in Madagascar by Fr Henri de Laulanie, a Jesuit Priest who had been working in this field since 1961. But it is Dr. Norman Uphoff from Cornell International Institute for Food and Agriculture, Ithaca, USA, who brought this method to the notice of outside world in the late 1990s. Today the System of Rice Intensification has been adopted in many states in India and the benefits of this method have drawn an overwhelming response notwithstanding the constraints. SRI is a combination of several practices which include changes in nursery management, time of transplanting, water and weed management. It needs less water and can withstand flood longer than conventional rice.

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3) Introduction of a Cost Effective Technology in Improving Livestock Rearing: The effect of climate change on the pastoral and agropastoral systems is immense. Livestock is a key asset for poor, as it fulfils multiple economic, social and risk management functions. However, to mitigate this impact a cost effective technology which the farmers can easily adapt to should be developed. Improved and enhanced traditional knowledge on herbal application to livestock, improved housing and feeds should be encouraged. 4) Introduction of Locally Manufactured Feed (Agri waste + Domestic waste): Most of the feed which is available in the market come from Assam and it is expensive. Its quality has never been tested and many a times it brings more diseases and germs. The Rilum Foundation for Sustainable Development and ICAR, Animal Health Division, are working on developing an improved and nutritious feed with a combination of agro and domestic waste including minerals and vitamins. This will be manufactured locally so that they are fresh, the rates will be affordable, and it will help in reducing carbon footprint. 5) Introduction of Better Breed among Livestock: Many local breeds are already adapted to harsh living conditions. Adaptation strategies address not only the tolerance of livestock to heat, but also their ability to survive, grow and reproduce in conditions of poor nutrition, parasites and diseases (Hoffmann, 2008). Such measures include: i. Identifying and strengthening local breeds that have adapted to local climatic stress and feed sources, and ii. Improving local genetics through cross-breeding with heat and disease-tolerant breeds. If climate change is faster than natural selection, the risk to the survival and adaptation of the new breed is greater.

6. Conclusion The impact of climate change will increase the challenge of the ongoing poverty alleviation efforts in Meghalaya and in the country as a whole. It will especially hit those whose livelihoods are intimately tied to local resource bases and are therefore more climate-sensitive. Several research papers point to a high vulnerability within the agriculture-based livelihood systems. This demonstrates the immediate need for an acknowledgement and improved understanding of vulnerabilities so that appropriate adaptation measures can be implemented swiftly.


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The State Government should take a more proactive role in climate change adaptation measures. The best way forward is to involve the MBDA (Meghalaya Basin Development Authority) aggressively in convergence with the related departments, both state and Central, in adopting a model village across all the blocks in the state. These model villages shall demonstrate and popularise the climate change adaptation measures taken up by the Government. For this to succeed, the best village, the best farmers, the best block and the best district should be awarded handsomely in various categories. The farmers from across the model villages should be taken for exchange programmes. Lastly, the best practices should be replicated at the macro level and with an intensive Government support at the initial phase.

References Aggarwal, P.K. 2009. Vulnerability of Indian Agriculture to Climate Change: Current State of Knowledge. New Delhi: Indian Agricultural Research Institute. Das, Anup, et al. 2009. “Climate Change in Northeast India: Recent Facts and Events –Worry for Agricultural Management”. ISPRS Archives XXXVIII-8/W3 Workshop Proceedings: Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture, Space Applications Centre (ISRO) Ahmedabad, India 17– 18 December. Ghosh, P.K., et al. 2009. “In-situ Soil Moisture and Nutrient Conservation in Northeastern Hill Agriculture”, Technical Bulletin 68. Government of India. 2000. Basics Statistics of North Eastern Region (Various issues). Shillong: North East Council, Ministry of Home Affairs. Government of India. 2008. National Action Plan on Climate Change. New Delhi: Government of India. Government of Meghalaya. 2003. Statistical Handbook of Meghalaya (various issues). Shillong: Directorate of Economics and Statistics Government of Meghalaya. 2006. Statistical abstract of Meghalaya. Shillong: Directorate of Economics and Statistics. Government of Meghalaya. 2006. Meghalaya Agriculture Profile 2006. Shillong: Department of Agriculture. Government of Meghalaya. 2009. Meghalaya State Development Report. Shillong: Department of Planning.

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Gretchen, C. Daily, & Paul R. Ehrlich.1990. “An Exploratory Model of the Impact of Rapid Climate Change on the World Food Situation”. Biological Sciences 241 (1302): 232-244. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Climate Change Report Synthesis 2007. Geneva: IPCC. Karla, N., & Subodh Sharma. 2010. “Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture in India”, (20 January 2011). Meena, Om Prakash, et al. 2005. “Global Warming and Its Impact on Agriculture”. Kurukshetra 53 (8). Mendelsohn, Robert, & Nordhaus, William. 1999. “The Impact of Global Warming on Agriculture: A Ricardian Analysis”. The American Economic Review 89 (4): 1046-1048. Rai, N., et al. 2010. “Enhancing Vegetable Production in North Eastern Hill Region”, (21 December 2012). Ravindranath, N. H., N. V. Joshi., R. Sukumar., & A. Saxena. 2006. “Impact of Climate Change on forests in India”. Current Science 90 (3). Reilly, John. 1999. “What Does Climate Change Mean for Agriculture in Developing Countries? A Comment on Mendelsohn and Dinar”. The World Bank Research Observer 14 (2): 295-305. Sadat, A. 2007. “Some Unanswered Questions in the Climate Change Regime”. Economic and Political Weekly 42 (17). Sharma, Ashwani. 2008. “Impact of Climate Change on Indian Agriculture”. Green Pages (October 2008). The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). 2004. Climate Change Mitigation Measures in India. New Delhi: International Brief.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN MAN AND ENVIRONMENT: THE KHASI NARRATIVE CHARLES REUBEN LYNGDOH1

1. Introduction The study of the relationship between culture and environment has been an active and lively area of research among scholars. This is particularly true among traditional knowledge systems2 which have sought optimal utilisation of their environment against the backdrop of cultural tenets. Such research has produced rich literature on how societies have maintained this balance in the culture-environment narrative. Scholars point out that the most valuable assets of any traditional community are its lands and its culture. These assets are inextricably linked and one cannot exist without the other. It is also pointed out that even when considered as a dichotomy, it is clear that nature and culture converge on many levels that span belief systems, social and institutional organizations, norms, stories, knowledge, behaviours and languages. As a result there exists a mutual feedback between cultural systems and the environment (Pilgrim, 2010, 1). Ramakrishnan (2001, 109) notes that it is widely recognized across the globe and across disciplines that regions of ecological prudence exhibit a symbiotic relationship between habitats and culture. Societies that live close to nature and natural resources which include tribal societies/indigenous people, have evolved with their environment, modifying nature but actively maintaining it in a diverse and productive state. This is done on the basis of their indigenous and ancient knowledge, and through their symbolic recognition of nature in their socio-cultural practices and or religious beliefs. Indigenous knowledge was acknowledged in 1

Associate Professor & Head of Department of Political Science, Synod College, Shillong 2 Traditional knowledge is also referred to variously as local knowledge, indigenous knowledge, local ecological knowledge or eco-literacy.

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the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as “an invaluable basis for developing adaptation and natural resource management strategies in response to environmental and other forms of change” (IPCC, 2007). This recognition of the importance of indigenous knowledge was reaffirmed at several other discussions of IPCC as well as at the Cancun Conference of 2010.The outline of the IPCC’s Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) includes local and traditional knowledge as a distinct topic within Chapter 12 on human security (Nakashima, D.J. et al. 2012, 6). Within the contemporary environmentalist discourse there is the observation that the way in which people treat their natural environment can be related to their religious beliefs and practices (Tomalin 2004, 265). Viewed in this context, another area of study that has emerged focuses on the relationship between religion and the environment. Religious environmentalism is today an important interdisciplinary subfield. The relationship has been grounded on the observation made by Seyyed Hossein Nasr that “the environmental crisis is fundamentally a crisis of values” and that religions, being a primary source of values in any culture, are thus implicated in the decisions humans make regarding environment (Religion and Environmentalism:environment-ecology.com). In a 1966 lecture Lynn White Junior stated that Western Christianity, having desacrilized and instrumentalized nature to human ends, bears a substantial “burden of guilt” for the contemporary crisis. This lecture which was subsequently published (1967, 1203-207) received many responses ranging from defenses of Christianity, to qualified admissions, to complete agreement with his analysis. Religious environmentalism as a modern phenomenon dates back to the 1960s and to the birth of the modern environmental movement. Advocates of this field of study and research portray pre-industrial communities as inherently environmentalist. Integral to this “myth of primitive ecological wisdom” are assumptions about the existence of an “eco-golden age” (that was maintained because of religious beliefs and practices) when people lived in harmony with their environment and the nature around. The Khasi of Meghalaya is one such community where the relationship between culture and environment has displayed a distinctive functional value. Nongbri (2006, 1) writes: “More importantly the merit of indigenous systems of beliefs for the preservation of the ecological system is seen in the local reverence for

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parts of nature like sacred groves and such trees and natural objects as are considered sacred. It is such beliefs that had led to the sustained relationship between man and nature that preserved both for centuries…”

Nature is, thus, an oasis of knowledge and wisdom. It is a living treasure to which great care, observation and respect must be given. Culture has a very important role in the individuals’ attitude towards the environment (Thangkhiew 2015, 71). There exists a close relationship between nature and culture. Over centuries communities who have lived close to nature have learnt to evolve with nature, “adapting to its varied moods and judiciously drawing from its bounties to meet their material and spiritual needs”. Nature is not only a source of their sustenance but also a source of their identity. This fact comes forcefully among the Khasi whose lifestyle, livelihood, beliefs and identity as a people sharply bear the imprint of the natural landscape (Nongbri 2006, 3).

2. The Khasi Narrative In the Khasi worldview the environment is referred to as Mei Ramew (mother earth) and it includes Mariang (nature or earth), celestial bodies such as Sngi (sun), Bnai (moon) and Khlur (star) and khun bynriew (human inhabitants) (Nongkynrih 2012, 45). Mariang (nature or earth) comprises of many elements. These include, a. Ki khlaw ki btap, forest lands which includes ki dieng ki siej (trees and bamboo); ki syntiew ki skud (flowers); ki phlang ki kynbat (grasses and medicinal plants or herbs); ki sim ki doh (birds); ki khñiang ki bsiah (insects and reptiles); ki ngap ki tung (bees, wasps, flies); and ki mrad ki mreng (animals); b. Ki khyndew ki shyiap, lands which include the subterranean and topography; c. Ki lum ki wah, lands which include hills or peaks, rivers, springs, streams, and ponds; d. Ka lyer, the air or the wind and e. Ka por ka samoi, the seasons (Op.cit., 45). The environment comprises of three parts, mother earth and nature, celestial bodies and human beings. These three parts taken together would constitute the “whole”; and parts are connected with one another through the “whole”. The Khasi believe that human beings and the environment are closely connected. The environment gives us our identity of living in a definite territory and it sustains our livelihood and other aspects of social

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life such as our knowledge, our history and our connection with our ancestors on the basis of it. (Ibid., 45). The Khasi have woven interesting stories to answer basic questions of creation, man and environment. Nongkynrih (2007, ix) notes that, “These constitute the creation myths, or what the Khasis call khanatang, or sanctified stories. The function of such stories is to elucidate the Khasi philosophical thought on every aspect of Khasi culture and make sure that it reaches and holds captive even the simplest of men. The stories are therefore invested with symbolical significance and deliberately rendered interesting so as to beguile listeners into believing that they are hearing a story and not listening to a sermon”.

A popular and widely told story is that the Khasi came to their present abode from heaven3. Answering the plea of mother earth, Mei Ramew, to send someone to be the guardian of the earth and all of its bounty, God summoned a grand council of the sixteen families, Khathynriew Trep Khathynriew Skum that resided in heaven. After due deliberation God chose seven of the sixteen families, Hynniew Trep Hynniew Skum to descend to the earth and to be the stewards of all creation while the nine families, Khyndai Trep Khyndai Skum remained in heaven. These seven families would later become the ancestors of the seven sub-tribes of the Khasi people, comprising of the Khynriam, Pnar, Bhoi, War Maram, Lyngngam and the now never-heard-of Diko. As a tangible sign of this covenant, God planted a divine tree on a sacred mountain, Lum Sohpet Bneng, which served as a golden ladder, jingkieng ksiar, between heaven and earth. This covenant declared that so long as the seven families adhered to the three tenets of Tip Briew Tip Blei, Tip Kur Tip Kha and Kamai ia ka Hok4 they would never be left alone but could come and go as they pleased between heaven and earth through the golden ladder located on Lum Sohpet Bneng (also called the mount of heaven’s navel). This relationship between God and man continued so long as man upheld the tenets of the covenant and upheld the stature befitting his celestial lineage. Man prospered and so did the earth with all its natural bounty. However ensnared by the evil one, greed occupied man’s heart and he began to 3

This popular story has been narrated by numerous scholars and writers. For the purpose of this paper the writer has extracted from the versions of several scholars and writers namely: Barnes L. Mawrie, H.O. Mawrie, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, S. Barkataki and Tiplut Nongbri. 4 These three tenets mean, knowledge of man and God, knowledge of one’s maternal as well as paternal relations, and to earn righteousness in one’s life.


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trample upon the rights of his fellow beings. Displeased by man’s rebellion and failure to uphold his status and the tenets, God severed His ties with man and forever closed the golden ladder to heaven through Lum Sohpet Bneng. This story further continues to narrate how man redeemed his place before God through humility and obedience. Bereft of God’s guidance, the seven families remained helpless orphans amidst a new kind of darkness that enveloped the earth. God then made an oak tree, Dengïei, situated on another sacred mountain, Lum Dengïei, grow to an enormous height and its branches spread so wide that they soon covered the sunlight and darkness was cast upon the earth. Under the dark cover of this tree, wild and ferocious animals made their home. Faced with this spiritual crisis man groped in the dark, he stumbled and fell until he finally turned to God in repentance. Man felled the mighty tree and once again light returned to the earth and the broken relationship between God and man was reestablished. This story depicting the origin of the Khasi, their relationship with God and with nature has passed down through many generations of social filtering thereby rendering several versions of the story itself. Despite these versions the message that emerges is that, a) the sinfulness of man caused a breach in man’s relationship with God; b) the envy and ambition of the evil one (a third person) brought about this breach in man’s relationship with God; c) it was man himself who voluntarily opted to remain on earth (Mawrie 2009, 32-33). This story could be easily dismissed as an imaginary tale, a folktale of little relevance. However, viewed from a different perspective it tells of the repository of wisdom and values that the community upholds. It sheds light on the community’s social and cultural philosophy and the community’s strong bond with nature. Mohrmen (2015) writes, “The Khasi Pnar traditional wisdom and understanding of nature is not only unique but is also profound. The Khasi Pnar like any of the first nations lived and has been living in harmony with nature. Much before the world talked about the interdependent web of existence, the Khun u Hynniewtrep already had their myths and legends which depicted equality of all creations. It is believed that in the days of yore, the golden era or the virgin age as we would like to call it, human and animals were not only talking to each other, but they even lived as equal creations of the Creator”.

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Nongbri (2006, 4) has contemplatively pointed out that while on one hand these myths illustrate the close link that existed between the Khasi (humans) and God, on the other hand they point to the close harmony that characterized the relations between man and nature. Man’s violation of God’s laws not only disrupted the direct line of communication he had with the Creator, but his interference with the bounties of nature disturbed the delicate balance between society and the natural environment. Such stories reflect two features inherent in Khasi tradition, a) the people’s deep faith in God and aversion to sin and evil; b) the people’s respect for nature and the importance attached to ecological prudence. Mawrie (2009, 33-35) notes that in this story the ecological significance stands out clearly. What is observed is the deep inherent ecoconsciousness of the Khasi where he expresses his relationship with God always through creation (the tree). Creation (plants and animals) commands great respect in Khasi religion and culture. In order to depict the spiritual crisis of man after that golden era, the ancient Khasis chose the elements of creation to tell their story. The oak tree, Dengïei, with its wide spreading branches and rich foliage symbolized the reign of evil. It covered the sunlight of God’s goodness from man. To symbolize the different evils which man indulged himself in, the ancient Khasis used figures of wild and ferocious animals who took shelter under the tree. Khasi belief system does not depict sin in abstract terms but through the possessions of nature. Similarly when man fell to the charms of sin, the whole of creation too fell prey to this fall and was thrown into complete chaos. And when man was redeemed from sin creation too rejoiced in this redemption. Thus the story of man’s sin, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation has a deep and elemental relationship with nature in the Khasi belief system. Thangkhiew (2015, 72-73) notes that the Khasis, like every tribal group, have a close affinity to Nature. For a Khasi, God, Man and Nature form one single and indivisible entity. God takes residence in Nature, on the mountains and the hills, in the rivers, the lakes, the forests. God reveals himself through nature and the world that he has created. Man on the other hand, is seen as an integral unit of Nature. His relationship with the rest of creation is so elemental that he is considered to be the link who communicates with the rest of creation. A Khasi believes in the interdependence or inter-connectedness between man and other beings in nature. He is a part of nature itself. Every aspect of nature has a bearing on the Khasi’s overall personality and his relationship with his fellow human beings.


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Khasi stories are thus vehicles through which moral lessons on nature and environment are transmitted to posterity. Mawrie (2014, 99) notes that a Khasi personifies nature and speaks of its qualities as if they belong to a real human person. The Khasi pine tree (dieng kseh) is a teacher of selfsacrifice and service because it provides fuel and timber for houses. The Khasi oak (dieng sning) stands tall for a person of principle, who never wavers even in the strong winds of criticism. Furthermore, the Khasi have upheld a remarkable environmental ethic. Nature is fondly referred to as Mei Mariang (Mother Nature), who is to be loved, cared for and respected. Man is reminded to use the gifts of nature (wood, bamboo) with discretion and due permission all along heedful that need and not wanton greed is his guiding principle. To protect the natural environment from wanton destruction, the Khasi have also framed and followed ecological laws. The reference of Khasi stories to sacred mountains, sacred forests (groves), and sacred rivers reflects this ecological frame of mind within the community. Violation of these protected environmental spaces and their gifts would invite the wrath and punishment of nature herself manifested again through stories of guardian spirits and sacred settlers in such places. Human punishments against violations took the form of trials and ordeals by natural elements such as water and fire. The Khasi believe that the community is the ultimate custodian and authority in deciding all matters related to land and land management. The community regulated land usage patterns to ensure that sustenance needs of every individual and family were met while simultaneously balancing the ecological need of Mother Nature to recuperate. The traditional practice of swidden (shifting) cultivation clearly illustrated this concern that the Khasi way of life exhibited for the land and the environment.

3. Conclusion In the present century the concern for the negative impact of environmental degradation is rising. Lack of respect for our value system has made people behave in ways which show a marked lack of awareness and appreciation for the very ecosystems which make our survival possible (Foltz 2010, 131). This indicates that we do not value these ecosystems as we should. It has been provokingly pointed out by Paul Ehrlich (op.cit., 131-132) that we are vigorously sawing off the very branch we are sitting on, thinking only of how much we can sell it for as firewood. Those who understand man’s dependence on ecosystems realize that the environmental crisis is the shaky stage on which all other human dramas are being played out-if the stage crumbles, none of the rest will matter.

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Yet we persist in treating the environmental crisis merely as one issue among many, rather than as the central issue that it is. What a community does about the environment depends on its idea and perception of the man-nature relationship. Traditional societies have accumulated vast empirical knowledge on the basis of their experience whilst dealing with nature and natural resources. This traditional wisdom is based on the intrinsic realization that man and nature form part of an indivisible whole and therefore should live in partnership with each other (Ramakrishnan 2001, 118). It has been observed that indigenous people have long and multi-generational histories of interaction with their environments that include coping with environmental uncertainty, variability and change. They have demonstrated their resourcefulness and response capacity in the face of global environmental changes. Resilience in the face of change is rooted in indigenous knowledge and know-how, diversified resources and livelihoods, social institutions and networks and cultural values and attitudes (Nakashima, D.J. et al. 2012, 7-9). The Khasi stories become perhaps a source of insight to relook at their social and environmental significance within the present context of environmental degradation and destruction. Such insights that may be gained from folktales help drive the point across that a balanced ecologically stable coexistence between Man and nature is of paramount importance. The spiritual communion that folktales attempt to impart implores Man to take seriously his role as an overseer of a world that needs his stewardship more than ever (Dunai, 2015:87). This would require even a reenvisioning of man’s place in the centre of all discussions on environment – lord or steward?

References Barkataki, S. 1977. The Khasis. Pathsala, Assam: Bani Prakash. Dunai, Mankhrawbor. 2015. “Man and Nature: Spiritual Communion and Conflict with special reference to Khasi Folktales”. In EnvironmentCultural Interaction and the Tribes of North-East India edited by Banshaikupar L. Mawlong & Marco Babit Mitri. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Foltz, Richard. 2010. “The Environmental Crisis and Global Violence: A Matter of Misplaced Values”. Islamic Perspective 3. Jr., Lynn White. 1967. ‘The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis’, Science 155 (3767).


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Mawrie, Barnes L. 2009. The Khasis and their Natural Environment (2nd Edn.). Shillong: Vendrame Institute Publications. Mawrie, Barnes L. 2014. Khasi Ethics. Shillong: Vendrame Institute Publications. Mawrie, H.O. 1981. The Khasi Milieu. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. Mohrmen, H. 2015. “Erosion of Culture, Tradition and Environment Destruction”. The Shillong Times January 26, 2015. Nakashima, D.J., Galloway McLean, K., Thulstrup, H.D., Ramos Castillo, A. & Rubis, J.T. 2012. Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation. Paris: UNESCO and Darwin, UNU. Nongbri, Tiplut. 2006. “Culture and Biodiversity: Myths, Legends and the Conservation of Nature in the Hills of North-East India”. Indian Anthropologist 36 (1/20 (Jan-Dec). Nongkynrih, A.K. 2012. “Tribes and their Environment: A Sociological Interpretation”. Oriens Journal for Contextual Theology III. Nongkynrih, Kynpham Sing. 2007. Around the Hearth: Khasi Legends. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Ramakrishnan, P.S. 2001. “Ecological threads in the sacred fabric”. India International Centre Quarterly 27/28. —. “Religion and environmentalism”, (21 July 2016). Pilgrim, Sarah & Jules, Pretty, ed. 2010. Nature and Culture: Rebuilding Lost Connections. London: Earthscan Ltd. Thangkhiew, Jennifer. 2015. “Ecology and Spirituality: A Study in the Khasi Context with special reference to the Poem ‘Ki Sngi U Hynniew Trep’ by U Soso Tham”. In Environment-Cultural Interaction and the Tribes of North-East India, edited by Banshaikupar L. Mawlong & Marco Babit Mitri. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Tomalin, Emma. 2004. “Bio-Divinity and Biodiversity: Perspectives on Religion and Environmental Conservation in India”. Numen 51 (3).

CHAPTER FIFTEEN ETHICAL RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE WITH REFERENCE TO THE KHASIS: THEN AND NOW SAPHIMOSHA W. BLAH1

Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing societies over the coming decades. With the widespread scientific consensus that it is enhanced by human activity, the issue has become a burning topic of both research and policy agendas and is a subject of increasing media coverage and growing public concern. Often labelled as an environmental issue, it is increasingly recognized that climate change has important social and economic dimensions as well. Climate change poses many ethical questions. One important concern that comes to our minds when we talk about climate change is the impact of climate change on our everyday lives. Hurricanes, floods, and other incidents related to climate change are regular news items. Furthermore, the impact of climate change leads us to another important question – that regarding the evaluation of the impact. That is, are we concerned only with its impact on human beings? Or should we be concerned about its impact on the animals and other non-human life too? The first question is associated with what is termed as Environmental Ethics, the anthropocentric perspective. The term comes from the Greek “anthropos” which means human beings. The second question is associated with the Nonanthropocentric perspective. In the Non-anthropocentric perspective, the concern is extended to animals and non-human life forms as well. Wayne Hsiung and Cass R. Sunstein, in their paper Climate Change and Animals, mentioned some of the impacts of climate change on 1

Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, St. Mary’s College, Shillong, Meghalaya, India

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animals. The case of the polar bears which depend on the Artic sea ice for their survival and which are affected due to the shrinking sea ice day by day. The polar bears are forced to move northward because of this change. This migration is accompanied with a lot of difficulties which eventually might lead to the extinction of these bears. The harlequin frogs in Central and South America are suffering extinction because of a pathogenic outbreak brought about by climate change (Hsiung 2007, 1696). The impact of climate change has bearings on animals and affects human beings as well. For instance, the rise in global temperature increases the span of all life forms; the polar bears are forced to move northward to the cooler regions. Such climate shift has a number of negative impacts on the human society - agriculture would suffer from temperature changes, human health would decline and diseases such as malaria would spread to previously inaccessible regions. Eventually, climate change encourages habitat loss of both animals and human beings. (Hsiung 2007, 1700) Thus for a better evaluation of the impact of climate change another perspective has to be taken into consideration. This perspective is called environmental synergism according to Peter S. Wenz (Wenz 2001, 14). According to Wenz, synergy exists when two or more things acting together produce far greater results than those produced by each separately. The environmental synergists are of the opinion that the synergy exists between respect for people and respect for nature. In the long run, this simultaneous respect for people and nature improves the outcome for both. According to them, valuing and respecting nature would inevitably promote mutual respect for fellow human beings which would lead to the improvement of human welfare. Similarly, when it comes to climate change, human beings should adopt an individualistic, holistic and non-anthropocentric concern, and they should care about its impact on animals, species and the ecosystem alike. According to the synergists, this would limit the human attempts to dominate nature (Wenz 2001, 171) for it is time we realized that “it is not possible to have healthy humans on a sick planet. To put the health of the planet in peril is to subsequently endanger our own survival” (Hara 2011, 26). It should be noted here that Deep Ecology and the worldviews of some indigenous people are considered as synergistic environmental philosophies (Wenz 2001, 15). Any discussion on the response to climate change requires more than just an account of how to evaluate climatic impact, especially when we consider the ethical aspect. The other important question concerns the

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moral responsibility to act. There has always been a widespread agreement that humans are responsible for bringing about climate change. However, past instances show that there has been inadequate response to the global climate change crisis. This is because debates on climate have always been overloaded with difficulties. Developing nations continue to feel that their need for adopting strategies to combat climate change has not been given enough attention by the fiscally rich nations, though they are the biggest contributors to climate change and also consume more energy than the poorer nations. Thus climate change is more likely to emphasize the gap between the rich and poor of the world. Furthermore, there are certain sections of the society like the indigenous people, the women (especially in the rural area) and the poor who have not been given proper attention with regard to their vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. These sections are the least responsible for climate change, but are the most susceptible to its impact. For instance, with the increasing environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources women are generally at the receiving end because this means that the distances they have to walk daily in search of clean water and firewood have increased (Dento 2002, 12). Ironically, these are also the people who have a closer relation with nature. Their lives revolve around nature and they have developed a wealth of knowledge on animals, plants and nature. Climate change has always been treated as a scientific event and traditional knowledge has always been considered to be unscientific and therefore illogical and superstitious. It is not surprising then that in the modern scientific world, where science and technology govern all aspects of our lives, the indigenous and traditional is considered out dated and useless. Traditional knowledge is not popular among the present generation and what has survived is also dying with the older generation. Sadly, the wisdom that has been handed down by our forefathers has been left unrecorded and could be lost if it is not utilised. Climate change is a real threat to human security in general. Pope Francis recently stated that: “Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, and political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity....if present trends continue; this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us”. (Hale 2015)


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The moment we come to terms with this reality our policy makers may then be more open-minded and consider integrating the local traditional knowledge into the main stream policy. The Khasis, an indigenous community in the North-Eastern part of India, have a very close relationship with nature, so close that it is believed that nature talks to him2 and influences his thoughts and actions. According to the Khasis, nature teaches and guides man in his everyday existence. Nature is like a school for a Khasi, giving him examples and moulding them into stories and aphorisms, to convey the deep meaning of its message to his fellowmen and future generation. The Khasi tradition being oral, it has no written records thus its past is undocumented. Yet it has been an efficient tool and a better storehouse of all the knowledge and wisdom of the Khasis. A close study of the Khasi society requires one to look into the folklores, phawars or native lyrics, and Ki jingsnengtymmen oraphorisms which have been handed down from one generation to another. Khasi folklore reveals that issues on climate change are not something new to them. The term ‘climate change’ was coined only in the last century but there is mention about a number of phenomena associated with climate change in their folklores. Among the many folklores the myths of ‘U Diengiei,’ and the ‘Lost Script’, where a mention of the deluge has been made are notable. It must be said that folklores reflect the perspective of the traditional Khasis. The modern Khasi perspective, however, is one dominated by the scientific outlook which is so vastly different from the former. The Khasi tribe has been known as a storytelling community. Storytelling is one of the defining characteristics of the Khasis. It is an opportunity to express and share their various experiences. Before the advent of western civilization in the Khasi hills, one of the most effective ways of entertainment was storytelling. Though the overt purpose of storytelling among the Khasis was entertainment, many values and insights were instilled in the younger generations through the stories. The myths of ‘U Diengiei’ and about the ‘Lost Script’ are closely associated with climate change:

2 The word man (and its connotations) in this paper is being used to stand for humanity and not for any specific gender per se.

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U Diengiei In the beginning God created only two beings - Ka Ramew or Ka Mei Ramew, the guardian spirit of the Earth and her husband, U Basa. The two lived happily together but were tormented by one thing. They wanted children because life without them would be empty and lonely. They prayed to God sincerely to bless them with a child. Eventually, God answered their prayers by giving them five children - The Sun, the Moon, Water, Wind and Fire. Ramew was happy to be with her children and to watch them grow and prosper. But deep down in her heart, she knew that something was missing. So, once again she prayed to God, the Creator, the Giver and Keeper of Life to send someone who would not only be the heir of the Earth but also a caretaker of all this bounty. God, who is just and benevolent, heard the humble pleas of Ramew and decided to hold the greatest council - ‘dorbar-bah dorbar-san ha bneng’ ever held in heaven to elect the future guardians of the Earth. God declared that seven of the sixteen clans living in Heaven should come down to Earth. And from thenceforth they would be known as ‘Ki HynniewTrep ne Ki HynniewSkum’ - The Seven Huts or The Seven Families/Clans. God continued to shower his blessings on Earth, and made a covenant with the Seven Clans. This covenant declared that so long as the Seven Clans obeyed the three principles of Ka Tip Briew Tip Blei- Knowlegde of Man and God, Ka Tip Kur Tip Kha- Knowledge of one’s Maternal and Paternal Relations and Ka Kamai ïa Ka Hok- To earn one’s Righteousness, they would never be left alone, but they could come and go between Heaven and Earth, through the Golden Ladder at Lum SohpetBneng. As a token/remainder of that covenant, He planted the Diengïei or the Ïei tree- “Bad kum ka synjatjong kane ka jingïateh-jutang, u Trai Nongthaw U la buh da kawei ka dieng kaba kyrteng ka Diengïei, ba kan long borabor ka dak jong kata ka jingïateh-jutang”. (Elias 1965, 3) However, it is not in man’s nature to be content with this happiness and peace, for he was by nature a rebel. Soon he began to neglect the Divine Decree; he wanted to branch out on his own to determine his life independently. So when man was charmed by the alien creature into believing the looming danger of Ka Diengïei covering all of Earth with its expanding foliage, man decided to take matters in his own hands instead


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of going to God for advice. Before long it was decided that the offending Diengïei should be felled to the ground. Every man was called upon to bring their axes to strike it down. After an exhausting day they returned home in the evening to continue with the task in the morning. When they came back the next day they found that the tree had miraculously healed itself. This went on for a few days until a little bird called Phreit happened to visit. Phreit told them of a tiger who licks the marks on the tree thus making it whole again. The only solution was to place their axes at night with the sharpened ends on the portion of the trunk that they had chopped the whole day. So that when the tiger comes to lick the tree its tongue would be cut off. This is how the Diengïei was felled. God was very unhappy with man’s act of felling the Diengïei, the token of his convenant with God. He decided to break off all ties with man and closed forever the Golden Ladder to Heaven through SohpetBneng. Thus the children of U Hynniewtrep U Hynniewskum found themselves completely severed from God, nature and the other nine families above.

The Lost Script There was a time when God called together the various representatives of the Earth’s people to give them a written script of their own. A representative of the Khasi tribe and another of the plains called Dkhar were sent to the mountain. They stayed there with God for eight days and nights, where they were given their script along with various instructions and teachings. On their way back, the two encountered a deluge at the foot of the mountain and found it very difficult to get home. They knew that the water could destroy the delicate paper on which the script was written. At first a thought came to their minds that they should wait until the flood has subsided. But the excitement to reach home took the better of them and they decided to risk crossing the deluge. The Dkhar, who had a pigtail on his head according to the custom of his people, attached his document securely to it and swam to safety on the otherside. The Khasi, who had no pigtail, took the document between his teeth and began to swim. Being from the hills, he was not a swimmer and he had to struggle against the current to survive. In this struggle he discovered that he had accidently swallowed his document. According to the Khasi forefathers, this is the reason why the Khasis do not have a written script of their own and had to rely on the spoken word.

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An analysis into both the folklores reveals to us some elements of climate change. In the Lost Script we came to know about the deluge that has cost the Khasis their written script. Meghalaya is a plateau and the Khasis are hill people. Floods do not occur in the hills, and even if they did, they were a rare phenomenon; so rare a phenomenon that it finds mention in a myth which has been handed down orally from one generation to another. Our present understanding of climate change is that it is a change in global or regional climate patterns. If we go by this understanding, then we could say that the deluge in the folklore is definitely a case of climate change. In the other folkore, the felled Diengïei Tree could be taken to be a symbol of the deteriorated state of nature, worsened by man himself. The darkness that man found himself in could be regarded as an image of Death. With Nature dying, it was as if God himself had deserted him. Thus, it has been said that the Khasis tried their best to repair their relationship with God. If one were to analyze Khasi society very closely, one could see the impacts of a declining state of nature on this tribal community. The impacts are so severe that one would discover in them an effort to reestablish the world order that had existed before the fall of the Diengïei when their relationship with God and nature was intact. It is a kind of desire to obviate the destruction that had taken place and brought damage to the society. This sense of remorse shows that the Khasis have taken the moral responsibility of being the ones who played an important role in bringing about these various changes in the world around him. After the severance from God, on the one hand, and nature, on the other, the Khasi found himself in a situation which he had never experienced before. He had become an outcast in this world. Before the separation from God he lived in peace and abundance and always under the protection of God Himself. But after the Diengïei was felled, the Khasi began wandering aimlessly. It was at this point he realized that a solution to the problem has to be discovered. It dawned on him that the pain of this separation could be healed only by restoring the sacred relation with God. Now the question that stares the Khasi in the eye is ‘how can this relationship be restored?’ To answer this question, the Khasi looked deep into the meaning of his very existence. He understood that it is only through Nature that the severed relation with God could be repaired. The very purpose for which he came to Earth was to take care of it or to be a steward of nature. Nature was his only bridge to God. The Khasi also realized that he needed nature for his very own existence. When the Diengïei fell all that was left on


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Earth was the darkness of death itself. In fact, it was this recognition of death that impelled the Khasi into seeking a way to restore his relation with God. Thus nature not only mends his relation with God but also gives meaning to his existence. Having realized the importance of nature for his very existence, the Khasi looked back on the Divine Decree given to him by God and considered it to be his ethical duty. This Divine Decree include Ka Tip Briew Tip Blei - Knowlegde of Man and God, Ka Tip Kur Tip KhaKnowledge of one’s Maternal and Paternal Relations and Ka Kamai ïa Ka Hok - To earn one’s Righteousness. Besides the mentioned set of duties, the Khasi also has responsibilities towards nature – the very reason for him being on earth. As seen in the folklore the main duty of the Khasi was to take care of ‘Ka Mei Ramew’ (Nature) by preserving the bounties of nature and beautifying it. Perhaps before the felling of the Diengïei these were his ethical duties to nature. However, after the Diengiei was felled, the Khasi felt that as a reminder to the future generations, they are to protect, through social traditions and taboos incorporating spiritual and ecological values, a forested area or a Sacred Grove- Law Kyntang. Further, it may be pointed out that for the Khasis, it is considered a taboo to cut any tree in the Sacred Groves. This perhaps could be considered as a caution which would remind the Khasis of what happened long ago when the Diengïei was felled. Thus, the traditional Khasi recognised the various changes taking place in nature and accepted them as climate change. They also realized that without nature man is nothing. According to the folklore of the Diengïei, the Khasis depicted nature as the only bridge that could mend their broken relationship with God. They have also come to terms with the fact that mankind causes deterioration of the nature. However, the Khasi refused to have a pessimistic attitude towards life. He made a mistake that nearly brought about the destruction of nature, but he is not doomed. He thought of a way that not only served as a reminder to the future generation about what happened long ago but also how to preserve nature. This is the practice of maintaining Ki Law Kyntang or the Sacred Groves. Hence, this traditional perspective of the Khasis not only addressed the questions about the evaluation of the impact of climate change and their moral responsibility but they also found a solution to the emerging problem. According to the land tenure and laws of the Khasis, land is divided into Kiri Raj or Public land and Kiri Kynti or Private lands. The sacred groves constitute Public land and they are further divided into three

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categories: (i) Ki ‘Law Lyngdoh, where there is a lyngdoh or priest who looks after the groves. These grooves are meant for the ritual activities of the people of that area. (ii) Ki ‘Law-Adong and (iii) Ki ‘Law-Kyntang. Both Ki ‘Law-Adong and Ki ‘Law-Kyntang are meant for the welfare of the villagers and the produce are to be used for the religious activities of the village (Cantlie 1964, 34-35).Thus it is considered a taboo or sang to strike down any tree or pluck any plant in these sacred groves unless it is related to a religious ceremony. Similarly, no animal is allowed to be killed inside a sacred grove because it is believed that the deity residing in the sacred grove could take its form. The deity inhabiting the sacred grove at Mawphlang in the Khasi Hills is called Basa and is described as taking the form of a tiger or leopard. Since there is minimal exploitation of these groves, a large variety of the endangered flora and fauna could still be found there. Thus, these sacred groves constitute a biodiversity. The sacred groves are scattered all over the districts of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. This indigenous practice of maintaining the sacred groves is very old and it is closely linked to the spiritual and cultural aspects. According to the traditional religion of the Khasi, a deity (U Ryngkew U Basa) resides in the sacred grove and offers protection to the community. Therefore to protect a sacred grove is to respect the deity residing there. Tiwari says that some rituals connected with the sacred groves are similar to the one performed in the sacred grove of Pahampdem in the RiBhoi District of the state. This sacred grove belongs to the Lyngdoh Syntiew clan and is managed by the clan council. They believe that U Ryngkew U Basa inhabits the sacred grove. Accordingly every year in the month of April a religious ritual called ‘Ka Leh-ňiam Pyrda’ is performed inside the grove at a particular spot. This ritual is performed by the ‘Lyngdoh Ňiam’ along with seven or nine male members (always in odd numbers) belonging to other clans in the village. Another religious ritual connected to this grove is known as ‘Ka Shad Rah Rynthei’, which is usually held once in five years in the Ïng Ňiam or religious house of the Lyngdoh (Priests). This ritual lasts for three days during the month of December. There is also a religious ritual related to sacred grove observed in Raliang sacred grove of Jaiňtia Hills District. This religious ritual is performed annually in the month of November and is known as ‘Ka Nguh Blai’ (Tiwari 1995, 66-74). While these religious rituals have been performed every year in the past, they are becoming less frequent at present due to many reasons such as the coming of modernity, the advent of Christianity, and education have considerably eroded the traditional belief of the people. It has been


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observed that the Khasis who have converted to Christianity no longer consider the religious rituals associated with their traditional religions to be sacred and important. Christian residents of Mawphlang, for example, no longer believe in the Labasa and consequently, all religious ceremonies began to lose their meaning (Ormsby 2013, 192). Eventually, the sacredness associated with the groves began to disappear and with that the trees are felled randomly and sold. The change in religious beliefs is not the sole reason for this change in attitude. The other important factor is the economic pressure to use the timber in the sacred groves. Therefore it is no surprise that the modern Khasi, as a twenty-first century man, has a different orientation towards nature. The pristine relationship to nature that he inherited from his forefathers seems to have been replaced by a consumerist outlook. Many developments have brought about a change in his mind-set and outlook. This does not mean that the modern man is ignorant about the hazardous impacts of climate change. In fact, with the help of technology he has more knowledge than his forefather. Then why is he unwilling to do anything about climate change? Why are his actions inadequate to combat climate change? In trying to explain the situation, Lisa Kretz talks about the problem of “Akrasia” which Socrates presented in Plato’s Protagoras. “Akrasia” refers to the weakness of the will where one knows exactly the right thing to do but fails to act accordingly. According to Socrates, people who are overwhelmed by a desire for immediate pleasure have the tendency to pay attention only to short-term benefits and remain ignorant of the greater pleasure to be achieved in the long run. Therefore, it is ignorance that causes man to commit the wrong action. Socrates also reiterated the fact that nobody would deliberately do the wrong action (Kretz 2012, 13). “Akrasia” is therefore the reason that causes the twenty-first century man to be callous about the problems of climate change. The traditional man, however, being simple-minded and innocent, was concerned only about the welfare of the people and nature. It is evident that there is still so much for modern man to learn from the traditions of the indigenous people. A healthy relation with nature benefits society at large. However, the traditional man could share his wisdom only if he is given a platform where he could be heard. If smaller and poorer nations have difficulties in being heard, the indigenous group of people will have even fewer means and lesser scope to be heard. Thus, it is time for us to change our mind-sets and make efforts to give the climate change forum a more people-centred approach where voices

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from different corners of the Earth are heard. It is time we realized that climate change is based on the ‘survival of the fittest’ philosophy and that we should take help from any quarters possible. We all watch the news and know that with the rise in the sea level the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu would consequently be submerged and thereby make its citizens the first world climate refugees (Al Jazeera 2007). At the same time we know that there are no laws or conventions to protect these migrants because no country would accept them. Hence, human adaptation to climate change is a practical concern and discussions must not only reflect the powerful voices of society, but also aim at ensuring that the voices of people with low resilience are heard and given the necessary tools to adapt and sustain themselves. ‘Unless efforts are taken to incorporate indigenous knowledge into mainstream policy, it will continue to be a case of standing knee-deep in the river and dying of thirst’. (Dento 2002, 18)

References Cantlie, K. 1964. Ka Ain U Khasi: Ka bynta ka ba ar. Shillong: RiKhasi Press. Dento, Fatma. 2002. “Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation: Why Does Gender Matter?” Gender and Development 10 (2):10-20. Elias, H. 1965. Ki Khanatang U Ba Rim. Shillong: Don Bosco Press. Hsiung, Wayne, Sunstein, & Cass R. 2007. “Climate Change and Animals.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 155.6: 1695-1740. Hara, Dennis Patric, & Abelsohn, Alan. Spring 2011. “Ethical Response to Climate Change.” Ethics and the Environment 16.1: 25-50. Kretz, Lisa. 2012. “Climate Change: bridging the Theory-Action Gap.” Ethics and the Environment 17. 2: 9-27. Nongkynrih, Kynpham Sing. 2007. The Seven Clans and The Purple Crest in Around the Hearth Khasi Legends. India: Penguin Books. Ormsby, Alison. 2013. “Analysis of Local Attitudes toward the Sacred Groves of Meghalaya and Karnataka, India”. Conservation and Society 11.2: 187-197. Tiwari, B.K., Barik, S.K., & Tripathi, R. S. 1995. Sacred Groves of Meghalaya: Status and Strategies for Their Conservation. Shillong: North Eastern Hill University. Wenz, Peter S. 2001. Environmental Ethics Today. New York: Oxford University Press. Hale, Christopher J. June 18 2015. “The 5 Most Important Points of Pope Francis’s Climate Change Encyclical,


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(13th May 2016). Al Jazeera, 2 February 2007. “The Pacific's climate refugees”, (13th May 2009).

CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE CONTRIBUTION OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE OF THE KHASIS IN ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT JASMINE T. SAWIAN, LARIHUN JEENGAPH AND MICHELLE KHONGWIR1

1. Introduction All life on earth is part of a great and interdependent system which interacts with and depends on the non-living components of the planet- the atmosphere, ocean, fresh water, rock and soil. Humanity depends totally on this community of life. Today, as always, human beings are not only dependent on nature for their sustenance, health, well-being and enjoyment of life, but also derive all of its food and medicine and industrial products from the wild and domesticated components of the biological diversity. The indigenous people of the world possess an immense knowledge of their environments, based on centuries of living close to nature. The territories of most of the indigenous people around the world overlap with the regions rich in biodiversity. The indigenous people occupy and protect vast forests that are being assessed and presented in the REDD market for Global Climate Change mitigation. The strengths of the indigenous people as conservation and development partners include their diversity, self-organizing abilities, knowledge, their internal accountability, and their locally-adapted cultures (Alcorn 2010, 1). Meghalaya (2001’N–2605’N latitude and 85049’E–9202’E longitude) “the abode of clouds” in Sanskrit, is one of the eight states of North East India. Meghalaya covers an area of approximately 22,430 square 1

Department of Environmental Science St. Edmund’s College, Shillong, Meghalaya, India

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kilometers with a population of 2,964,007 (2011 Census). There are numerous rivers, mainly rain-fed, which flows through Meghalaya, which are characterized by rocky beds and strong water currents. Meghalaya experiences two distinct seasons, i.e. winter and monsoon, and is characterized by a cool climate throughout the year. The average annual rainfall in some areas, particularly the Mawsynram-Sohra (Cherrapunjee) belt, is as high as 12,000 mm. The state is bounded by Assam on the north and east, in the south by Bangladesh, and on the west partly by Assam and Bangladesh. Meghalaya is divided into eleven districts namely West Jaintia Hills, East Jaintia Hills, East Khasi Hills, West Khasi Hills, South West Khasi Hills, Ri-Bhoi, North Garo Hills, East Garo Hills, South Garo Hills, West Garo Hills, and South West Garo Hills. The indigenous tribes of Meghalaya can be classified into three main groups – Khasis, Pnars or Jaintias and Garos. The Khasis and Pnars are believed to be the descendants of Proto Austroloid Monkhmer race, while the Garos are believed to be the descendants of the Tibeto-Burman race which migrated from Tibet. Their cultural traits and ethnic origins remain distinctive, mainly due to their geographical isolation. The Khasi language spoken here is believed to be one of the few surviving dialects of the MonKhmer family of languages in India (Sadangi 2008, 161). The Khasis follow a matrilineal system, where the lineage and property passes from the mother to the youngest daughter who becomes the custodian of the family and property. The Khasi tribe has a deep connection with nature, which plays an integral part in the indigenous religion, where mountains, water and trees are considered as deities.

2. Knowledge and Ecosystem Management Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge that is unique to a culture or society. Many indigenous communities have been exposed to different kinds of environmental changes and have developed strategies to face these phenomena. Traditional societies, in many cases, have built up knowledge over long periods about changes in the environment and have developed elaborate strategies to cope with these changes. These people may therefore have to offer valuable knowledge for future adaptation and mitigation of climate change (Macchi et al. 2008, 1). Meghalaya is a treasure house of traditional knowledge on various disciplines including flora and fauna. Indigenous knowledge has been reported to be used on health care, fisheries and forest management (Tynsong & Tiwari 2008, 618). Such knowledge still remains largely unreported. Like many

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indigenous communities, the Khasis also have a long tradition of natural resources conservation based on custom and religious beliefs which have been passed on from one generation to the other.

3. Forest Management Practices The forest is a natural system that can supply different products and services. The working of this system is influenced by the natural environment: climate, topography, soil, etc. and also by human action. In the hills of Northeast India, large tracts of land remain under the control of local communities. The subtropical moist broad leaf forests in Meghalaya are one of the biodiversity-rich areas in the country with a variety of plants, mammals and birds. Forests cover an area of about 15,657sq.km in the State, with only 1,027.2 square kilometers (6.56%) being under the control of the State Forest Department. The rest of the total forest area is either private/clan or community owned. The following types of forest management practices of the Khasis have been recorded and they include the following (adapted from Tynsong et al. 2012, 164-169): 1) ‘Law Raid’ (Group of village forest) - These forests are jointly owned by a group of contiguous villages. The area under this type of forest is generally large and stretches from one village to the other. Such type of forests is managed by a council which is comprised of the Head of the village (Sordar) and the Headmen of all the villages within the territory (Raid). No village can claim any ownership of this kind of forest and people within the Raid can access and collect the resources from the forest. 2) ‘Law Shnong’ (Village-forest) - These forests belong to a particular village and their resources are the property of the village. Such forests are found within the boundary of a village. The Village Dorbar controls them but the villagers are allowed to collect timber, firewood and other non-timber forest products for personal or community use. However, the forests and their resources cannot be used for commercial purposes or for Jhum Cultivation without the permission from the Village Council. 3) ‘Kshap’- This type of forest is similar to Law Shnong but smaller. The only difference is in their management. In this type of forest, no individual can claim any ownership, and cultivation is prohibited but forest resources can be harvested by the villagers. These forests belong to the village. They are usually located near cliff edges or in the areas where agricultural activities are not possible.


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4) ‘Law Adong’ (Restricted village-forest) - Law Adong is under the control of a particular village. This type of forest is similar to the Law Shnong in terms of their overall management. The only difference is the degree of protection and the access to the forest is restricted. Extraction of timber and firewood are prohibited from these forests. However, other non-timber forest products i.e., vegetables, mushroom etc. can be extracted without affecting the forest. 5) ‘Law Kur’ (Clan-forest) - This type of forest mostly belongs to one particular clan, and maybe located within the village boundary or outside it. Some of the Law Kur are believed to be sanctified, and no timber or firewood is allowed to be collected from such forests. People believe that cultivation in such forests will bring them bad luck, so they are left undisturbed often in their pristine state and are rich in biodiversity. These kinds of forest are well-preserved in their natural environment. However, in other Law Kur forests, collection of dead branches, dry leaves etc. are allowed. 6) ‘Law Balang’ (Church-forests) - This category of forest is managed by a church and it is their responsibility to ensure sustainability of these forests. These forests are usually used for agricultural practices such as raising funds for the church. Generally a certain period is fixed (5-10 years) during which the forests are left undisturbed, and then they are available for the villagers for multipurpose uses either for agricultural practice or broom cultivation for a certain period (3-5 years), then they are left again for 5-10 years. 7) ‘Law Rikynti/Law Shimet’ (Private-forests): Most of the forests in Meghalaya belong to this category. This type of forest is owned by an individual or it can be a family property. They are managed and used by the individual according to the needs and wishes of the owner. These forests are mainly focused on productive purposes only (for example, agricultural or charcoal burning activities), or are converted for agro-forestry purposes (forest garden).

3.1. Sacred Groves Sacred groves represent a long tradition of environmental conservation and resource management based on indigenous knowledge by the Khasis in Meghalaya. These forests are segments of landscape containing vegetation, other forms of life and geographical features, delimited and protected by human society under the belief that to keep them in a relatively undisturbed state, is expressive of an important relationship of humans with the divine or with nature (Hughes & Chandran 1998, 69-86).

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The sacred groves are locally known as Law kyntang. The concept of sacred grove conservation in the state of Meghalaya is strongly believed to be integral to indigenous knowledge, conceived, developed and perpetuated by the indigenous people of the state–Khasis, Garos and Jaintia (Jeeva et al. 2005a, 107). The Khasis believe that the sacred groves are the abodes of deities, Ryngkew Basa, and others. It bestows welfare to the people, their cattle and land and keeps the evil spirits away (Jeevaet al. 2005b, 81). Sacred groves are tracts of virgin forests, which people protect to avoid the perceived wrath of the resident God. In such forests, all forms of vegetation belong to the deity. The Khasis believe that the sylvan deities would be offended if trees are cut, and twigs, flowers and fruits are plucked. Various cultural programmes, religious rites and rituals are also performed in these forests (Mishra et al. 2005a, 107; 2005b:81).There are about 79 sacred groves in Meghalaya, covering an area of 10,511 ha (Tiwari et al. 1998a, 255). Among them, Mawphlang is one of the most important sacred groves in the state having a dense forest cover. These sacred forests are biodiversity-rich communities which provide refuge for a large number of endemic, endangered and rare taxa (Khan et al. 1997, 864) reported that about 133 plant species found in Meghalaya are confined to the sacred groves. Tiwari et al. (1998b, 20) recorded greater species diversity in sacred groves than in the disturbed forests. Some of the plants used in primary health-care are mostly drawn from the sacred groves (Laloo et al. 2005, 226). However, the taboos, religious beliefs and folklore have protected the medicinal plants and precluded only a systematic collection of raw materials from the groves. Over the years, such forests have been attributed with several values namely, natural museums of giant trees, treasure house of threatened species, dispensary of medicinal plants, regulator of water sheds, recreation center for urbanites, veritable garden for botanists, gene bank of economic species, paradise for nature lovers and laboratory for environmentalists (Gadgil & Vartak 1975, 315; Somashekar 1998, 3-7; Ramanujam 2000, 34-38). The traditional knowledge evolved over generations on conservation and sustainable management of these sacred forests is as much a resource as biodiversity (Jeeva et al. 2006, 564). Sacred forests have undergone heavy environmental transformation because of various reasons such as change in the land use pattern, unregulated tree felling, shifting cultivation and other developmental activities. In spite of religious beliefs, many sacred forests have decreased in size; some are moving towards extinction and only a few continue to be preserved (Mishra et al. 2004, 422). However, only the sacred groves at


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Mawphlang, Mawsmai and Sohra located in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya are well preserved till today.

3.2. Traditional Health Care System The traditional method of using medicinal plants has a strong relevance to the socio-economic feature of the tribal communities of Meghalaya (Jeeva et al. 2006, 564). The richness and diversity of the medicinal plants in this region are largely due to the varied altitude, topography, status of soil and climatic conditions which support different types of forests (Lyngdoh et al. 2014, 164). The tradition of healthcare based on folk medicine is also wide spread and popular amongst the Khasis due to their faith and belief in this age-old practice of providing health care. Almost every village has one or more herbal practitioner locally known as Nongaidawaikynbat. The indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants, their preparation and the various uses are passed on orally from one generation to the next with no documented written records. Folk knowledge related to health care and medicine also supports the livelihood of many of the indigenous people in Meghalaya. Folk medicines are used by housewives and elders, traditional birth attendants, herbal healers and bone-setters (Tynsong et al. 2012, 164). The local health practitioners (LHP) involved in the treatment of fracture and bonesetting are renowned and they have established their own niche area of expertise that is widely recognized within and outside the state (Lyngdoh et al. 2014, 169). The LHPs are also known for treating gripe or Niangsohpet, an age old belief among the Khasis, that certain germs infect infants and newborns (Hynniewta & Kumar 2010, 476). Medicinal plants are mostly collected from the natural forests (village restricted and village forest), forest gardens and home gardens. In Meghalaya, out of the total 3331 plant species reported by Khan et al. (1997), 857 are medicinal (Lakadong & Barik 2006, 274-309). Usually the medicinal plants are brought from the natural forests and are then grown in home gardens particularly by the herbal practitioners. The instant rising demand of plant-based drugs is unfortunately creating heavy pressure on some selected high-value medicinal plant populations in the wild due to over-harvesting. Several of these medicinal plant species have slow growth rates, low population densities, and narrow geographic ranges (Nautiyalet et al. 2002, 85-98). Therefore they are more prone to extinction (Jablonski 2004, 589). Conversely, because information on the use of plant species for therapeutic purpose has been passed from one generation to the next through oral tradition, this

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knowledge is gradually declining and becoming obsolete due to the lack of recognition by the younger generation as a result of a shift in attitude and the ongoing socio-economic changes (Kala 2000, 378). Furthermore, the use of indigenous knowledge on the lesser-known medicinal plants is also rapidly declining. Continuous erosion in the traditional knowledge about valuable medicinal plants in the past, and the renewed interest currently, has led to the need for reviewing the valuable knowledge with the expectation of developing the medicinal plants sector.

3.3. Agro-forestry The War Khasis of Southern Meghalaya practise agro-forestry where the economically important plants are grown and managed within the natural forest mainly in the form of forest garden. Tree-based farming practices have long been a tradition among the indigenous people of Meghalaya, where trees are integrated extensively in the crop production practice according to the agro-climatic conditions. A variety of indigenous and cultivated crops are grown with edible and timber value trees. Tree species are raised for food, fiber, medicine and other minor agricultural produce. The land is collectively used for vegetables, fruits, forest tree species, plantation crops and agricultural crops (Jeeva et al. 2006, 11). Villagers traditionally raise betel vines, areca nut, oranges and other horticultural crops and spices on the foothills. These forests are one of the main sources of cash income for the local people. Different types of plants which include betel nut, betel leaf, bay leaves, black pepper etc., are grown in these forests. The important fruits include oranges (Citrus reticulata), pineapples (Ananascomosus), lemons (Citrus limon), guavas (Psidiumguajava), jackfruits (Artocapusheterophyllus) and bananas (Musa sp.) (Jeeva et al. 2006, 8). People collect, process and market a large variety of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) such as Cinnamomumtamala, Piper peepuloides, Phryniumcapitatum, bamboo, honey, mushrooms, nuts, tubers, edible worms, insects and leafy vegetables from the forests (Tynsong &Tiwari, 2011, 230). The bamboo-areca nut-betel farming system is a prominent practice of the Khasis in some isolated pockets of Meghalaya. Edible plants such as Artocarpusheterophyllus, A. lakoocha, Emblicaofficinalis, etc are raised in homestead farming. The Khasis also use their free land and manage multipurpose trees, shrubs, and crops and raised livestock on the same piece of land. Livestock can also be found around the home gardens especially poultry and pigs.


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3.4. Agro-biodiversity Agriculture is the main source of livelihood of the Khasis. The Khasis have evolved certain unique agriculture and land use systems. Agriculture is mainly of 2 types – slash and burn or shifting agriculture, known as jhum and terrace cultivation, locally known as Bun. The village council or Dorbar Shnong owns and allots the forest land for jhum cultivation to the members of the tribe. In Bun cultivation, bench terraces are constructed on hill slopes with vertical interval of 1 metre, which helps retain rainwater within the benches, disposes the excess runoff from the slopes to the lower bench and eventually to the foothill. This method improves production of crops, conserves soil moisture, and prevents land degradation and soil erosion (Schumacher Centre 2009, 18). Rice (Oryza sativa) and maize (Zea mays) are the major food crops. Potato (Solanumtuberosum), jute (Hibiscus cannabinus), cotton (Gossypium sp.), areca nut (Areca catechu), ginger (Zingiberofficinale), turmeric (Cucurmadomestica), betel leaf (Piper betle) and black pepper (P.nigrum) are the chief commercial crops (Jeeva et al. 2006, 8). The Khasis, like most tribal groups, have a close association with nature, owing to which they have developed an indigenous knowledge of environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, and pattern agriculture. The Khasi women are the main custodians of biodiversity and traditional food systems in Meghalaya. They control the sources of nourishment (fields and food) and would transfer the indigenous knowledge of diverse local foods and medicinal species to their youngest daughter, but the custom is being challenged by urbanization and modern monoculture.

3.5. Living root bridges The Khasis in the Southern part of Meghalaya have developed an indigenous way of using roots of the Ficus trees to cross fast flowing streams and deep gorges. The local people nurture, grow and train the aerial roots of Ficuselastica, present along riverbanks, to grow through hollowed out trunks of betel nut, which act as a root guidance system and when the roots reach the other side of the river, they are allowed to take root. After a few years a root bridge, locally known as jingkiengdieng-jri, takes shape and becomes functional. Some of the bridges are thought to be over 500 years old. The root bridges, ranging from 15 to 250 feet, are alive and still growing and are used daily by the local people living around the Southern slopes.

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4. Indigenous practices in the Conservation of Water Springs, streams, rivers and ponds serve as the principal sources of domestic water in many villages in Meghalaya. The water sources such as springs are usually located far from human settlements and the locals make a huge effort to keep the water sources clean and unpolluted. No anthropogenic activities are allowed near these water sources. Some of the sources of drinking water are located within the village protected area or forest. Spring water locally known as “Shyngiar”, located on the hill slopes and valleys serves as the main source of water in many areas. The use of local traditional knowledge and experiences is also applied in construction of earthen check dams designed to capture rain water. Here, small check dams are constructed across seasonal streams.The water stored is channelized to the fields for irrigation purposes. Moreover, construction of vegetative barriers, retention structures and dams in the upstream hills could be one of the best ways to achieve the goals of reduced flood peak, enhance groundwater recharge by storing flowing out water in the reservoirs, and develop irrigation schemes. Another common practice in Meghalaya is the bench terrace irrigation practice. In this method, the hill streams are channeled to accommodate a series of terraces as they emerge from the forests. This method of irrigation practice is widely used for non-fertile land to be utilized for raising rice crops. Stones and gunny bags are used for maintenance of the terraces and to prevent soil erosion problems (Jeeva et al. 2006, 9). The steep slopes and generally rocky terrain of the Southern part of the Khasi Hills makes the use of ground water channels impossible. The tribal farmers make use of an age old tradition to drip irrigate crops such as betel leaf and black pepper planted in areca nut orchards or in mixed orchards, with the help of locally available bamboos. In this system, water is carried out with the help of different form of bamboo culms and further distributed into different bamboo water channels for irrigation of crop land (CSE 1998, 3). Bamboo drip irrigation practice prevents leakage and loss of water on the way. The farmers lay out the bamboo networks with proficiency so that the sites remain productive. Since the water is carried through bamboo culms in the farming areas, the system indirectly helps the forest areas. No cutting of trees and shrubs is required to clear the land for making channels through the forest areas on hills. The farmer goes for settled cultivation when bamboo drip irrigation practice is followed and shifting cultivation is reduced. The bamboo drip irrigation practice helps in conserving and preserving the prestigious natural resources in the hilly terrain of Meghalaya (Mishra & Sharma 2001, 32).


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5. Conclusion Indigenous knowledge systems among the Khasis in Meghalaya have their own significance both ecologically and socio-economically. The conservation and management practice is the traditional ecological heritage which not only conserves the species in their habitats, but is also the best method of conservation of our ecosystems. Conserving and promoting our ecosystem is of vital importance to protect many endemic, endangered and relic biological species as well as to keep the habitat protected for future generations (Jeeva et al. 2006, 567). This ancient tradition of using indigenous knowledge and ecosystem management shows how important it is to preserve our resources and the environment in the modern times. Like other tribal communities around the world, the Khasis possess an incredible amount of indigenous knowledge, most of which are poorly documented and hence are largely unknown. It is most important that such knowledge is recorded before it is lost forever in the rapid drive of modernization and globalization. Indigenous knowledge, thus, plays a key role in biodiversity conservation. It is found to be instrumental in reducing the impacts of climate change on a small scale.

References Alcorn, Janis. 2010. “Indigenous Peoples and Conservation”. MacArthur Foundation Conservation White Paper Series 49. Gadgil, M., & Vartak, V.D. 1975. “Sacred groves of India: A plea for continued conservation”. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 72: 314–320. Hughes, J.D., & Chandran, M.D.S. 1998. “Sacred groves around the earth: An overview”. In Conserving the Sacred for Biodiversity Management edited by P.S.Ramakrishnan., K.G. Saxena., & Chandrashekara. New Delhi: U.M. Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Hynniewta, S.R., & Kumar, Y. 2010. “The lesser known medicine ‘Ka Dawai Niangsohpet’ of the Khasis in Meghalaya, Northeast India”. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 9 (3): 475-479. Jablonski, D. 2004. “Extinction: past and present”. Nature 427 (6975): 589. Jeeva, S., Mishra, B.P., Venugopal, N., & Laloo, R.C. 2005a. “Sacred forests: Traditional ecological heritage in Meghalaya”. Journal of Scott Research Forum 1: 93-97. Jeeva, S., Mishra, B.P., Venugopal, N., Kharlukhi, L., & Laloo, R.C. 2005b. “Traditional knowledge and biodiversity conservation in the

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sacred groves of Meghalaya”. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 5 (4): 563-568. Kala, C.P. 2000. “Status and conservation of rare and endangered medicinal plants in the Indian trans-Himalaya”, Conservation Biology, Vol.19, pp.368-378. Kala, C.P., Dhyani, P.P., & Sajwan, B.S. 2006. “Developing the medicinal plants sector in Northern India: challenges and opportunities”. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2: 1-15. Khan, M.L., Menon, S., & Bawa, K.S. 1997. “Effectiveness of the protected area network in biodiversity conservation: a case study of Meghalaya, India”. Biodiversity and Conservation 6: 853- 868. Kuhnlein, H., Roy, P., Termote, C., Hunter, D., & Borelli, T. 2014. “Living on the margins: Indigenous people’ food system, biodiversity and food security”. Paper presented at the International Conference on Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development on bridging the gap between increasing knowledge and decreasing resources, organized by the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic on September 17 - 19, 2014. Lakadong, N.J., & Barik, S. K. 2006. “Diversity and distribution of endemic plants in Meghalaya”. In Ecology, Diversity and Conservation of Plants and Ecosystems in India, edited by H.N Pandey., & S. K. Barik. New Delhi: Regency Publications. Laloo, R.C., Kharlukhi, L., Jeeva, S., & Mishra, B.P. 2005. “Status of medicinal plants in the disturbed and the undisturbed sacred forests in Meghalaya, northeast India: population structure and regeneration efficacy of some important species”. Current Science 90 (2): 225-232. Macchi, M., Oviedo, G., Gotheil, S., Cross, K., Boedhihartono, A., Wolfangel, C., &Howell, M. 2008.Indigenous and Traditional People and Climate Change, Issues Paper, Switzerland: IUCN. Mishra, A.K., & Sharma, U.C. 2001. “Traditional wisdom in range management for resource and environment conservation in northeastern region of India”. Envis Bulletin: Himalayan Ecology and Development 9 (1): 31-36. Mishra, B.P., Jeeva, S., & Laloo, R.C. 2005a. “Effect of fragmentation on plant diversity and community characters of the sacred groves of Meghalaya, Northeast India”. Proceedings of the National Conference on Current Trends of Research in Science and Technology. Mishra, B.P., Jeeva, S., & Laloo, R.C. 2005b. “Sacred groves of Meghalaya: A traditional ecological heritage for in situ conservation of plant diversity”. Proceedings of the International Symposiumon


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Integrated Management of Fungal Disease (IMF): Technology Development and application, Banaras Hindu University. Nautiyal, B.P., Prakash, V., Bahuguna, R., & Nautiyal, M.C. 2002. “Key factors of Agrotechnology for the cultivation of High Altitude Medicinal and Aromatic Plants”. Annals of Forestry 10 (1): 85-98. Ramanujam, M.P. 2000. “Conservation of environment and human rights: Sacred groves in cultural connections to biodiversity”. PRP Journal of Human Rights 4: 34–38. Sadangi, H.C. 2008. Emergent North-East: A Way Forward. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. Schumacher Centre. 2009. “Inventory and Documentation of Tribal GIAHS in India”, (20 August, 2015). Somashekar, B.S. 1998. “Treasure house in trouble”. Amruth 2: 3–7. Tiwari, B.K., Barik, S.K., & Tripathi, R.S. 1998a. “Sacred groves of Meghalaya”. In Conserving the Sacred for Biodiversity Management, edited by P.S. Ramakrishnan., K.G. Saxena., & U.M. Chandrashekara. New Delhi: UNESCO and Oxford-IBH Publishing. Tiwari, B.K., Barik, S.K., & Tripathi, R.S. 1998b. “Biodiversity value, status and strategies for conservation of sacred groves of Meghalaya, India”. Ecosystem Health 4 (1): 20-32. Tynsong, H., &T iwari, B.K. 2008. “Traditional knowledge associated with fish harvesting practices of War Khasi community of Meghalaya”. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 7: 618-623. Tynsong, H., & Tiwari, B.K. 2011. “Contribution of Phryniumcapitatumwild leaf a non-timber forest product to the livelihoods of rural poor of south Meghalaya, North-East India”. Indian Journal of Natural Products and Resources 2 (2): 229-235. Tynsong, H., Dkhar, M., & Tiwari, B.K. 2012. “Traditional knowledge based management and utilization of bio- resources by War Khasi tribe of Meghalaya, North-east India”. Indian Journal of Innovations and Development 1 (3): 162-174.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN BAMBOO ECOSYSTEM: AN UNTAPPED CARBON TRADING RESOURCE DAVID C. VANLALFAKAWMA,1 S.K. TRIPATHI2 AND F. LALNUNMAWIA3

1. Introduction The bamboo belongs to the sub-family Bambusoideae of the family Poaceae, the giant grasses (McClure 1966), representing one of the greatest natural renewable resources. Long slender stems of bamboos called ‘culms’ are characterized by well demarcated nodes and internodes. The species has an age old connection with the material needs of the common man and is therefore called the poor man’s timber. This is the fastest growing and highest yielding renewable plant resource which has great socio-economic importance (Sharma 1980). The versatility, high tensile strength, wide adaptability to the range of climatic conditions and extensive availability of the bamboo make it extremely suitable for domestic and commercial consumption, and therefore the species occupies a prominent place in the progress of the people, particularly in the tropical countries (Sharma 1980). Bamboo occurs in different bio-climatically defined forest types ranging from tropical to sub-alpine zones. They are widely distributed all over the world except Europe and Antarctica, and 80% of the bamboo growing areas are confined to South and South-East Asia mainly in countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaya, New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam (Perez et al. 1999; Zhengyi etal. 2006; Newman et al. 2007). In total, 75 genera and 1

Department of Forestry, Mizoram University Department of Forestry, Mizoram University 3 Department of Forestry, Mizoram University 2

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1250 species of bamboos are distributed in the tropical, subtropical, mild temperate and alpine regions of the world (Sharma 1980). According to Ohrnberger (1999), the subfamily Bambusoideae of the family Poaceae comprises 1575 species of woody and herbaceous bamboos. Various species of bamboos cover an area of 14 million ha worldwide (Dransfield & Widjaja 1995). India has the world’s largest bamboo reserves (Mauria & Arora, 1988), harbouring over 20 genera and 113 species (Naithani 2008). The physical geography along with precipitation, temperature and altitudinal variation play a significant role in the diversity and richness of the forests of the Indian Himalayas particularly bamboo flora of the Northeastern and Eastern parts of the country (Biswas 1998). Besides multiple uses, the species is known for its strength, straightness, lightness, easy propagation, and abundant growth during a short interval of time. The species of bamboo has been reported to rapidly regenerate within a short time (5-7 years) after harvest in degraded dry tropical regions in India under severe water stress and soil nutrients limitations (Tripathi & Singh 1996). Bamboo also grows luxuriantly in secondary successional forests following shifting agriculture in Northeast India, and has been reported as one of the pioneer species in the succession of jhum fields (Deb & Dutta 1987). The Kyoto Protocol describes carbon trading as a part of carbon farming, which is voluntary and mandatory emission trading markets for greenhouse gases (Smith et al. 2014). Carbon farming is the practice that checks the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by converting it to plant material and/or soil organic matter; it is said to be successful when carbon gains, resulting from enhanced land management and/or conservation practices, exceed the carbon being released (IPCC 2007). Among the terrestrial ecosystems, agro-forestry and forest ecosystems have been given priority for carbon trading based on the efficiency of a particular land use in reducing emissions or capturing carbon by storing it (Nath et al. 2015). Reforestation, afforestation and reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) are also eligible for carbon trading (IPCC, 2007); "REDD+" goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

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The focus has been mainly put on the carbon trading potential of tree species, rather than bamboo (Lobovikovet al. 2012). On the other hand, bamboos are known for their high productivity, high capacity for accumulation of biomass and due to their fast growth rate, they have long been assumed to be a plant with a high sequestration capability, and the research till date indeed confirm that species outperform fast growing trees in its rate of C accumulation (Kleinhenz & Midmore 2001; Hunter & Wu 2002; Yipinget al.2010). Palm trees and bamboos are therefore approved as being equivalent to trees in the context of afforestation and reforestation (UNFCCC 2008). However, for the REDD programme bamboo ecosystems have not been given due recognition. Thus, there is a strong need to assess biomass and soil carbon storage by woody bamboos to promote its recognition for CDM and REDD (Nath et al. 2015).

2. Carbon Storage and Sequestration in the Bamboo Ecosystem Forests play a major role in the natural global carbon cycle by capturing carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, converting it to forest biomass, and releasing it into the atmosphere through plant respiration and decomposition (Shah et al. 2009). Activities that increase the biomass accumulation in a forest or in forest products increase carbon sequestration (Obersteiner et al .2005). The role of forests in temporal C dynamics is characterized by long periods of gradual build-up of biomass (a sink) alternating with short periods of massive biomass loss (Grace et al. 1995; Sedjo et al.1992). Deforestation transfers C directly to the atmosphere and badly affects the mechanism to hold C in soil (Chambers et al. 2001). Increase in annual productivity corresponds to an increase in forest biomass and hence to a higher carbon sequestration potential (Singh & Singh 2004). In a bamboo forest ecosystem, through the mechanism of photosynthesis, bamboo turns C dioxide into organic C and stores it as their structure, a part of which will store in the litters or in forest soil (Zhou Ben-Zhiet et al. 2005). According to an estimate, one quarter of the biomass in tropical regions and one-fifth in subtropical regions come from bamboo (INBAR 1997). After studying the effects of management regimes on C storage, Yiping et al. (2010) suggested that, intensive management of Moso bamboo seems to be able to increase the C storage capacity in above


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ground biomass; the role of management practices on C sequestration by bamboos needs further study. Magel et al. 92005) claimed that the growth of the new shoots in a bamboo forest occurs as a result of transfer of the energy accumulated in culms through photosynthesis in the previous year. As such, the growth of a bamboo culm is not driven by its own C sequestration, but by sequestration in previous seasons in other parts of the bamboo system, and thus the growth of new shoots is not an indicator of sequestration rate. On the other hand, Zhou et al. (2009) concluded that as the bamboo system requires more inputs in the shooting season of young culms (when new shoots grow), high growth in bamboo shoots can be equated with a high rate of C sequestration. It can be argued of course that as long as C sequestration is determined by measuring the difference in standing C between Year (t+1) and Year (t) (a stock exchange approach), it does not matter whether and how the relocation of C between old and new culms occurs (Yiping et al. 2010). Data on carbon stock and sequestration rate are reported only for few bamboo species (Uchimura 1978; Suzuki 1989; Christanty et al. 1996; Isagiet al. 1997; Shanmughavel & Francis 1996; Singh & Singh 1999; Kumar et al. 2005; Embaye et al. 2005; Singh & Kochhar 2005). Available data collected from various sources, covering 12 species of 4 genera, from 5 countries, showed that the mean carbon sequestration rate of bamboo are in the range of 1.2 to 24 Mg ha-1 yr-1 (Table 1) which are comparable to that of other agro-forestry and forest ecosystems. The rates of C sequestration by several multipurpose trees of agroforestry systems of Banswara, Uttarakhand (Maikhuri et al. 2000) and that of the medicinal plantation of Haryana, India (Gera & Chauhan 2010) were relatively low (1.8-3.1 Mg ha-1yr-1 and 3.1-11 Mg ha-1yr-1 respectively) as compared to that of the bamboo ecosystem. The comparative analysis of carbon sequestration between a monopodial Moso bamboo plantation (3300 culms ha−1) and fast growing Chinese Fir (Cunninghamiasp.) plantation (2175 trees ha−1) in South East China showed a comparatively higher carbon sequestration rate under bamboo plantation than other plantations (INBAR 2010).

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Table 1: Comparative account of C sequestration (Mg ha-1yr-1) rates of various bamboo ecosystems Species

Locality

C-Sequestration (Mg ha-1yr-1) 6.3 – 8.7

Dendrocalamusst rictus Phyllostachysba mbusoides Bambusabambos

Mirzapur, India Japan India

24

P. pubescens

Japan

9

D. strictus

India

13

Bambusapallida

India

13

B. bambos

India

6

B. oldhamii

Mexico

16

P. makinoi

Taiwan

10

B. cacharensis, B. vulgaris,B. balcooa

1.2 – 1.5

P. heterocycla

Barak Valley, Assam, India Taiwan

B. cacharensis, B. vulgaris,B. balcooa P. pubescens

Cachar, Assam, India China

18.9 – 23.6

Schizostachyump ergacile

Manipur, India

13

8

7 22.41

Authors Tripathi and Singh (1991) Isagi et al. (1993) Shanmughavel and Francis (1996) Isagi et al. (1997) Singh and Singh (1999) Singh and Kochhar (2005) Kumar et al. (2005) CastañedaMendoza et al. (2005) Yen et al. (2010) Nath and Das (2011) Yen and Lee (2011) Nath and Das (2012) Zhang et al. (2014) Thokchom and Yadava (2015)


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3. Bamboo as a Carbon Sink With more than 1500 documented uses and about 1200 species, the bamboo is one of the most useful and economically important NTFPs (Lobovikov et al. 2009). It is used as construction material, food and fodder, fishing poles, water pipes, handicrafts and tools. Moreover, some species of bamboos are also used as medicine in China (Dharmananda 2004). It has a deep root in the socio-cultural life of several communities in the world. Apart from its traditional uses, advance in science and technology has enhanced the versatility of bamboo. Contemporary utilization of bamboo and bamboo products, with value addition that enhances its durability makes it a dynamic carbon sink.

3.1. Bamboo as a substitute for timber A scarcity of timber resources resulted in the search for non-timber source and that is how focus has been shifted to bamboo (Ganapathy et al. 1999). As timber substitutes, bamboos can reduce deforestation and degradation in natural forests (INBAR, 2012). With the advent of technology and increased market demand, the utilization of bamboo has extended to industrial applications - pulp and paper, furniture and construction, scaffolding, plywood and composite (Engler et al. 2012). According to INBAR (2012), there are 16 major bamboo and rattan product types traded in the international market, which can be classified into 6 categories according to their characteristics, including bamboo and rattan raw materials, bamboo shoots, bamboo woven products, rattan woven products, industrialized bamboo products, bamboo and rattan furniture products. Traditional bamboo woven products include bamboo basketwork, bamboo mats/screens, as well as bamboo plaits and plaiting materials, which had a huge share in the international market. Industrialized bamboo products include bamboo pulp, bamboo flooring, bamboo plywood and bamboo charcoal. Non-woody pulps are produced mainly in developing countries where the raw materials most widely used are straw, bagasse and bamboo (Wisur et al. 1993). In bamboo growing countries, like India, bamboo is a main raw material for producing pulp for paper and rayon (Dhamodaran et al. 2003). It is estimated that 6-7 times as much cellulosic material can be obtained per hectare from a bamboo forest as can be obtained from a coniferous or other broad leaved forest (Lessard & Chouinard 1980).

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Bamboo roofing and bamboo panels are gaining popularity in the global market as bamboo in panel form is well suited to substitute wood. A report issued by the International Development Research Centre of Canada in 1991 indicates the need for further attention on bamboo panels (Ganapathy et al. 1999). According to INBAR (2012), the global export value of bamboo and rattan furniture products was US$ 290.4 million in 2012, which accounted for 15% of the world export of bamboo and rattan products. Bamboo furniture includes chairs, seats, tables and other molded furniture.

3.2 As a green source of Micro-Crystalline Cellulose (MCC) Apart from domestic and industrial consumption, bamboo has found its way into the pharmaceutical industries too. In pharmaceutical industries, MCC is widely used as a binder and diluent for tablets and capsules preparations. MCC is a purified, partially de-polymerized form of cellulose occurring as a fine, free flowing crystalline powder and has been used for many years in different industries like pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, plastics, food, etc. Cellulose is an abundant, naturally occurring polymer and several approaches have been applied to prepare MCC from different sources (Ohwoavworhua & Adelakun 2005; Ohwoavworhua et al. 2007; Yang et al. 2008; Das et al. 2010; Jahan et al. 2011; Oliveira et al. 2011). Bamboo, a naturally occurring composite material growing abundantly in tropical countries offers great potential as a green source for MCC preparation (Pachuau et al. 2013). It has also been reported that the cellulose and α-cellulose content of bamboo is comparable to that of softwoods and hardwoods which are the commercial sources for MCC (Han & Rowell 1996; Pachuau et al. 2014). Besides, compared to most wood species, it is cheap and fast growing with comparable physicochemical properties which makes it an ideal alternative to these woods (Yang et al. 2008). Brief comparisons of cellulose fractions yield of bamboo MCC with other sources are given in Table 2.


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Table 2: Cellulose fractions yield of bamboo MCC in comparison with other sources Source Rawnal (D. longispathus) bamboo1 Mautak (Melocannabaccifera) bamboo2 Cotton (Cochlospermumplanch -onii)3 Orange mesocarp4

Cellulose 65.42

α-Cellulose 55.63

MCC 51.18

62.50

54.8

46.68

-

32

21

-

62.5

25.3

Moso bamboo5

-

41.8

-

Wood6

-

46.4

-

Wheat straw7

-

39.8

-

59.8

97.8% of cellulose

48-52.8

Jute6

¹ Pachuau et al. (2013); 2Pachuau et al. (2014); 3Ohwoavworhua and Adelakun (2005); 4Ejikeme (2008); 5Chen et al. (2011); 6Jahan et al. (2011)

4. Bamboo Ecosystem and Carbon Trading: The Present Scenario The bamboo plant provides numerous environmental services both at the village and the forest ecosystem levels. At the village level, it provides protection to traditional houses from winds, fulfills requirements of traditional house construction material and fuel wood purposes (Nath et al. 2009). Unlike other cash crops, bamboo requires little fertilizer and pesticides for its management. At the forest ecosystem level bamboo is important for rehabilitation of degraded land, as a timber substitute, for erosion control and watershed protection (INBAR 2006). With its fast growth rate and high annual re-growth after harvesting, bamboo forests have a high carbon stock potential (INBAR, 2010), especially when valueadded harvested culms are used as durable products. However, critical ecosystem services of bamboos still remain unrecognized in terms of carbon farming and subsequently, carbon trading.

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Limitations of scientific data and knowledge of the carbon sequestration capacity and patterns of bamboo in recent years, especially for tropical species jeopardize the development of bamboo specific carbon accounting standards or methodologies thus making it difficult and costly. This makes interested stakeholders abstain from investing in bamboo carbon activities. For related reasons, policy makers have also largely overlooked (Buckingham et al. 2011) bamboo as an efficient carbon sink and store. Until recently, there were limited opportunities to truly capitalize on the potential of bamboos for climate change mitigation. Despite these challenges, bamboos hold highly beneficial characteristics for climate change mitigation activities that compare favorably with other forestry-based options. Given the recent achievements and advancements in bamboo carbon accounting methodology development, it is becoming possible to realize their inherent potential as a tool for climate change mitigation (Kuehl & Yiping 2012). However the current lack of appreciation of its significant benefits by national policy makers, and the classification of this grass species under forestry regulations, curtailing wider beneficial use for frequent harvesting and trade (INBAR2014). Since the biomass carbon stock and sequestration rate in woody bamboos are quite comparable with those in agro-forestry and forest ecosystems. Bamboo ecosystems can provide income to rural communities from dual sources (i) selective harvesting and, (ii) from carbon credits (Certified Emission Reductions) under various afforestation/reforestation mechanisms under CDM and REDD (Nath et al. 2015) A consideration of Bamboo Ecosystem or agroforestry under REDD is constrained by several factors (Nath et al. 2015). The REDD programme includes forest areas covered by trees, whereas bamboo are considered as non-timber forest produce in many countries. However, no clarification of tree is available in the UNFCCC or Kyoto Protocol. The Warsaw Framework for REDD, 2013 allows countries to give their own definitions of a forest. This provides the opportunity to rectify the debate about the definition of a tree, which was neither defined by the UNFCCC nor the Kyoto Protocol. Further, this framework opens the door for the inclusion of bamboo as part of forest ecosystem under REDD mechanism. Though the REDD strategies considered tree-cutting and removal of biomass from forests as a non-sustainable practice, the management practices of bamboo forests – selective felling by the rural communities does not affect the productivity of bamboo forests and therefore, is not an


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unsustainable practice (Hoogendoorn & Benton 2014). Further, selective felling and harvesting of new shoots are often suggested to manipulate the culm growth (Kleihenz & Midmore 2001). Hein and van der Meer (2012) suggested sustainable biomass removal can be included in future REDD+, to realize the potential of bamboo to combat deforestation. Based on available evidence, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change can explicitly recognize existing and potential contributions of bamboo to mitigate climate change and encourage the inclusion of bamboo-based carbon accounting methods in agreements on carbon market mechanisms (INBAR 2014) and is therefore, an important consideration for REDD schemes (Nath et. al. 2015).

5. Conclusion In view of the above mentioned facts, it is apparent that in addition to a variety of items provided by bamboo for various uses, the species undoubtedly provides a significant ecosystem services which has not been recognized by policy makers and Government Agencies. Therefore, it is time that we consider the socio-economic and cultural aspects of bamboo along with its environmental services rendered to the society, particularly the role played by bamboo in mitigating climate change. Inclusion of a bamboo ecosystem under the REDD system would promote the cultivation and sustainable management of bamboo forests, bamboo agro-forestry systems and bamboo groves, and thereby produce an ample amount of income for the rural communities. Further studies on quantification and developing appropriate methodology for carbon accounting by a bamboo ecosystem is needed to ensure its applicability in climate research.

References Biswas, S. 1988. “Studies on Bamboo distribution in North-Eastern Regions of India”. Indian Forester 114: 514-531. Buckingham, K., Jepson, P., Wu, L., Rao, I., Jiang, S., Lies, e W., Lou. Y., & Fu, M. 2011. “The potential of Bamboo is constrained by Outmoded Policy Frames”. Ambio 40:544 - 548. Chambers, J.Q., N. Higuchi., E.S. Tribuzy., & S. E. Trumbore. 2001. “Carbon sink for a century”. Nature 410: 429 – 429. Chen, W., Yu, H., Liu, Y., Hai, Y., Zhang, M., & Chen, P. 2011. “Isolation and characterization of cellulose nanofibers from four plant cellulose fibers using a chemical-ultrasonic process”. Cellulose 18: 433-442.

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Christanty, L., Mailly, D., & Kimmins, J.P. 1996. “Without bamboo, the land dies: biomass, litterfall, and soil organic matter dynamics of a Javanese bamboo talunkebunsystem”. Forest Ecol. Manag. 87: 75-88. Deb, D.B., & Dutta, D.M. 1987. “A contribution to the flora of Mizoram”. J. Econ. Tax. Bot 10(1): 21-61. Dhamodaran, T.K., Gnanaharan, R., & Pillai, K.S. 2003. “Bamboo for pulp and paper: A State of the Art Review with Annotated Bibliography”. Kerala Forest Research Institute. Dharmananda, S., 2004. “Bamboo as Medicine”, (10 May 2013). Dransfield, S. and Widjaja, E.A. (1995). “Plant Resources of South-East Asia” No. 7. Bamboos. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden. pp 1-89. Dube, L.C. 2008. “Climate Change Mitigation Opportunities in Bamboo and Bamboo applications”. Paper presented at the International Conference on Improvement of Bamboo Productivity and Marketing for Sustainable Livelihood. Ejikeme, P.M. 2008. “Investigation of the physicochemical properties of microcrystalline cellulose from agricultural waste: orange mesocarp”. Cellulose 15: 141-147. Embaye, K., Weih, M., Ledin, S., & Christersson, L. 2005. “Biomass and nutrient distribution in a highland bamboo forest in southwest Ethiopia: implications for management”. Forest Ecol. Manag. 204: 159-169. Engler, B., Schoenherr, S., Zhong, Z., & Becker, G. 2012. “Suitability of Bamboo as an Energy Resource: Analysis of Bamboo Combustion Values Dependent on the Culm’s Age”. International Journal of Forest Engineering 23 (2): 114-121. Ganapathy, P.M., Zhu Huan-Ming, Zoolagud, S.S., Turcke, D., & Espiloy, Z.B. 1999. “Bamboo Panel Boards a State-of-the-Art Review”. Technical Report No. 12. International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR). Gera, M., & Chauhan, S. 2010. “Opportunities for carbon sequestration benefits from growing trees of medicinal importance on farm lands of Haryana”. Indian Forester 136 (3):287-300. Grace, J., Berninger, F. & Nagy, L. 2002. “Impacts of Climate Change on the Tree Line”. Annals of Botany 90: 537-544. Han, J.S. & Rowell, J.S. (1996). “Chemical composition of fibers, in paper and composites from agro-based resources”. London, CRC Press. Hein, L., & van der Meer, J.P.2012. “REDD+in the context of ecosystem management. Curr”. Opin. Environ. Sustain 4: 604-611.


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Maikhuri, R.K., R.L. Semwal., K.S. Rao., K. Singh., & K.G. Saxena. 2000. “Growth and ecological impacts of traditional agroforestry tree species in central Himalaya, India”. Agroforestry Systems 48: 257272. Mauria, S., & Arora, R.K. 1988. “Genetic resources of bamboos – An Indian perspective”. Indian Forester 114(9):539-548. McClure, F.A. 1966. The Bamboos: A Fresh Perspective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Naithani, H.B. 2008. “Diversity of Indian Bamboos with special references to North-East India”. Indian Forester 132:765-788 Nath, A.J., Das, G., & Das, A.K. 2009. “Above ground standing biomass and carbon storage in village bamboos in North East India”. Biomass Bioenergy 33: 1188-1196. Nath, A.J., Lal, R., & Das, A.K. 2015. “Managing woody bamboos for carbon farming and carbon trading”. Global Ecology and Conservation 3: 654-663. Newman, M., Ketphanh, S., Svengsuksa, B., Thomas, P., Sengdala, K., Lamxay, V., & Armstrong, K. 2007. “A checklist of the Vascular Plants of Lao PDR”. Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Obersteiner, M., Benitez, P., McCallum, I., Lexer, M., Nilsson, S., Schlamadinger, B., Sohngen, B., & Yamagata, Y. 2005. “The Economics of Carbon Sequestration in Forests”. IUFRO Issue 3.The Role of Forests in Carbon Cycles, Sequestration, and Storage, (9October 2013). Ohwoavworhua, F.O., Adelakun, T.A., & Kunle, O.O. 2007. “Studies on the physicochemical and functional properties of microcrystalline cellulose obtained from Khayagrandifolia wood flakes”. J Pharm Biores 4: 1-7. Pachuau, L., Malsawmtluangi, C., Nath, N.K., Ramdinsangi, H., Vanlalfakawma, D.C., & Tripathi, S.K. 2013. “Physicochemical and functional characterization of microcrystalline cellulose from bamboo (Dendrocalamus longispathus)”. International Journal of PharmTech Research 5(4): 1561-1571. Pachuau, L., Vanlalfakawma, D.C., Tripathi, S.K., & Lalhlenmawia, H. 2014. “Muli bamboo (Melocanna baccifera) as a new source of microcrystalline cellulose”. Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science 4 (11): 087‐094. Perez, M.R., Zhong, M.G., Belcher, B., Belcher, B., Xie, C., Fu, M.Y., & Xie, J.Z. 1999. “The role of bamboo plantations in rural development: The case of Anjicounty, Zhejiang, China”. World Development 27: 101-114.


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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CAN REDD+ AND ECOTOURISM COEXIST? INTEGRATING REDD+ AND ECOTOURISM IN MEGHALAYA: POTENTIAL AND IMPLICATIONS BENNATHANIEL H. DIENGDOH,1 LASARA M. LYNGDOH2 AND TAMANNA KALAM3

Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank Mr. Tambor Lyngdoh, Project Director of the Umiam Sub-watershed REDD+ Project, Mawphlang, and his team for the information and assistance they provided. Gratitude also goes to Dr. Mark Poffenberger, Executive Director, and Community Forestry International for his invaluable input.

1. Introduction Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD/REDD+) undertakings have the potential to provide certified carbon emissions reductions or carbon credits4 and also yield revenue for local communities in developing countries through the sale of the said carbon credits on the carbon market. This revenue may be distributed among the members of local communities involved in the project and may be utilized to fund local business ventures designed to improve their socioeconomic status as observed in East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya (Poffenberger 2014, 238). Since REDD+ involves estimation, certification 4

Interest groups likely to purchase carbon credits include organizations and companies hailing from Annexe-1 countries

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and sale of carbon credits from standing, natural, old growth forests, and favours Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) of forests, it has the potential to facilitate the gradual restoration and preservation of natural forest habitats. These natural growth forests may also serve as destinations for ecotourism and nature tourism. Ergo, there exists the possibility for REDD to coexist with or even provide incentive for the establishment and promotion of ecotourism and nature tourism ventures in project areas. Moreover, due to its close relationship with Payment for Environmental Services (PES), locals employed in the prevention/mitigation of forest fires, forest guards, or those in charge of carbon estimation from standing biomass could obtain additional income by engaging in ecotourism related activities such as trekking, tour guiding, etc. Such well managed forest based tourism could increase the attachment of the local communities to their forests, and provide them with a supplementary source of income, which can in turn serve to direct interest away from unsustainable activities such as timber harvesting. This would help in forest growth, regeneration and serving the purpose of REDD+ as well. Thus, there exists the possibility of a nexus between REDD+ and ecotourism, whereby it is possible for the two to be integrated. However; there are caveats and precautions that must be taken into consideration in order to bring about an effective, profitable and sustainable integration of the two.

2. The Mechanism Known as REDD+ REDD/REDD+ is a climate change mechanism which is mainly associated with providing payment for forestry activities that reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Such activities include, evading deforestation and forest degradation by the use of methods that prohibit or regulate forest resource extraction and prevent forest fires. Ghazoul et al., (2010, 396) described REDD as a “form of payment for environmental service where the carbon storage value for forests that are threatened by degradation or clearance is financially recognized through payments to forest owners (usually, but not exclusively nation states), to conserve the forest.” REDD was first proposed in the year 2005 at the 11th Conference of Parties (COP 11) by representatives from Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations. It aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the removal of greenhouse gases through enhanced, improved strategies of forest management carried out in developing

Can REDD+ and Ecotourism Coexist?

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countries. Two years later, at the 13th Conference of Parties in Bali, the Bali Action Plan or Bali Road Map was formulated wherein REDD was modified to include three additional aims: sustainable forest management, forest conservation or protection of existing carbon stocks in forests and enhancement of existing carbon stocks. These three constitute the “+”, giving rise to REDD+. Corbera and Schroeder (2010, 89) stated that: "REDD+ is expected to establish incentives for developing countries to protect and better manage their forest resources, by creating and recognizing a financial value for the additional carbon stored in trees or not emitted to the atmosphere.”

If local communities living in developing countries protect their forests from activities that would result in deforestation such as inter alia timber harvesting, charcoal making, shifting agriculture and forest fires etc., the amount of stored carbon protected from release and additionally sequestered in living biomass as a result of avoiding such activities can be quantified and sold as certified emissions reductions or carbon credits on the carbon market at current market rates. Interest groups from developed, “Northern” or Annexe-I countries have the opportunity to purchase carbon credits they require to reduce their carbon footprint; This creates opportunities for communities living in developing, “Southern” or NonAnnexe-I countries to gain revenue and incentives which would in turn serve as a source of income for them while at the same time increasing their awareness of sustainable development activities. There are a number of viable REDD+ initiatives found across the world. They include the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project in Kenya run by Wildlife Works Carbon (Wildlife Works Carbon, 2015, Dinerstein 2012 et al., 17). Such a program demonstrates the application of REDD+ in dry land forests (Bernard et al., 2014) and has helped mitigate resource related problems of the communities involved such as low land value, water scarcity (Atela, 2013) and poaching (Dinerstein et al. 2012, 19). The REDD+ initiatives implemented in Nepal have funding from various agencies such as the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation (NORAD), the World Bank and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and have been able to utilise their revenues on improving the socio-economic status of the poor and backward classes (such as Dalits) (Maraseni et al. 2014, 42). In 2011, there were over 15,000 Community Forest User Groups (1.8 million households) managing 1.35 million ha of shrub and forest land in Nepal, entailing that

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23 % of the forest area of Nepal was under protection through community forestry of which 33 % of the country's household were a part (Sharma et al. 2015, 2). Communities engaged in REDD+ in Nepal have opted for alternative fuels instead of wood, reduced timber and green tree harvesting, posted guards to protect their forests (Pandeyet al. 2014, 44); they have also reduced the harvesting of NTFPs (Maraseni et al. 2014, 43; Pandey et al. 2014, 44) as well as livestock grazing in forests (Maraseni et al. 2014, 42).

3. REDD+ and the Scope for Ecotourism REDD+ is geared towards the protection and enhancement of existing carbon stocks, represented by old growth forests, which are not only of biological or environmental importance, but can also be of aesthetic interest to tourists. There exists a potential for forests to become important ecotourism, or nature tourism destinations. TIES (2015) provides a succinct definition of ecotourism as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserve the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education.” Ecotourism thus favours an initiative which bridges conservation activities and processes with the development of employment for local unskilled individuals. Local involvement in such initiatives is most effective when they are led and run by local communities. With aims to promote conservation and cater to the socio-economic and cultural interests of local communities “such tourism should be fully compatible with conservation goals, while at the same time posing the minimum threat to local culture and society” (Gössling, 1999, 304). Ghimire (1997, 9) observed that tourism was seen “as an exceptional opportunity to valorise national culture, wildlife and unique natural features.” Studies predict that tourism in “Southern” countries which comprise of biodiversity hotspots is set to only increase in importance in the future (Christ et al. 2003, 14). It must however, be conducted in such a manner that will not prove detrimental to the environment where it is to be established. Cater (1995, 22) observed that without the inclusion of environmental protection, “tourism development and development prospects in particular are undermined, compromising the present and future prospects of tourism organizations, tourist guests and host destinations alike.”

Tourism must thus be sustainable or eco-friendly, and fall under the category of ecotourism. Setting the parameters for ecotourism however, is


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difficult, as the term itself encompasses a wide variety of tourism activities. Wall (1996, 113) argues that: “…if ecotourism is not economically viable, then the facilities and services required by most ecotourists will not be provided and the potential economic benefits of ecotourism for both industry providers and local residents will not be achieved. If the environment and its treasures are not maintained then the resource base for ecotourism is destroyed—if tourism continues, it is unlikely to be ecotourism unless one can persuade visitors to come to restore a severely degraded environment. If the ecotourism is not culturally acceptable and local people do not benefit from its existence, they will be hostile towards and may work to undermine it.”

Locally led ecotourism ventures are especially applicable among rural indigenous communities whose main source of income revolves around subsistence agricultural activities and resource extraction (timber harvesting, mining, quarrying etc…). According to Stem et al., (2003, 388), ecotourism can “in theory, provide local economic benefits while also maintaining ecological integrity through low-impact, non-consumptive use of local resources”.

3.1. Integrating REDD+ and Ecotourism Due to the novel nature of REDD+, there is a stark paucity of literature and data regarding integration between REDD+ and ecotourism. However, the mandate of REDD+ includes the conservation and enhancement of standing/old growth carbon stocks, mainly forests. The possible integration of REDD+ and ecotourism has the potential to yield a myriad of benefits for the stakeholders involved. Such benefits to the local communities are greatly enhanced if ecotourism is conducted at a community level, involving, training and employing local individuals. Community Based Ecotourism (CBET) can yield countless benefits, such as the distribution of financial returns (Manu et al. 2012, 105; Foucat 2002, 520), enhanced social cohesion and community empowerment (Manu et al. 2012, 100; Foucat et al. 2002, 521-522), women empowerment (Manu et al. 2012, 102), improvement of community infrastructure (Manu et al. 2012, 104; Langoya & Long 1997, 10-11) and education regarding conservation issues (Langoya & Long 1997, 10; Foucat 2002, 522). The conservation of biodiversity is implicit in the purpose of the mechanism. CBET in forest environments stresses upon providing tourists with an opportunity to enjoy the aesthetic value of a natural forest habitat and the

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rich diversity it offers, while incurring the minimum possible impact upon the habitat and involving local communities such that they receive the maximum possible benefits. Such an activity is aimed at promoting the conservation of such ecosystems and the wildlife that resides within them. Due to the mandate to keep environmental impacts at a minimal, CBET ventures must remain small scale, and have a small capacity. This may be done by increasing tariffs to attract upper class tourists as has been observed in the case of Bhutan (Dorji 2001, 86) or by limiting not only accommodation but also service and nature based activity capacities at a destination (Nair 2005, 132). CBET ventures often take time to start yielding substantial returns (Kiss 2004, 234; Ping 2004, 10), and yield limited income (Kiss 2004, 234). If they wish to remain a small scale industry catering to a niche market, and thus avoid becoming mass tourism destinations, they must remain small in scale and limited in capacity. For this reason CBET should not be intended to serve as a main source of income for a community; it cannot be a panacea for their economic troubles (Ping 2004, 12). Ross and Wall (1999a, 129) argued that: “Communities should not be encouraged to become solely dependent upon ecotourism: rather ecotourism ideally should complement other activities and help to diversify an economy; its development should be considered as part of a broader plan for the use of resources.”

Moreover, the benefits of REDD+ are heavily influenced by factors such as government policy, emissions reductions standards and certification regulations and the fluctuating carbon market as found in Kenya by Atela et al. (2015, 247). Emission reductions obtained there are often influenced by leakage, as found in the Juma Reserve, in Brazilian Amazonia (Yanai et al. 2012). It is therefore unlikely that REDD+ can serve as the main source of income for a community either. It is reasonable to posit that REDD+ related activities can, in conjunction with more conventional modes of income generation such as sustainable agriculture or animal husbandry complement ecotourism activities, generate more revenue and as Ross and Wall have described above, “help to diversify an economy”. The returns of ecotourism ventures may be garnered on a more regular basis than those of REDD+, and provide employment for greater numbers of individuals, thus enabling them to supplement their income. Moreover, if an ecotourism venture is successful, it can become indefinitely self-perpetuating, thus providing communities with a constant source of additional income.


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Fig.1: Venn diagram showing commonality between REDD+ and CBET in forested areas

There lies a possibility of a nexus between REDD+ and CBET where in both may coexist and supplement the activities of the other. Such integration is possible as both REDD+ and CBET in forest communities’ stress upon conservation of forests, biodiversity, community involvement and employment, as well as equitable distribution of benefits among local stakeholders. Community members employed in REDD+ activities may also engage in ecotourism related activities. Local stakeholders engaged in REDD+can use revenue from REDD+ to invest in ecotourism (Wunder, 2008, 66), and those employed in REDD+ such as fire watchers, those who engage in laying down fire-lines; those employed in the carbon estimation etc. can also engage in ecotourism activities. Carbon estimation activities are carried out on an annual basis with firewatchers employed to prevent and mitigate fires throughout the year, especially during the dry season. Ecotourism ventures employ stakeholders in daily activities, as tour guides, trekking guides, cooks, shopkeepers and ticket vendors. Homeowners can establish accommodation and hospitality establishments such as home-stays, cabin/hut resorts, restaurants, and cafes. However, due to the heterogeneity of ecotourism destinations, there can be no one strategy or framework which can be applied in all places and under all prevalent conditions. CBET frameworks must be adapted to suit the

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unique conditions of the ecotourism destination (Ping 2004, 6) and so must REDD+. Thampi (2005:6-8) in documenting ecotourism at the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala observed that activities took the form of day treks, bird watching, vehicle safaris, nature camping, horse riding, and tribal heritage programs among others. While older adults may engage in conventional livelihood generating activities as they have in the past, the youth may serve as guides, vehicle drivers, restaurant waiters, cooks, accountants and bookkeepers (with adequate training) etc., in addition to their REDD+ activities. Biodiversity conservation training may also be provided by conservation organizations to tour guides and ecotourism stakeholders (Ceballos-Luscarain 2001, 15). In Bhutan, trekking guides must carry cooking gas for fuel; so as to avoid using wood of any kind, (Gurung & Seeland 2008, 499; Dorji 2001, 88). Implementing such a strategy in a forested region designated for both REDD+ and ecotourism can help to reduce deforestation, enhance carbon stocks and preserve the biological and aesthetic significance of the area. The prohibition of certain activities or the limiting of tourist capacity can also help to keep tourism within the parameters of ecotourism, lessen its environmental impact, and ensure that carbon stocks are not damaged in any way. Ceballos-Luscarain (2001, 19) suggests that measures be taken to sensitize prospective tourists to the unique conditions of the areas they are visiting. Tourists can be provided with reference material about how to reduce their negative impacts on the environment. If they are visiting a forested region, information can be provided about the type of forest, communities etc. If a REDD+ project exists there, information about it and its relationship to CBET in the area can also be made available. Ecotourism destinations in Queensland such as Wilsons Promontory Wilderness Retreats often prohibit the presence and use of automobiles on their premises (State of Queensland 2014, 33). Ross and Wall (1999a, 126) have framed a model for an ecotourism paradigm wherein the relationship between tourism, biodiversity and local communities has been highlighted. We have modified the said model to include REDD+ as well.


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Fig 2: Relationship between Local Communities, Biodiversity, Ecotourism and REDD+

(Modified from Ross and Wall, 1999a)

Some of the benefits of integrating REDD+ and CBET are: • It would enable local communities to become active in environmental advocacy. Indigenous tribal communities often possess a pre-existing system of sustainable natural resource management that could be further enhanced with the introduction of REDD+ and CBET. • Since forest habitats and its biodiversity are key attractions, both REDD+ and CBET can benefit from the implementation of forest enhancement methods such as ANR. The introduction of REDD+ can help by not only providing additional revenue but also by introducing more stringent regulations on use and access to forest resources. If the reverse occurs, ecotourism, initiated in an area with a pre-existing REDD+ project, will help reduce activities that would offset the impacts of REDD+ such as violations of forest resource extraction regulations, leakage (Wunder 2008, 66) and poaching. This would be achieved by drawing the interest of local communities away from such activities that would harm the forest assets and biodiversity (Wunder 2000, 467). • CBET can help revitalize and enrich the culture and traditions of indigenous communities involved. As Ping (2004, 2) and Stronza

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(2005) have observed, the tourist of today often seeks what he perceives to be authentic experiences that are above generic quality. This would help create a special awareness generating, educational value and would further encourage locals to value the uniqueness of their habitat, their culture, tradition and way of life. Ecotourism could also encourage cross cultural interactions between locals and tourists (Ross and Wall 1999b, 678; Ping, 2004, 2). REDD+ proponents could utilize the educational methods and vehicles employed by CBET to spread information and awareness of the benefits and impacts of REDD+ among locals and tourists alike. We have thus established that REDD+ and CBET in forest environments have the potential to be compatible and to complement each other. In the next section we shall elaborate on the application of both as a synergistic duo in the state of Meghalaya.

4. Integration of REDD+ and Ecotourism in Meghalaya Meghalaya, a state in North East India, has an area of 22,429 km2 of which 1,288km2 is forested land (Govt. of India 2013-17). It has a population of 29.67 lakhs (Census 2011).With very little forested land under government control as Protected or Reserve Forest, the vast majority, (over 80 %) of Meghalaya’s forests are unclassified (Singh et al. 2008,12) and remain under the control of local communities and indigenous forms of government. Unclassified forests fall under the authority of the Autonomous District Councils or private owners (Singh et al. 2008, 12); in accordance with the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Tribal communities such as the Khasis, the Garos and the Jaintias predominate the state, accounting for 86.1 % of the total population (Census 2011). It boasts great diversity with approximately 3500 species of flowering plants (Chatterjee et al. 2006, 5) of which 352 are orchid species hailing from 98 genera (Kataki et al. 1984; cited in De and Medhi 2014, 141). Over 110 species of mammals including Clouded leopard, Asian elephant, Chinese and Indian pangolin, Malayan sunbear, sloth bear, large Indian civet etc. are found in the state (SoE-Meghalaya 2005, 22). Over 75 % of Meghalaya’s population resides in rural areas (Census 2011). Most of these are dependent on agriculture or forestry based activities for income. Moreover, most of the forested land is community managed and administered with the State retaining authority over only a


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small percentage of forest. Forests play a major role in the livelihoods of indigenous communities, with products such as betel nut, betel leaf, orange, bay leaf and plantation crops such as cashew and apiculture for honey being some of the forest based livelihoods that the rural population thrives upon. While community managed forests also provide locals with timber and fuel wood on a sustainable basis in some areas, many communities engage in destructive activities such as timber/fuel-wood harvesting, and jhum or shifting cultivation which not only causes deforestation but also degrades the land through repeated cultivation, and can lead to the spread of uncontrolled forest fires5 as well. Restricting or prohibiting destructive activities could have dire impacts on the local livelihoods. Implementing livelihood alternatives such as REDD+ and CBET to supplement and compensate for losses in income due to said restriction could mitigate such impacts.

4.1. REDD+ in Meghalaya The REDD+ project in Meghalaya is the first of its kind in India. Known today as the Umiam Sub-watershed REDD+ Project (USWRP), it began in 2005 as a PES pilot project conducted in two villages of the Hima6 Mawphlang. Pine forests, patches of mixed evergreen cloud forests, agricultural land, barren and fallow land are few of the land cover types in this area. Forest fires, charcoal making, unsustainable harvesting of fuel wood, uncontrolled and unregulated grazing, stone quarrying and expansion of agricultural activities are some key factors that threaten forests in the project area (CFI72014, 10). However, communities in the area were aware and deeply concerned about these problems of degrading forests and the resultant decline in the availability of forest products as well as the issues of erosion and alterations in the direction of stream flows. They lacked the finance and expertise to deal with the issues themselves (Poffenberger 2014, 231). Once these were provided “local leaders and community institutions mobilized members to renew and strengthen resource management rules and regulations and implement them through consensus-based community actions” (ibid, 233). It involved monetary remuneration and performance based payments for services such as forest protection and conservation aimed at mitigating the problems of deforestation The pilot proved successful, with satellite images showing a 5

Forest fires are a major threat to carbon stocks according to Mr. Tambor Lyngdoh (personal interview). 6 A local indigenous form of government corresponding to a chieftainship 7 Community Forestry International

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significant amount of regeneration of degraded forest between the years 2006-2010 that has been attributed to the PES activities (Poffenberger 2014, 234). The Synjuk8 along with CFI, the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) and the Community Forestry Alliance of Northeast India (CFANE) proposed the initiation of REDD+ in the area (Project Idea Note 2011) which is being carried out through a 30-year plan for emissions trading from emissions reductions activities and carbon sequestration in forests found in a total area of about 27,000ha, managed and administered by 62 villages from 10 hima (Poffenberger 2014, 235). The project is to be supported by its own revenue, revenue which will also be used to provide capital for micro-financing mechanisms and institutions geared towards women in particular (Poffenberger 2012, 51). The carbon emissions reductions were certified by The Plan Vivo Standard in 2013 (Poffenberger 2014, 239) and additional support was provided by a local NGO, Bethany Society. Carbon certificates for 21,805 tC were issued in 2013, of which 5193 tC were sold at the market rate of $6-$7 by the end of the same year. Following the deduction of issuance fees, the synjuk received $25,947 in revenue (ibid, 240). This has been distributed amongst local communities in the area, and according to USWR Project Director, Mr. Tambor Lyngdoh 1 , helped fund the establishment of 32 Self-Help Groups (SHGs) involved in activities ranging from livestock rearing and agriculture to hollow block production and grocery store establishment. An additional 10 SHGs are also slated to receive funding from REDD revenue. REDD activities are also aiding in the setting up of lower working committees, farmer’s clubs, home-based tree nurseries, and a recent tree adoption program involving school children. However, no tourism related activities have been envisioned or set up in relation to the project. The progress made by the USWRP indicates that REDD+ can yield benefits for local communities if they are carried out, administered and managed by the same. The revenue can then be used to fund ancillary ventures that further enhance local livelihoods, improve socioeconomic conditions, and galvanize a sense of community identity and ownership over forest resources.

8

Ka Synjuk ki Hima Ar Liang Ka Wah Umiam or theUmiam Sub-Watershed Federation comprised of 62 villages from the 10 hima involved in the USWRP 1 Personal communications


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4.2. Scope for Ecotourism Meghalaya boasts a unique, aesthetically pleasing landscape, an abundance of biological diversity, and a richness of ethnic and cultural diversity. Since CBET considers both the ecological and cultural features of an area, the rich culture and heritage of the State would make it a viable option to promote such type of sustainable tourism. Some of the broad areas where ecotourism can flourish in Meghalaya are: Topography and wildlife, handloom, handicrafts and agro-products, pilgrimage centres (such as Nartiang, U Lum Sohpetbneng) and historical sites. Meghalaya hosts a diversity of terrains ranging from waterfalls to rivers, forests to caves and protected areas. The state is also home to various small-scale industries such as weaving, handicrafts etc. There are also a number of tourist-based activities the state offers such as adventure sports (mountaineering, rock climbing, and water sports), trekking and visits to wildlife sanctuaries. It is also home to a number of limestone and sandstone caves (Nayak & Mishra 2013) which are likely to attract caving enthusiasts. Pyngrope (2010) elucidated the potential of ecotourism in the Cherrapunjee-Shella area of the state, near the border with Bangladesh citing attractions such as Thangkarang Park, Khoh Ramhah and Mawsmai caves among others. Villages such as Mawlynnong and Mawlongbna offer CBET services and activities in forested regions that could also benefit from REDD+. The rich culture and environment and the potential for employment enhance the State’s potential for engaging indigenous people in tourism and attracting tourists, thereby promoting growth of its economy (Biswal 2013). In 2001, the first Tourism Policy was declared which focused on generating work, revenue, spreading awareness of culture and landscape throughout the country (Nayak & Mishra 2013). According to the growth trend projection of the WTO for South East Asia (Christ et al. 2003, 13), tourism in the region as a whole is expected to increase. Although Meghalaya falls under South Asia, it shows a steady increase in tourist inflow (with occasional fluctuations) from the years 1990-2010, with a steady increment of Indian nationals and a smaller, more varied trend in the inflow of foreign tourists (See Fig 3). The majority of Meghalaya’s tourism destinations are of natural, historical or cultural significance or any combination of the above, as such its tourism activities are mainly associated with the same.

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Fig 3: Tourist Flow in Meghalaya (Indian and Foreign)

Tourist Flow in Meghalaya Number of Tourists

800000 700000 600000 500000 400000 300000

Indian

200000

Foreign

100000 2014

2011

2008

2005

2002

1999

1996

1993

1990

0

Year Source: Based on data obtained from Meghalaya (Statistical Abstract: Various Years)

Implementing CBET in the State can thus help local communities to supplement their income, provide additional employment opportunities, reduce their dependence on environmentally unfriendly livelihoods, promote conservation of the natural environment and biodiversity and galvanize community cohesion and unity. Implementing REDD+ would have similar impacts. Carrying out both in tandem would further enhance their impact. It is evident that tourism in Meghalaya is mainly oriented with naturebased activities. Since the state is largely forested and is inhabited by a largely rural agriculture/ and forestry dependent, there is huge scope for the promotion of ecotourism ventures while implementing REDD+ so as to fulfil the dual mandate of facilitating the mitigation of climate change impacts, and providing socio-economic benefits for local communities.


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4.3. Potential Caveats and Drawbacks An analysis of the possible integration of REDD+ and ecotourism such as CBET reveals that such activities could enhance and add cultural relevance to carbon trading activities. If REDD+ precedes ecotourism ventures, revenues from it might help to compensate for the slow materialization of CBET returns and also help to keep communities motivated and interested in conservation. If CBET precedes REDD+ in an area, returns from CBET might perform the same function as well. However, the implementation of REDD+ is not without drawbacks. REDD+ often results in the restriction of forestry-related activities such as extraction of timber or firewood since these would decrease carbon stocks, lessen additionality2, restrict the usage, management and extraction of land and other land resources as well (Streck 2009, 152). Such restrictions could also give rise to issues over land tenure and the rights of indigenous communities regarding the usage of their land. This would constitute a curtailment of indigenous rights to forests and forest resources (Streck 2009, 152; Schwarte 2010, 57) resulting in a loss of income or valuable resources for local communities, especially affecting those who are of lower economic strata. This could foster hostile relations between them and REDD+ project proponents. Cenamo et al. (2009, 18) argue that: “…REDD initiatives go beyond merely respecting their [indigenous people’s] rights and guarantee that projects do not harm forest communities or undermine the central role they play in forest conservation. Therefore, REDD related activities must respect the legal land use and access rights of indigenous populations. Moreover the design and implementation of REDD initiatives should take into account the diverse cultural practices, values and traditional production systems of forest peoples.”

REDD proponents must also deal with the possibilities of leakage 3 (Wunder 2008, 66; van Oosterzee, et al. 2012, 267), permanence4 (Dutschke 2

Additionality is a term used to refer to the amount of carbon offsets that have occurred due to the implementation of a CCM mechanism which would not have occurred in the absence of the project. 3 Leakage occurs when a timber harvester, upon being prohibited from harvesting timber or firewood in the project area, instead begins to do so outside the project area, thus incurring a loss of carbon stocks that may offset the carbon sequestered as biomass in the study area.

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& Angelsen 2008, 77), land ownership, and the right to use land without obtaining full ownership. Streck (2009, 153) state that a lack of clarification regarding land tenure and indigenous rights could “limit policy options” for REDD+, give rise to inequity regarding sharing and distribution of benefits and even incite or exacerbate conflict between local communities, REDD+ proponents and govt. institutions. Sunderlin et al. (2014, 38) found that restriction of access to forest resources was envisioned as part of the project in all the REDD initiatives they reviewed. Project proponents planned “positive incentives such as livelihood supports” (ibid.) to compensate locals for losses suffered due to restriction of access. Maraseni et al. (2014, 43) observed that Nepalese CFUGs in Chitwan Province had to limit their harvesting of NTFPs as well as grazing in forested areas in order to maximize benefits from REDD+. Kill(2014) observed that community interests such as employment, improvement of infrastructure, and access to forest resources was restricted at Guaraquecaba Climate Action Project and the Monte PascoalPau Brasil Ecological Corridor which she describes as failures in REDD. Transparency is another issue that, if maintained can help to ensure a project's longevity and success. Peskett (2011, 2-3) states that transparent schemes can help to overcome shortcomings such as failure to attract investors or live up to financial commitments. While REDD+ would provide job opportunities for local communities through initiatives to training them and employing them in various capacities, REDD+ revenues may take time to materialize as emissions reductions must be certified and then put up for sale on the carbon market. It is difficult to envision REDD+ providing stakeholders with regular income on a basis any more frequent than that at the annual level. For this reason, at the village/community level, the authors are of the opinion that REDD+ cannot serve as the main source of income. The CBET ventures themselves may take time to break even and yield profits (Kiss 2004, 234; Ping 2004, 10). Moreover, CBET ventures must remain small scale in order to keep environmental impacts to a minimum 4 Carbon sequestered as biomass in trees may not necessarily remain sequestered permanently. Forest fires, earthquakes, landslides, severe storms, or illegal logging may result in the deforestation or forest degradation. This would result in a return of sequestered carbon to the atmosphere, either by fire or decomposition etc. Protecting forests against such eventualities wherever and whenever possible constitutes attempts to ensure their permanence, but such activities are often expensive and labour and resource intensive.


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and thus avoid taking on the characteristics of mass tourism destination. However, as Ping (2004, 9) points out, if locals become more interested in maximizing returns than protecting their natural environment, efforts to limit environmental impacts and the adulteration of culture from excessive interaction with tourists etc., may be relegated to secondary importance. While the employment of locals in various capacities in REDD+ activities would help to alleviate any negative sentiments that may arise regarding restriction of resource use, the utilization of REDD+ revenue to fund business ventures designed to employ more local stakeholders would provide them with alternative livelihood opportunities to offset losses from forest resource use restrictions imposed on account of REDD+. Local people who can no longer extract timber, may find their income supplemented not only by being employed in REDD+ related activities such as the prevention of forest fires, but also as guides for trekkers, or as house owners providing home-stay or accommodation facilities or as restaurant owners/employees catering to the need of tourists.

5. Conclusion In conclusion, we surmise that REDD+ and CBET can be implemented simultaneously in Meghalaya. REDD+ projects such as the USWRP can further benefit from the implementation of CBET ventures. CBET ventures such as those carried out in Mawlynnong and Mawlongbna can likewise be further enhanced by implementing REDD+. However, designing a framework for integration, implementation and evaluation is crucial to the development of a successful REDD-cum-CBET venture while minimizing negative impacts on the local environment and indigenous communities. Baseline studies must be conducted during the initial stages of planning to document local conditions and attitudes of natives towards such a project. The project should also be flexible and prepared in a manner that is localized so as to accommodate region specific variables. Both must work for the benefit of the environment and local people, and to this end, both must be run by and administered by the same as well.

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Schwarte, C. 2010. “Social Safeguards in REDD: A Review of the Possible Mechanisms to Protect the Rights and Interests of Indigenous and Forest Dependent Communities in a Future System for REDD”. McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law & Policy 6 (1): 55-80. Sharma, B., Pattanayak, S., Nepal, M., Shyamsundar, P., & Karky, B., 2015. REDD+ “Impacts: Evidence from” Nepal. Kathmandu, Nepal: South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). Singh, O.P., Tiwari, B. K., Lynser M B., & Bharali, S. 2008. “Environmental Accounting of Natural Resources of Meghalaya: Phase I– Land and Forest Resources”. New Delhi: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Govt. of India. State of Queensland. 2014. “Best Practice Ecotourism Development Guidelines”. Queensland. Stem, C.J., Lassoie, J.P., Lee, D.R., Deshler, D.D., & Schehlas, J.W. 2003. “Community Participation in Ecotourism Benefits: To Link to Conservation Practices and Perspectives”. Society and Natural Resources 16 (5): 387-413. Streck, C. 2009. “Rights and REDD+. Legal and Regulatory Considerations”. In Realising REDD: National strategy and policy option, edited byAngelsen. Bogor Indonesia: CIFOR. Stronza, A. 2005. “Hosts and Hosts: The Anthropology of Community Based Ecotourism in the Peruvian Amazon”. National Association for the Practice of Anthropology Bulletin 23:170-190. Sunderlin, W. D., Larson, A. M., & Cronkleton, P. 2009. “Forest tenure rights and REDD”. In Realising REDD: National strategy and policy option, edited byAngelsen. Bogor Indonesia: CIFOR. Sunderlin, W., Larson, A.M., Duchelle, A.E., Resosudarmo, I.A.P., Huynh, T.B., Awono, A., & Dokken T. 2014. “How are REDD+ Proponents Addressing Tenure Problems? Evidence from Brazil, Cameroon, Tanzania, Indonesia and Vietnam”. World Development 55:37-52. Thampi, S. P. 2005. “Ecotourism in Kerala, India: Lessons from the ecodevelopment project in Periyar Tiger Reserve”. International Ecotourism Monthly 13 (6): 10-26. van Oosterzee, P., Blignaut, J., & Bradshaw C.J.A. 2012. “iREDD hedges against avoided deforestations unholy trinity of leakage, permanence and additionality”. Conservation Letters 5 (4): 266-273. Wall, G.1996. “Ecotourism: Change, Impacts and Opportunities”. In The Ecotourism Equation: Measuring the Impact, edited by E.Malek-

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Zadeh. New Haven: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Wunder, S. 2000. “Ecotourism and Economic Incentives: An Empirical Approach”. Ecological Economics 29 (3): 303-320. Wunder, S. 2008. “How do we deal with Leakage”? In Moving Ahead with REDD: issues, options and implications. Bogor, Indonesia. CIFOR. Yanai, A., Fearnside, P.M., Graca, P.M.L. de A., & Noguiera, E.M. 2012. “Avoided Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: Simulating the effect of the Juma Sustainable Development Reserve”. Forest Ecology and Management 282: 78-91.

CHAPTER NINETEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES IN INDIA: THE STATUS OF AGRICULTURAL R&D INVESTMENT DAYOHIMI RYMBAI,1 S.M. FEROZE1 AND KOIJAM JOHNY SINGH1

1. Introduction Agriculture is the dominant employment generation sector in the Indian economy providing employment to about 47% of the population (www.ibef.org.in). This mega sector faces the task of feeding 17.5% of the global population with only 2.4% of the world’s land area and 4% water resources at its disposal (NAAS 2013, 2). On the other hand, fragmentation of agricultural land holdings is increasing, with the small and marginal holdings (area less than 2 hectare) accounting for 85% of the total operational land holdings and 44 % of the operated area in India (GoI 2013, 10). Land use pattern is important in case of agricultural production and there is no possibility of increasing farm production through the use of new land. This consequently has raised the poverty level in the country and got embedded in the system and is the main factor that strengthened the root of poverty in India. The Government has made efforts in addressing this problem through various programmes and schemes like- i) wage employment programmes, ii) self-employment programmes, iii) food security programmes, iv) social security programmes and v) urban poverty alleviation programmes.

1

School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University, Umiam, Meghalaya.

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Addressing the developmental issues in India is a complicated aspect of all times and in an era where climate change is not just an environmental but a developmental issue, the situation has been intensified. South Asia contains the majority of the world’s poor and they are reported to be more vulnerable to the change in climate by virtue of their dependence on agriculture as their main source of occupation (CPRC 2004, 2004). If climate change is at all detrimental to the Indian economy, reviewing it from the dimension of agriculture is very essential due to the fact that the climatic factors (viz., rainfall and temperature) are the direct inputs in agriculture and their patterns have changed over the years. The paper focused basically on three aspects viz., climate change and agriculture, Government initiatives in the line of climate change and the scenario of agricultural crop research investment and irrigation investment in India.

1.1. Change in climatic factors and future projections India Meteorological Department (IMD) reported that the all India mean annual temperature has increased by 0.5°C during the period 1901– 2003. However, during the last three decades the warming trend has been contributed by both maximum and minimum temperatures. Das et al. (2007, 5) reported that annually the average maximum temperature in the North Eastern Region (NER) is rising at the rate of 0.11˚C per decade and the annual mean temperature at a rate of 0.04˚C per decade. The Indian Network of Climate Change Assessment (INCCA) (2010, 36- 39) projected that the seasons may be warmer by around 2˚C towards 2030s in India and precipitation indicates a 3 to 7% overall increase in the all-India summer monsoon rainfall in the 2030’s with respect to the 1970s. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) (2010, 20) predicted that by the end of the century both the minimum and maximum temperatures will increase by 2 to 4˚C, respectively leading to a mean surface temperature rise of 3.5 to 5˚C in the Eastern Himalayas. Similarly, Kumar et al. (2011, 340) projected that in the Southern part of the NER the maximum temperature will increase by 1.5˚C and rainfall will be reduced by about 10% from the normal.

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1.2. Reported and projected impact of climate change on agriculture Different parts of India are affected differently as a result of climate change, whereby, the large areas of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh are frequently hit by drought, while approximately 40 million hectares of land in the North and North-Eastern belt is flood-prone (Ranuzzi & Srivastava 2012, 3). The timely arrival of monsoon which forms the lifeline of Indian agriculture and holds crucial importance to food production in the country has changed over the years. This forms a threat to agriculture, consequently to the food security, and the overall economy of the country. Ranuzzi and Srivastava (2012, 8) have reported that the crop cycles have been altered and the cultivation in the rain-fed areas which account for nearly 60% of the Indian agricultural system is detrimentally affected due to the delayed onset of monsoon. The availability of food, access to food, utilization of food and stability of food supplies over time are the areas which get affected as a result of climate change besides directly affecting food production (Vermeulen 2014, 12). In Tamil Nadu, as reported by Varadan and Kumar (2014, 394) about 60% of the farmers’ crop yield has declined over the years, 23% noticed new pests in cotton and paddy, and 13% experienced more pest and diseases attack. This led to a change in the cropping pattern of 15% of the farmers as long duration crop varieties are getting replaced by short duration. The study suggested that Government policies need to support research and development of technology like drought tolerant varieties. Latha et al. (2012, 370), in their study on rain-fed agriculture in Dharwad found that 92% of the respondents reported that the reduced rainfall in the area, and 42% perceived change in temperature and seasonal pattern. As a response to this, 87% of the farmers expressed that their net income got reduced over the years, 76% reported yield reduction and 64% reported that soils are no longer suitable for cultivation. To encounter the effect, 50% of the farmers change their profession which is a threat to Indian economy; 42% had changed their cropping pattern, and 25% started cultivating the tolerant varieties. Besides being a threat to food security, climate change was also reported to have increased the burden on women and children because of the pre-existing gender division of labour, differences in the distribution of resources and inequalities in women's and men's access to the most critical productive resources in rural economy, agricultural land and associated production technology (Singh, 2011, 1-3).

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The simulation studies conducted under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) network project has reported that with every 1°C rise in temperature the wheat production of the country could plunge by 6 million tons annually. But the loss could be moderated to some extent by utilizing adaptation strategies such as changing the planting dates and using different varieties. It is also projected that in Tamil Nadu, cereal production is likely to get reduced whereby, reduction on rice was expected to be higher, and estimated to be 6.7% in 2020 and 28.2% during 2080 and for the same year, the reductions in maize yield were estimated to be 3.0% and 18.3%, while in the case of sorghum the projection was 4.5 and 18.7%, respectively, if no new management interventions are made (Aggarwal 2009, 5). By 2030, the yield of irrigated rice may get reduced by 10% in the majority of the coastal districts, West coast rain-fed rice by 20%, the maize yield loss in the irrigated areas of the coastal districts was projected to be between 15 to 50%, and rain-fed maize up to 35%. Potato yield was projected to get reduced by about 4% in Central India and 4% in Southern India (Kumar et al. 2011, 339). Wassmann and Dobermann (2007, 13) projected the decrease in yields in case of non-irrigated wheat and in rice, and a loss in farm-level net revenue between 9 and 25% for a temperature increase of 2 to 3.5°C. In Rajasthan, a 2˚C rise in temperature was estimated to reduce production of pearl millet by 10 to 15% (Mahato 2014, 4).

1.3. Discussion Reviewing the past and the future, it is obvious that the projected impact of climate change has affected the food security of the nation and it will continue to be so if no initiatives are taken at the earliest. But the interesting fact is that the farm households have always resorted to some kind of adaptation strategies at their own cost which due to the intense effect of climate change have made the options more embedded. This is known as autonomous adaptation. The adaptation at the individual or household level arises mainly from a reactive response to existing stimuli which is basically short term, and it is reported that the more intense the impact of climate change is, the more difficult it is to adapt (Ford et al. 2011, 30-32; Smith et al. 2009, 4135), but in the absence of planned adaptation, the consequences of long term climate change could be severe on the livelihood security of the poor (Jasna et al. 2014, 187). Therefore, a planned adaptation by the Government in this aspect is expected to play a crucial role.


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2. Government Initiatives The two major initiatives of the Central Government to provide resilience to the Indian agriculture sector in this century has been the setting up of the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) in 2008 and the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project by the ICAR in 2011.

2.1. National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), one of the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) was set up with the purpose to address issues regarding sustainable agriculture in the context of risks associated with climate change by devising appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies and measures in the domain of crops and animal husbandry for ensuring food security, equitable access to food resources, enhancing livelihood opportunities and contributing to the economic stability at the national level. Prime importance was put on laying down the promotion of dry land agriculture by way of developing suitable drought and pest resistant crop varieties and ensuring adequacy of institutional support, it also expanded its coverage to rain-fed areas for integrating farming systems with management of livestock and fisheries, so that agricultural production continues to grow in a sustainable manner. The four functional areas of the mission are research and development, technologies, products and practices, infrastructure and capacity building. Within the area of research and development the Mission seeks to address interventions, which basically stressed on the development of tolerant crops, livestock and fish varieties. It also seeks to harness the traditional knowledge and agricultural heritage for in-situ conservation of genetic resources. The implementation of NMSA up to the end of XIIth Five Year Plan would require additional budgetary support of 1080 billion of which only 65 billion (6%) was proposed for research and development (GoI, 2010, 37).

2.2. National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) Realizing the impact of climate change, the Government of India has prioritized the climate change research and a major network project

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NICRA was initiated in February, 2011 under the umbrella of the ICAR with the objective to take up long term strategic research on adaptation, covering crops, livestock, fisheries and natural resource management to address the impacts of projected climate change on the Indian agriculture, to demonstrate the existing best practices to help farmers cope with current climate variability and to enhance the capacity building of scientists and other stakeholders in climate resilient agricultural research and its application. The project constituted of 21 participating institutions for carrying the strategic research and 11 institutions as the sponsored research components. To attain the set objectives, the main focus is on the development of crops and varieties adapted to climatic stresses. Major food and horticultural crops are being evaluated for tolerance to abiotic stresses (drought, heat, flooding, and salinity). Work on genetic enhancement was initiated in a multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary network mode during the year and importance has been given to crops like wheat, rice, maize, pigeon pea, mango and tomato, by the partner institutes (Venkateswarlu et al. 2013, 9-11). The outlay expenditure for the project was 200 crores during the initial year 2010-11 and 1.05 billion during 2011-12. The expenditure went down to 1.1 billion during the year 2012-13 and 0.8 billion during the year 2013-14.

2.3. Discussion A thorough review of the objectives of NICRA and NMSA it reveals that the research to develop varieties within these initiatives is in line with the reported need of the farm households to provide resilience to agriculture. This stresses the need to upgrade the strength of the Agricultural Research in India. So, the third issue presents the status and the challenges of agricultural research and development (R&D) in India. 2.4 Investment on Agricultural Research

and Development in India The agricultural research as defined by the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) includes research on crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, natural resources, and the socio-economic aspects of


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primary agricultural production. It also included food-processing research. India has one of the largest and well-coordinated agricultural R&D systems in the world which has been in operation for more than a century, largely in the public sector domain and will continue to dominate India’s agricultural R&D system (Pal et al. 2012, 2). The growing demand for agricultural products and the need to ensure food security are major factors introducing R&D growth and innovation in India (Kumar & Singh 2014, 7). The focus of agricultural research in India is widening and becoming more complex with the need to encompass issues such as sustainable natural resources, improving food quality and safety, increasing household food and nutritional security, and reducing poverty (Beintema et al. 2008, 4; Pal et al. 2012, 2). Therefore, the rising trend in Government funding for agricultural R&D, more resources will be needed to meet the needs of the growing population. Amongst the various types of government spending for agriculture, agricultural R&D appears to be the most critical for augmenting farm yields and breeding for stress tolerant has been an important thrust area in agricultural research. Also research for developing tolerant varieties contributes to achieving adaptation and mitigation targets. It is practical and development-oriented, aiming to support farmers, extension services, agricultural traders, politicians and Governments in creating innovations for the growth of the agricultural sector (Fan et al. 2007, 13; Birthal et al. 2014, 152-153). Dolan et al. (2001, 33) noted: “…that the investment into agricultural research and development represents a climate adaptation option by public agents where the Government can encourage the development of new varieties of plants that are heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant, which primarily involves the investment in both public and private research and development”. Ford et al. (2011, 28) reported that: “The most dominant and motivating stimulus to adapt includes the changes in precipitation. Irrigation is another factor that influences the adaptation decision of the farmer to a greater extent because access to water for irrigation increases the resilience of farmers to climate variability. Sahu and Mishra through their study in Odisha reported that irrigation investment needs should be reconsidered and water harvesting schemes need to be planned”.

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The research investment in Indian agriculture is channeled through the ICAR, the apex organization, which has been credited for ushering the Green Revolution in India and which allocates resources for agricultural research, education and frontline extension through a vast network of research institutes and State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) (Joshi et al. 2005, 1).

2.5. Investment in crop research in India The public agricultural crop research investment was found to have an increasing trend in India with 6.8 billion during 2002-03 which increased to 21 billion during 2012-13 (an increase of more than 67%) and further increased to 22 billion during 2014-15 (indiabudget.nic.in). With the objective to develop stress cultivars and cultivars that can boost productivity the National Institute of Biotic Stress Management and the Indian Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology was set up at the initial year of the twelve plans.

2014-15

2013-14

2012-13

2011-12

2010-11

2009-10

2008-09

2007-08

2006-07

2005-06

2004-05

2003-04

25.0 23.0 21.0 19.0 17.0 15.0 13.0 11.0 9.0 7.0 5.0 2002-03

(billion)

Fig 1. Direct and indirect crop research in India*

(Sources: Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Research and Education) (*Exclusion: Investment on agriculture Extension and Education, Economic Statistics and Management, Agricultural Engineering, ICAR Headquarter Administration, University, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries)


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Table 1. Ratio of crop research investment to Ag.GDP Year 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14

Ratio of crop research investment/Ag.GDP 14.02 13.34 13.28 12.59 13.08 13.21 19.14 22.43 28.28 29.91 12.82 12.27

2.6. Status of irrigation investment in India The investment on irrigation sector in India was found to increase in every Five Year plans. It was 4.4 billion during the first Five Year plan and increased to 1033.63 billion during the Tenth Five Year plan (an increase of almost 100%) (Table 2). Even though, the financial allocation of funds under this sector increased, the percentage share of the total plan expenditure is comparatively less and decreases over every Five Year plan. It was found to be around 23% (22.54%) during the First Five Year plan and only 6.19% during the Tenth Five Year plan (CWC, 2013). The expenditure investment on the irrigation sector out of total plan outlay had been on a rising trend till the Fifth Five Year plan. While analyzing the state wise expenditure on major and medium irrigation during Tenth Plan, it was found that the maximum expenditure was in Andhra Pradesh followed by Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and Haryana ( >90%). As an impact of climate change particularly with the drifting monsoon, many regions which enjoyed a bountiful monsoon shower have been declared as rainfall deficit regions. This called upon the focus to enlist the other regions/states in setting up an irrigation project.

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Table 2. Plan wise investment on irrigation in India Five Year plan

Investment ( billion)

% out of the total plan expenditure

I

4.41

22.54

II

5.41

11.59

III

10.17

11.89

IV

24.09

15.31

V

40.90

14.22

VI VII VIII IX X XI

115.28 187.47 340.79 628.09 1033.63 2200.60

10.55 8.56 7.59 6.70 6.19 5.81

Source: Central Water Commission, India

3. Conclusion To address the negative impact of climate change, the farming community has undertaken autonomous adaptation which basically depends upon the farmers’ own adaptive capacity. As planned adaptation, the Government directly and indirectly started certain initiatives. The concern is that whether the investment incurred on those initiatives will be able to bring a positive return or not, it will at least buffer the shock due to the loss of agricultural productivity. Equal focus should be put in irrigation facilities as this will serve the long term adaptation solution to the farming community.

References Aggarwal, P.K. 2009. “Global climate change and Indian agriculture”. New Delhi: ICAR. Beintema, N., P. Adhiguru, P.S. Birthal, & A.K. Bawa. 2008. “Public agricultural research investments: India in a global context”. NCAP Policy Brief No. 27. National Center for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research.


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Birthal, P.S., Khan, M.T., Negi, D.S., & S, Agarwal. 2014. “Impact of climate change on yields of major crops in India: Implications for food security”. Agricultural Economics Research Review, 27 (2): 145-155. CPRC. 2004-05. “The Chronic Poverty Report” 2004-05. Chronic Poverty Research Centre. CWC. 2013. Water and Related Statistics. Central Water Commission Das, A., P.K. Ghosh., B.U. Choudhury., D.P. Patel., G.C. Munda., S.V. Ngachan., & P. Chowdhury. 2009. “Climate change in North East India: Recent facts and events-worry for agricultural management”. Proceedings of workshop on impact of climate change on agriculture. Dolan, E.H., B. Smit., M.W. Skinner., B. Bradshaw., & C.B. Bryant. 2001. “Adaptation to climate change in agriculture: Evaluation of options”. Occasional Paper No. 26. University of Guelph. Fan, S., A. Gulati., & S. Thorat. 2007. “Investment, subsidies and propoor growth in rural India”. IFPRI Discussion Paper No. 00716. International Food Policy Research Institute. Ford, L.B., J.D. Ford., & J. Paterson. 2011. “Are we adapting to climate change?” Global Environmental Change 21: 25-33. Government of India (GoI). 2010. National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture: Strategies for meeting the challenges of climate change. New Delhi: Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation. Government of India (GoI). 2013. “State of Indian Agriculture 2012-13”. New Delhi: Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation. IBEF. 2015. “Indian agriculture industry: an overview”. India Brand Equity Foundation. ICIMOD. 2010. “Climate change vulnerability of mountain ecosystems in the Eastern Himalayas”. Synthesis report of climate change impact and vulnerability in the EH. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu, Nepal. INCCA. 2010. “Climate change and India: A 4x4 assessment a sectoral and regional analysis for 2030s”. Report 2, November, 2010. Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India. Jasna, V.K., S., Som, R.R., Burman, R.N. Padaria., & J.P. Sharma. 2014. “Socio economic impact of climate resilient technologies”. International Journal of Agriculture and Food Science Technology 5 (3): 185-190.

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Joshi, P.K., S. Pal, P.S. Birthal, & M.C.S. Mantilan. 2005. “Impact of agricultural research: Post green revolution evidence from India”, New Delhi: National Center for Agricultural Economics. Kumar, S.N., P.K. Aggarwal, S. Rani, S. Jain, R. Saxena., & N. Chauhan. 2011. “Impact of climate change on crop productivity in Western Ghats, Coastal and Northeastern Regions of India”. Current. Sciences 101 (3): 332-341. Kumar, V., & K. Sinha. 2014. “Status and prospects of research and development in agriculture in India”. Journal of Science Policy and Governance 5 (9). Latha, A.K.V., M. Gopinath., & A.R.S. Bhat. 2012. “Impact of climate change on rainfed agriculture in India: A case study of Dharwad”. International Journal of Environmental Sciences and Development 3 (4): 368-371. Mahato, A. 2014. “Climate change and its impact on agriculture”. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications 4(4): 4. NAAS. 2013. Climate resilient agriculture in India. New Delhi: National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Pal, S. M. Rahija, and N. Beintema. 2012. “India recent development in agricultural research”. ASTI Country Note June 2012. International Food Policy Research Institute. Ranuzzi, A. and R. Srivastava. 2012. “Impact of climate change on agriculture and food security”. ICRIER Policy Series 16 (May 2012). Sahu, N.C., &D. Mishra. 2013. “Analysis of perception and adaptability strategies of the farmers to climate change in Odisha, India”. APCBEE Procedia 5 (2013): 123 – 127. Singh, L. 2011. “Rural women and climate changes in India”. International Referred Research Journal 3 (35): 55-57. Smith, J.B., S.H., Schneider, M. Oppenheimer et al., 2009. “Assessing dangerous climate change through an update of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC. Reasons for Concern’’. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci 106: 4133–4137. Varadan, R.J., &P. Kumar. 2014. “Indigenous knowledge about climate change: Validating the perception of dryland farmers in Tamil Nadu”. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 13 (2): 390-397. Venkateswarlu, B., M. Maheswari, S. M .Rao, V.U.M. Rao, S. Ch. Rao, K.S. Reddy, D.B.V. Ramana, C.A. Rama Rao, V. P. Kumar, S. Dixit., &A.K. Sikka. 2013. “National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), Research Highlights” (2012-13). Hyderabad: Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture.


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Vermeulen, S.J. 2014. Climate change, food security and small-scale producers”. Copenhagen, Denmark: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Wassmann, R., & A. Dobermann. 2007. “Climate change adaptation through rice production in region with high poverty level”. SAT ejournal 4 (1): 13.

CHAPTER TWENTY CONCEPTUALIZING “GREEN CITIES”: MAKING INDIAN CITIES ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE OINDRILA DATTAGUPTA1

1. Introduction The city is man’s most grand and innovative innovative creation becoming the focus of all ideas and energies guiding civilization. The word ‘city’ means civility or civilization which gave birth to all creative outbursts. The study of cities does provide an interesting angle to analyse the whole socio-economic systems being a major hub of power and economy (Dunn 1989). Social Sciences dominantly have focussed more on states than on cities and the due importance of cities as an essential unit of socio-economic and political transformation has been neglected in this field. Cities have existed for a long time and the vital positions they occupy in the political structure have gained the attention of researchers. Cities are essentially the ‘platforms’ on which the course of development unfolds but the idea of ‘city as process’ is put off the radar (Taylor 2007). The social sciences were initially based on the enclosed spheres of human action namely society, economy and polity that were treated as innately ‘national’ i.e., the state. Political space mirrors the true political winners and losers in the configuration of modernity: “the centralization of states (winners) at the expense of, among others, the autonomy of cities (losers),” (Taylor et.al. 2007, 1). Looking at cities as the subject of study is an effort to locate the role and significance of cities in international political economy. With the new wave of rapid urbanisation and globalisation, cities as a subject of research have gained currency in social sciences. In the field of international politics which has been state 1

Centre for International Politics, Organisation, Diplomacy and Disarmament (CIPOD), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

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dominant, ccities have beecome signifiicantly a chaallenging entitty to the state-centricc internationall relations. Th he phenomenoon of globalizzation has reincarnatedd the role and position off cities in thee internationaal system making them a site of societal chan nge as well as political-eeconomic activities, pplaying an im mportant rolee in global eeconomy, infformation industry, susstainability annd ecology. We are all dwelling in what is rightly termeed as “urban century” because therre are a growiing number off populations iin urban localles. In the present era, the cities havve distinction n of being thee key sites forr “natural resource connsumption annd environmen ntal pollutionn” and “urbanization is causing a m massive increease in the am mount of ressources consu umed and pollution geenerated in thhe megacities of the globaal South” (Daawson & Edwards 20004, 2; Rogerrs 1997 quoteed in Dawsonn& Edwards 2004, 6). Cities are thhe cradles of culture c and ciivilization butt now they staand at the peak of an environmentaal crisis. Indiia has positiooned herself widely w in global econoomy and Indiaan cities are playing p a vitall role in this process p of economic pprogress and global g connecctivity. The trrend of envirronmental degradation along with an unpreced dented urban expansion has h been reflected inn India too. Economic E gro owth and urbbanisation has been a simultaneouus process annd with India seen as the second largeest urban population iin the world, its cities are contributing the bulk of the t Gross Domestic Prroduct (GDP)) accounting to t around 60% % thereby beccoming a hub of job creation, a thread t of link kage betweenn global econ nomy and national ecoonomy. Citiess are increasin ngly the globbal hub of inv vestments and businesss transactionss. According to t the figure bbelow the urb ban share of the GDP P in India is ever e increasing (Ministry oof Urban Development 2014, 1).

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Against this backdrop of economic progression, cities are becoming increasingly competitive and the acceleration of economic growth is often at the cost of environment. In aspiring to make it to world rankings and attracting foreign direct investments, providing luxurious amenities, hastle- free transportation, we often fail to understand the consequences of felling trees. The rapid urbanisation also requires the cities to undertake certain steps to meet the challenges which the developments of cities are facing at present. Urbanisation is an essential component of our growth and development today and the city, state as well as the centre has to take effective measures to create infrastructure and commence sectoral reforms to restructure and create the environment for rejuvenating cities as pointed out by Kamal Nath of Ministry of Urban Development. Mega cities in emerging economies like India are the centre of production and consumption as well as major contributors in global warming and environmental problems. Hence the cities are the core of green economy and green growth. It is therefore the responsibility of the civil society and our government to make all necessary efforts to achieve “green cities”. The welfare of cities is elaborately tied to the promotion of environmental and economically motivating activities, which makes the cities nuclei of green economy, “the interactions between the economy and the environment are more visible at the city scale. Attractiveness is a key factor of city growth performance and can be hampered by a poor environment,” (OECD 2011, 8).

2. Urbanisation and Environment The contemporary global population ranges between 6.8 and 7 billion people (Gonzalo et al. 2013) and more than half of the global human population dwell in cities (UN-Habitat 2010). It is estimated that by the middle of this century the world will have 80% of these urban populations precisely in developing countries with two-thirds of the population living in cities (DESA 2012). The cities of the global north have affluent, wellresourced and well-regulated living environments. This is a major hurdle for the cities in the global south. The quality of life for people living in urban slums is often complicated by a lack of resources comprising electricity, water and safety and absence of formal recognition within existing socio-political environments (UN-Habitat 2003). Urbanisation scientifically should always be intertwined with sustainability and ecology.

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Throughhout the worldd, cities are ex xperiencing vvaried climaticc patterns that are beinng attributed too global climaate change. Ciities mainly th hose from the global soouth are conffronted with serious challennges of climatte change impacts (IP PCC 2007). The report outlines o that as temperatures and precipitationn shift over tiime, many sccientists arguee that urban areas a will need to cope with a host of events, in ncluding incre ased incidencce of heat waves, waterr scarcity and natural disasteers disturbing tthe urban infraastructure. The major iissue now is the t anthropog genic activity contributing to global climate channge, and urbaan areas play y a significantt role in anthrropogenic warming (IIPCC 2007). The increaasing environm nmental risks impose infrastructurral pressure onn the governan nce of the cityy to mitigate th he severe impacts of cclimate changge and ecolog gical disruptioons on the peeople and the region. T The graphic representation as given in thhe Asian Development Bank Reporrt (2010) below w shows the rapid urbanizaation over the years. y

Worldwiide, cities occcupy only 2% 2 of the eaarth’s total land l area accounting ffor 75% of tottal resource use. Urban areaas globally acccount for air pollutionn, toxic efflueents, and soliid waste (Girrardet 1996). In India, climate channge is observed from vario ous vantage p oints. Indian cities are confronted by ecologiical concerns related too increasing g energy consumptionn; pollution, undirected u wasste generation,, and the unsu ustainable

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use of natural resources like water have raised the pressure on increasing population density (Mukhopadhyay & Revi 2009). Climate change unleashes grave hazards to India's massive poverty-stricken and vulnerable populations (Revi 2008; INCCA 2010). Environmental problems affect not only mega cities like Delhi or Mumbai, Kolkata but also towns and small cities and the larger urban ecological problems related to water, waste, energy, housing, transportation continue to pose further complex challenges. In the bigger cities, the expanding population resulting from migration make the urban slums the most vulnerable to climatic impacts. The fuelling economic growth of cities is not just ecologically unsustainable, but is also a catalyst of global warming. Indian cities are plagued by the danger of air and water pollution choking the lives of the residents. As per the reports of the Global Burden of Disease 2013 which documents the decadal death and illness, outdoor air pollution caused 6 lakh premature deaths in India in 2010, which took a six-fold leap from the 1 lakh deaths in 2000. Sadly, the polluted outdoor air is the largest killer in India after high blood pressure, indoor air pollution (mainly from smoking chullahs), tobacco use, and poor nutrition. It has been found that one in three people in India survive in critically-polluted areas that have toxic levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and lungclogging particulate matter which are larger than 10 micron (PM10) in size. 180 cities had been monitored by India’s Central Pollution Control Board in 2012 and only two, namely, Malapuram and Pathanamthitta in Kerala met the criteria of low air pollution (50% below the standard). The Centre for Science and Environment have examined that vehicles are the biggest air polluters and in the megacity of Delhi around 1400 vehicles are contributing to 70% air pollution each day. In India, hardly 20 Indian cities follow the Euro4 emission standard for new vehicles and most follow Euro3 which is even behind European standards as reported by Anumita Roychowdhury, Research and Advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) (Roy, 2013). Delhi which is classified as the world’s fifth mega city has been reported to be the most polluted city in the world and this created a hue and cry among the people and the administration. With a population of “25.8 million”, a study conducted by a group of researchers from the United Kingdom predicted that the number of road vehicles would rise from 4.7 million in 2010 to nearly 26 million by 2030. The total energy consumption in Delhi has risen 57% from 2001 to 2011. A new study on air pollution in Delhi by a team of researchers led by the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom has found the city suffers from a “toxic blend of geography, growth, poor energy sources and unfavourable weather that boosts its dangerously high levels of air

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pollution”…Air pollution has been placed in the top ten health risks faced by human beings globally. Delhi has the dubious distinction of being regularly cited as the most polluted city in the world, with air pollution causing thousands of excess deaths in a year in this growing mega city,” writes Dr Prashant Kumar of the University of Surrey (The Indian Express 25th December, 2015). Indian cities are struggling to be sustainable and eco-friendly, and bringing an efficient and smart use of transport, energy, waste management helps in attaining this goal. Thereby the government of India has come up with the strategy of green India, green cities, and eco cities. (Shaw 2012).

3. Conceptualising Green Cities Cities need to align themselves with nature and along with economic growth and social progression they need to be environmentally sustainable. We seem to be staying in a world of economic golden age but we are still struggling to find a co-existence with nature. “Green” has become a catch word for scholars, urban planners and policy makers to achieve growth and economic success. Green is used widely to emphasise on resource protection and natural systems on which human beings and species are dependant (Carley et al. 2011). Green refers broadly to activities and technologies, waste management and recycling, pollution prevention, efficient energy consumption and production, the designing construction, maintenance of buildings; natural resource management such as air, water, land/open space, forests and other environmental services; e.g. planning, engineering, monitoring, financing, and education. According to Florian Steinberg and Linfield (2012) in the Asian Development Bank Report the greening of cities will require the following attributes such as reduction of chemical and physical and health hazards, creation of quality environments for all, ensured sustainable consumption, and adaptation to climate change impacts (Satterthwaite 1997, 23) to balance the ecology and development. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP 2010) defined “green economy” as “improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities,” accounting for a low-carbon, resourceefficient, and socially inclusive economy, wherein growth in income and employment is driven by public and private investment aimed at reducing carbon emissions and pollution, enhancing energy and resource efficiency, and preventing the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services (UNEP 2011b, 16). Green cities have clean air and water and pleasant streets and

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parks. Green cities are resilient in the face of natural disasters, and the risk of major infectious disease outbreaks in such cities is low. Green cities also encourage green behaviour, such as the use of public transit, and their ecological impact is relatively small. Impacts of greener cities and improved environments can increase social equity and the quality of life. Green cities will transform themselves to achieve more efficient densities and patterns of movement. Their configuration will limit the use of natural resources and hence carbon emissions. More compact cities with reduced travel requirements and availability of green transport technologies contribute to greater energy efficiency and better environmental performance. The Green cities movement encompasses thousands of urban areas around the world all striving to lessen their environmental impacts by reducing waste, expanding recycling, lowering emissions, increasing housing density while expanding open space, and encouraging the development of sustainable local businesses. Cities are considered to be complex systems constantly under stress. The current development paradigm in a majority of the world’s cities is environmentally unsustainable and human kind has to find a new paradigm of urban development. Green cities also look into the idea of waste management since climate change is closely related to waste production in the cities. The Principles of Green Urbanism (Lehmann 2010) outlined three essential principles of urban development, that is, zero fossil-fuel energy use, zero waste, and zero emissions. Zero waste is a holistic scheme to absorb the climate change effects. It is therefore a necessary goal. In State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures from Consumerism to Sustainability, the World Watch Institute (2010) enlists many of the environmental and social problems that we face today as a consequence of hyper consumerism causing more unsustainable consumption levels. Cities are the power stations of energy producers as well as consumers. More researchers are necessitated to help cities and municipalities to improve their urban governance and sustainability outlook for the development of green cities. As national economic hubs they drive much of a country’s total demand for energy, and due to their high concentrations of population they tend to locate them near deposits of natural resources often making them vulnerable to climate-related disasters. They are thus the locales in which initiatives for mitigating the negative consequences of climate change are likely to have their most beneficial effects. CITY NET (2012) suggests that by 2015, the urban population of 23 of the world’s cities will exceed 10 million, 11 of these being Asian cities.


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Cities may therefore be thought of as one of the major causes of the difficulties we now face with regard to the widespread use of traditional sources of energy. Cities account for the bulk of global GHG emissions but urbanization coupled with good governance, helps in mitigating both climate change and its negative impacts. The implication of the rapid rates of urbanization that are forecast for the world’s cities is that unless energy consumption is decoupled from economic advance (Hurst and Ball 2012) it is difficult to develop green cities. Green cities also require proper financing and investment for eco parks and green public spaces. The major multilateral and bilateral climate funds sources are Global Environment Facility, Climate Change Fund, Carbon Market Initiative, and Global Climate Change Fund. There are also multilateral and bilateral funds as well as carbon-market financing, as well as new and evolving international mechanisms for financing climate-related initiatives that are relevant to cities such as Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), Green bonds, Post-Kyoto Clean Development Mechanisms. The financing of green cities are important for the achievement of sustainable urban spaces.

4. Making Indian Cities Green and Sustainable Pollution is rightly said to be the most eternal problem in India, slipping 32 ranks in the global Environment Performance Index (EPI) 2014 to rank a lowly 155. India’s capital Delhi has earned the disheartening tag of being the world’s most polluted city. US-based Yale University conducted a comparative study of 178 countries on nine environmental parameters (health, air pollution, water and sanitation, water resources, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, biodiversity and habitat, climate change and energy) which shows that one of the world’s fastest growing economies is “a disaster on the environmental front” (Chauhan, 2013). In this context “Greening” of urban infrastructure services such as urban transport, water and sanitation services, waste management and energy sources for urban areas is essential in emerging Asian countries. Asian cities are the drivers of the economy but the environmental consequences of rapid development are evident and there is an investment deficit in Asian cities’ environmental infrastructure. The Asian Green City Index examines the environmental performance of 22 major Asian cities in eight categories: energy and carbon dioxide, land use and buildings, transport, waste, water, sanitation, air quality and environmental governance, and it reflects that India is confronted with several ecological

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challenges posed by unplanned urbanization and a lopsided development lagging behind China in the effort to green the cities. India has however, taken major steps to develop ecologically sustainable cities and have adopted several schemes and projects to construct green cities to improve and repair the basic infrastructure that suffer from poor roads due to high levels of transport. A large amount of funding is expended on developing better transport facilities and public transport systems. The Delhi-Mumbai Corridor aims to build 24 green cities to vitalize India’s infrastructure in the smaller towns along this 1,483km corridor, as well as national economic growth and prosperity. India’s power systems are a major challenge that needs to be improved, as electricity and water shortages are among the biggest problems. The green cities require optimized power supplies and a 24-hour water supply. Their development requires foreign collaboration and Japan is expected to offer its energy-efficient technologies to make the cities as sustainable as possible. Japan has provided substantial financial and technical aid to India for several years, investing in projects such as the Delhi Metro project. Preparatory work for 7 of the 24 green cities has already begun, with Gujarat set to be the first state to undergo an ecological upgrade. Apart from the Delhi Mumbai corridor project, the Government of India has also launched the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) guaranteeing basic infrastructure services such as water supply, sewerage, storm water drains, transport and development of green spaces and parks that will be linked to the promotion of urban reforms such as e-governance, devolving funds and functions to urban local bodies, credit rating of urban local bodies, energy and water audit and citizen-centric urban planning. According to an official release, the smart cities mission intends to promote adoption of smart solutions for efficient use of available assets, resources and infrastructure with the objective of enhancing the quality of urban life and providing a clean and sustainable environment. Walk Through India opines that the Indian cities are growing very fast in terms of technology, infrastructure, environment and clearing. The clean and green cities of India such as Guwahati, Dehradun, Bhubaneswar, Shillong, Jaipur and Shimla are examples of well-planned cities with big flyovers and expressway, which also offer an excellent green lifestyle. Ahmedabad is one of the fastest growing cities of India, and it has already been honored internationally as “Green City of India”. The first planned hill city Lavasa, which is also one of the best green cities in India while


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Chandigarh is considered as the “Ever green city of India”. Shimla the capital of Himachal Pradesh also known as the Land of God is another green and clean city of India. These cities are very beautiful with lush green premises all around as they use natural gas vehicle or CNG to reduce pollution. The greenest cities in India are very clean and green with trees, plants, lakes and parks but due to the rising population, the number of slum dwellers have also risen in top Indian cities which is a paradox of our urbanization process. Pune, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Bengaluru and Tiruvanthpuram have achieved the tag of green city due to their efforts to conserve the environment and reduce the carbon emission. At present, about 20% of Delhi’s geographical area is under green cover, making the per capita green space availability around 22m2. Even the Department of Environment and Forests of the National Capital Territory (NCT) Delhi work alongside other agencies in the “Green Capital” mission. Recently, the Parks & Garden Society has been set up to coordinate the greening activities in Delhi. The city has some wellmaintained parks and gardens like the Lodhi Garden, Mughal Garden, Deer Park, to name a few (Chaudhury et.al 2011). The scale of urban transformation in India will only be sustainable if we choose a green path. Urban greenery development depends not only on investment and technology, but also on the attitude and participation of urban residents. It is now evident that Indian cities are the largest producers of air and water pollutants due to unmanaged waste and unregulated transportation fostering negative externalities. In this scenario, the developmental engine needs to be geared towards greener solutions and a new pragmatic approach to the economy of cities. Most cities are grappling with issues related to the urban poor, who need housing and basic services. Overcrowding, environmental decay, inefficient systems of municipal service delivery, lack of funds are some of the challenges which Indian cities are confronted with. Faced with the demand to build infrastructure and keep pace with the growing population, cities are often rendered helpless. There is a serious effort to revitalise the urban sector in India, articulating and adopting green growth strategies that have the potential to meet the environmental challenges faced by Indian cities and generate new enthusiasm for sustainable track for achieving prosperity and growth. A Green Growth planning approach is valid for Indian cities to allow them to focus and reorient their present development path on a pragmatic scrutiny of opportunities and barriers. A green growth vision can integrate social, economic, and environmental objectives in cities to enable sustainable outcomes. Cities can adopt a rational approach whereby

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they can balance growth with the environment making the cities safer, eco-friendly, sustainable sites to live in.

5. Strategies and Framework For Indian Cities “We believe cities should have air and water that is clean, power that comes from renewable sources and transport that does not pollute. Global human talent can be effectively utilised to provide viable long-term solutions, help improve our environment and to build an economy that is sustainable and vibrant. We shall work tirelessly to make these realisations eventuate in the least possible time.” (GWC 2008)

The truly green cities need to fulfil definite criteria such as sustainable land use, eco buildings, renewable energy and energy efficiency, clean air, water and waste management, sanitation, energy efficiency, green growth and economy. A sustainable framework is needed to assist cities in identifying the problems and select the best solutions to become more environmentally sustainable for the green city scheme. The smart city scheme is also a step forward towards attaining a green city objective in India. It denotes an intelligent and attractive approach to building sustainable cities that combine infrastructure, technology, and local community involvement with an image based on local provisions, potential, and resources. The smart city is a new concept in India, receiving a lot of attention nowadays with the launch of 100 smart cities by our present government. India has witnessed massive urban transformation in the last few years. The important parameters of smart city in India are sustainable and viable environment, social nurturing development and sustainable economic growth and development. These are the three pillars of smart city models. The environmental aspect comprise resources and managerial infrastructures covering water, air, energy and waste management, public and alternative transportation, green buildings and spaces, smart growth, climate change measurement, e.g. Lavasa city is a smart hill city which balances cosmopolitan architecture and environmentally friendly surroundings (Tiwari & Jain 2014, 2-4). What is core to the concept of a smart city is the use of technology to harmonise nature building related infrastructure such as eco parks, sewers, waterways, which will make the city sustainable and liveable (Garcia et. al 2012, 6). The city has to be pleasing and clean in order to be green with guaranteed main utilities such as access to water supply which is important for all the urban residents as lack of safe water supply can keep


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the mortality rates high in general especially among the poor. According to a World Bank report, out of the 27 Asian mega cities, Chennai and Delhi are ranked as the worst performing metropolitan cities in terms of hours of water availability a day, while Mumbai is ranked as second worst performer and Kolkata the fourth worst (Government of India 2001). Sanitation is important for all urban residents. Lack of sanitation is the reason behind the outbreaks of epidemics, and health disorders that keep the mortality rates high. There is a need for 100% recycling in the sanitation system. The cities also need to adopt necessary strategies such as segregation of recyclable and non-recyclable waste (wet and dry) to ensure 100% recycling of solid waste, appropriate technology for the waste treatment, and put in place a proper disposal system and encourage green buildings and green transport to reduce the need for electricity and efficient utilisation of energy. The Energy and Resource Institute initiated the national Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) that aims at ensuring all kinds of buildings to become green buildings. The Green India Mission launched by the Prime Minister under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment and Forest also places “greening” in the context of climate adaptation and mitigation, for enhancing the ecosystem. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) promotes the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). The state as well as the centre must adopt policies which can cultivate a culture of conservation amongst the citizens.

6. Conclusion “Poor people are more impacted by extreme weather. Adaptation & mitigation are equally important for us.”- Susheel Kumar, Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC) at COP21, Friday, 4th December, 2015.

It is true that the economically disadvantaged are the worst sufferers of waves of ecological degradation. The Chennai floods, Delhi’s winter smog, and the deadliest heat waves have painted a devastating picture of the evil of global warming and climate change. Extremities of temperature have left the poorest and vulnerable groups in grave conditions. India has also come ahead with the domestic climate target of clean energy with ambitious goal of 175 GW of renewable power by 2022 and power its major economic growth with 40% non-fossil fuel energy by 2030. The growing concern of citizens and government is that as the cities grow larger, the environmental stress multiplies. This is because cities are a focal point of action and opportunities attracting large numbers of people. This increases the pressure on existing facilities of housing and

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infrastructural facilities besides leading to congestion. Thus, the scenario of our cities has become dismal and unmanageable. Several urban slums reflect the alarming rate of growing inequalities arising out of rapid and extensive urbanization. At the Paris Summit (COP21), India along with other nations has pledged strongly to cut down global carbon emission. COP21 has put the cities in the forefront of the climate change discussion rather than simply making it a national government-centric approach to the Summits. Cities today are recognised as the global problem-solvers, competent of tackling serious issues like climate change. COP 21 in Paris provides a bargaining opportunity to strengthen the position of the cities and demonstrate to the world that they are necessarily connected to solving the climate crisis. Factually, 85% of the world’s GDP was produced in cities in 2015. Cities play dual roles as house and engines of growth, wealth creation and providing services for their swelling populations while also promising a sustainable development. Urban leaders are pledging to fulfil the task of developing and implementing innovative solutions that will not only address climate change, but also make their cities better places to invest, work, live and play in. To cite such an example, the present Delhi government put in place the odd-even vehicle formula on trial for reducing air pollution in the city. Over 300 cities have already become members of the Compact of Mayors, with a huge potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in a cooperative forum. Any fruitful global discussion on climate change and global warming needs to have local participation. We need to build institutions which will be capable of bringing that change at three levels: the local, national and the global, to meet the goals of environment protection. Cities play a major role as institutions of change and innovation in this context. It is to be acknowledged that cities are crucial centres of advancement on the global problem of climate change, allowing a space for urban policy experimentation. Cities adopt new and bold policies for further improvement in the years to come (Dasgupta 2015). Urbanization is a universal and natural process arising out of economic changes that take place in a state or country. Environmental pollution is one of the serious problems especially in urban areas of developing countries as there is a lack of infrastructural facilities. Hence, there needs to be proper transport mitigation strategies, use of gaseous fuels, emission standards should be established and infrastructure needs to be developed for building green cities. The role of local communities, NGOs, good governance, centre-state cooperation- all are important to build green cities and keep pace with the dynamic process of urbanization.


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References Asian Development Bank. 2012. Global Indicators 2012. Manila: Green Urbanization Asian Development Bank. 2012. “Green cities”, (23 July 2015). Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank. 2012. Cities at a Crossroads: Unlocking the Potential for Green Urban Transport. Washington, DC:World Bank. Dasgupta, A. 2015. “COP 21: An Opportunity to Put Cities Squarely on the Climate Agenda”, (20 December 2015). Dodman, D. 2009. ‘Blaming cities for Climate Change? An Analysis of Urban Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories’. Environment and Urbanization 21: 185. Dunn, C. 1989. Global Formation: Structures of the World Economy”. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Garcia, R. et al., .2012. “Understanding Smart Cities: An Integrative Framework”. 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences: 2289-2294. Girardet, H. 1992. “The Gaia Atlas of Cities – New directions for sustainable urban living”. London: Gaia Books. Government of Delhi. 2010. State of Environment Report for Delhi. New Delhi: Government of Delhi. Hurst, T., & Ball, M. 2012. “Energy Strategy for Green Cities”.Green cities, ADB. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2011. Green Growth Studies: Energy. London: OECD Publishing. Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Climate Change Report – Mitigation, Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC – Technical Summary, UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. INCCA. 2010. India Greenhouse Gas Emissions: 2007. New Delhi: Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. IPCC.2014. Assessment Report 5, Working Group II, Geneva: IPCC. Kumar, P. 2015. “Most polluted city in the world, Delhi suffers from a toxic blend”. The Indian Express 25th December, 2015. Lehmann, S. 2009. “The Principles of Green Urbanism – Transforming theCity for Sustainability”. London: Earthscan.

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Lehmann, S. 2010a. “The Principles of Green Urbanism”. London: Earthscan. McKinsey Global Institute. 2010. India’s Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive Cities, Sustaining Economic Growth. Revi, A., Satterthwaite, D., Aragon-Durand, F., Corfee-Morlot, J., Kiunsi, R. B. R., Pelling, M., Roberts, D., Solecki, W., Gajjar, S. P., & Sverdlik, A. 2014. “Towards transformative adaptation in cities: the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment”. Environment and Urbanization 26:11. Revi, A. 2005. “Lessons from the Deluge”. Economic and Political. Weekly 40 (36). Revi, A. 2008. “Climate Change Risk; an adaptation and mitigation agenda for Indian Cities”. Environment and Urbanization 20.1: 207– 229. Roy, Chowdhury A. 2013. “How air and water pollution plagues Indian cities”.The Hindustan Times, HT correspondents, 1 December, 2013. Satterthwaite, D. 1997. “Sustainable cities or cities that contribute to sustainable development?” Urban Studies. 34 (10): 1667-1691. —. 2011. “How urban societies can adapt to resource shortage and climate change”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369: 1762-83. —. 2008. “Cities' contribution to global warming: notes on the allocation of greenhouse gas emissions”. Environment and Urbanization 20: 539. Satterthwaite, D., & D. Dodman. 2013. “Editorial: Towards resilience and transformation in cities within a finite planet”. Environment and Urbanization 25(2): 291-298. Satterthwaite, D. 2014. “Getting local governments, residents and enterprises to respond to the new IPCC assessment”. Environment and Urbanization 26:3. Steinberg, F., & Linfield, M. 2012. “Spatial Developmentand Technologies forGreen Cities”. In ADB Report 2012 Green Cities. The Regional Network of Local Authorities for the Management of Human Settlements (CITYNET). 2012. “CITYNET: Who We Are”, (30 March 2012). Tiwari, A., & Jain, K. 2014. “GIS Steering Smart Future for Smart Cities”. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications 4(8): 1-5. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 2010. Green Economy Developing Countries Success Stories. Nairobi: UNEP. —. 2011b. Towards a Green Economy. Bangkok: UNESCAP. UN-Habitat. 2011. Cities and Climate Change, Global Report on Human Settlements. Nairobi: UN-Habitat.


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World Watch Institute. 2007. State of the World: Our Urban Future. New York NY: W W Norton and Company.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE A SUSTAINABLE WAY TO MITIGATE OZONE POLLUTION BY REDUCING BIOGENIC VOCS THROUGH LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME PALLAVI SAXENA1

1. Introduction Trees play an important role in the abatement of air quality through sequestration of carbon dioxide, emission of oxygen and providing surfaces for deposition of airborne particles and gases. Many processes have been influenced directly or indirectly related to air quality such as building up of energy, runoff reduction, infrastructure repair and property values (McPherson et al. 2005, 1561-1583). Various methods have been used to measure BVOC emissions. More sophisticated models are used focusing on the development of processbased emission models and away from empirically-based approaches. The models can be improved by using multiple canopy layers which can be used to account for analyzing the effects of solar radiation extinction (Guenther et al. 1995, 8873-8892), leaf energy balance models for temperature effects (Presslet et al. 2006, 188-202), and other processbased strategies (Arneth et al. 2008, 4605-4620; Grote 2007, 550-561; Keenan et al. 2009, 4053-4076; Niinemets et al. 2010, G04029). Empirical models are easy to use and can perform well with more process-based approaches (Millstein and Harley 2009, 1561-1583; Steiner et al. 2008; Guenther et al. 2006, 3181-3210).

1

School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

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In case of developing biogenic emission inventories for photochemical modelling, a number of regional to global scale models have been used (Guenther et al. 2006, 3181-3210; Gulden & Yang 2006; Scott & Benjamin 2003, S39-S49). Emission factors are assigned on the basis of land area based on grouping of species into plant functional types by land use. Urban Tree Air Quality Score (UTAQS) was developed for the Birmingham area of the United States (Donovan et al. 2005, 6730-6738). This score is helpful in relation to BVOC emission rates and deposition rates based on relative change in ozone, NO2 and particulate matter. As per this score, trees are ranked as per their potential to improve air quality categorized into high, medium and low. Emitter classes were defined as Low (1 or less), Medium (1-10), and High (greater than 10 µg C g-1 dry leaf hr-1) (Benjamin et al., 1996: 1437-1452) based on combined emissions of isoprene, monoterpenes, methylbutenol (MBO) and other VOCs (OVOCs). This type of small and cost-effective method claims reductions for BVOC emissions only. The plan to plant trees is based on the basis of their rate of BVOC emission viz. low emitting or below detectable limit. Trees which are in moderate or high emission BVOC rate are often avoided. Reduced emissions of BVOCs from trees help in reducing the rate of formation of tropospheric ozone (SMAQMD 2008, 1-16). The Tree BVOC Index (TBI) is alternative method that provides an estimate of projected and actual emission reductions. The TBI is the dimensionless ratio of emissions from a proposed planting to that of target (reduced) emissions necessary for a particular project development. Calculations are readily implemented in a spread sheet application using numbers of each species planted over the life of the project, the number of years in the project, and tabulated daily emissions values, which account for differences due to species, size, and local climate. A TBI less than or equal to 1.0 informs the user that their tree planting program is on track to meet its goal. This type of method is very useful in the development of a green belt. The trees are segregated as per their scores and planted accordingly. The present study, therefore, focuses on the selection of four tree species namely Dalbergiasissoo, Buteamonosperma, Mangiferaindica and Azadirachtaindica at two sites, i.e., Site I, traffic intersection and Site II, industrial for determination of Tree BVOC index by calculating the ratio of future emissions from a proposed or current planting of trees annually in the capital city of Delhi, India.

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2. Methodology Four common tree species viz. Dalbergiasissoo, Buteamonosperma, Mangiferaindica and Azadirachtaindica were selected on the basis of their abundance at both the chosen sites viz. Site I (traffic intersection) and Site II (industrial) (Table 1). Table 1 Diversity of Selected Plant Species S.N.

Sites

1.

I

2.

II

D. sissoo 1050 (approx.) 1300 (approx.)

B. monosperma 770 (approx.) 850 (approx.)

M. indica

A. indica

250 (approx.) 176 (approx.)

542 (approx.) 720 (approx.)

(Source: Forest Department, Delhi)

2.1. TBI The TBI is the ratio of future emissions from a proposed or current planting project with target emissions for a particular site: TBI =E proposed/E target.................................................(1) Where E proposed is emissions from a proposed planting and E target is maximum emissions allowed (g-C/tree/day). Emissions can be evaluated annually. If TBI≤1.0 (dimensionless), it means reaching this target that tree planting program is on track to meet its goal. E proposed values were taken from Varshney et al., 2003: 4808.

2.2. Baseline Emissions Daily BVOC emissions were found as the product of daily emission factor (accounts for differences in emissions related to species, tree size and climate), foliar biomass, species fraction and survival: ∑ ( . =∑ [ )........................ (2)

.

)] ( −

/

Where eci is the environmentally corrected emission factor (g C kg-1 dry leaf day-1) for isoprene, mono-terpenes, MBO, and other VOCs


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combined, mi,j is foliar biomass and npi, j is number of trees planted of species i in the jth year after planting, and survjis the fraction of trees surviving in the jth year after planting. Baseline emissions result when the baseline species mix is used in equation (2). Daily BVOC emissions were also estimated using a simplified form of equation (2): = ∑ [

] ( −

)........................................ (3)

Where mi is foliar biomass of species i for average years after planting, npi is total number of species i planted during the project and surv is the average number of trees surviving for all the years being analyzed.

2.3. Emission Factors Daily emission factors for each species were calculated from massbased emission factors (mg C g-1 dry leaf hr-1) under standard conditions (30°C and1000 µmolm-2s-1, photo-synthetically active radiation or PAR), environmentally adjusted for hourly changes in air temperature and solar radiation using emission algorithms from (Guenther et al. 1993, 1260912617) and (Harley et al. 1999, 109-123).

2.4. Foliar Biomass After the emission flux measurements were complete, the entire branch enclosed in the chamber was harvested and the leaves were dried in an oven at 70oC to a constant weight.

3. Results and Discussion 3.1. Baseline and Target Emissions Four trees were selected viz. Dalbergiasissoo, Buteamonosperma, Mangiferaindica and Azadirachtaindica on the basis of their abundance at both the chosen sites from the years 2007-2012 viz. Site I (traffic intersection) and Site II (industrial) measured and calculated for baseline and target emissions used from Equation (2) and (3). As the population of these trees were found to be abundant at these two selected sites, therefore, only these four species were chosen for planting. These trees were planted

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in the year 2007 and then regularly monitored till year 2012 with respect to BVOCs emission. The baseline and target emissions were measured according to Equation (2) and (3) and from this reduction in BVOC emissions can be calculated from the above selected trees. From this value, estimation can be made as to which tree is/trees are suitable for planting at these two sites so that indirect production of tropospheric ozone can be reduced. Table 2 shows the reductions, baseline and target emissions of all the sites. On the contrary, tree specific emissions are reported in Table 3 (a) – (d). Table 2 Emissions Additions/Reductions, Baseline and Target Emissions of Selected Trees at selected sites S.No

Emissions

1. 2. 3.

Baseline Target Additions

S.No

Emissions

1. 2. 3.


S.No.

Emissions

1. 2. 3.


S. No. 1. 2. 3.

a) Dalbergiasissoo (Site I) Total Emissions tpd Equation (2) Equation (3) 1.070.87 1.341.23 -0.27 - 0.36 b) Dalbergiasissoo (Site II) Total Emissions tpd Equation (2) Equation (3) 1.87 0.98 1.95 1.68 - 0.08 - 0.70 a) Buteamonosperma (Site I) Total Emissions tpd Equation (2) Equation (3) 0.88 0.65 1.23 0.94 -0.35 -0.29

b) Buteamonosperma (Site II) Total Emissions tpd Equation (2) Equation (3) Baseline 0.97 0.82 Target 1.77 1.26 Additions -0.80 -0.44 Emissions


293

a) Mangiferaindica (Site I) Total Emissions tpd Equation (2) Equation (3) 0.33 0.21 0.20 0.12 0.13 0.09

S.No.

Emissions

1. 2. 3.


S.No.

Emissions

1. 2. 3.


b) Mangiferaindica (Site II) Total Emissions tpd Equation (2) Equation (3) 0.56 0.44 0.33 0.29 0.23 0.15

S.No.

Emissions

a) Azadirachtaindica (Site I) Total Emissions

1. 2. 3.

Baseline Target Reductions

S.No.

Emissions

1. 2. 3.

Baseline Target Reductions

Equation (2) 0.21 0.08 0.13

Equation (3) 0.15 0.04 0.11

b) Azadirachtaindica (Site II) Total Emissions Equation (2) 0.54 0.25 0.32

Equation (3) 0.34 0.66 0.54

From the above tables 2 (a & b), it is clearly depicted that overall emission reductions/additions in BVOCs were observed by taking all the sites into consideration. While in specific terms of trees, Mangiferaindica and Azadirachtaindica showed high reduction in BVOCs as compared to other trees like Dalbergiasissoo and Buteamonosperma. From this observation, it can be suggested that these two trees viz. Mangiferaindica and Azadirachtaindica can be recommended for planting at both the sites.

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3.2. TBI The TBI is calculated for the selected tree species over a 5-year period at both the sites (2007-2012) (Table 4). Equation (3) is used to illustrate the potential utility of this approach (equation (2) yields similar results). The example planting is in compliance because the TBI is less than 1.0 in case of Mangiferaindica and Azadirachtaindica. Table 3 Tree BVOC Index of Selected Plant Species at both Sites Sites I

II

Plant Species Dalbergiasissoo Buteamonosperma Mangiferaindica Azadirachtaindica Dalbergiasissoo Buteamonosperma Mangiferaindica Azadirachtaindica

Tree BVOC Index 3.21 2.11 0.6 0.22 3.79 2.43 0.69 0.21

This type of approach is very user-friendly. It is used to select the right species to best match local site conditions, as long as they achieve a TBI of one or less at year-end. A TBI greater than one will force the city to reduce BVOCs from the population planted in the following year(s) by adjusting the numbers planted of each species in a way that best suits their circumstances. Alternatively, a TBI less than one affords more flexibility in species selection the following year.

4. Conclusion Tree BVOC Index is specifically developed to target those plant species which emit less BVOC and is ultimately proven to be a sustainable way to mitigate ozone pollution. The present study concludes that among four selected trees, Mangiferaindica and Azadirachtaindica which have calculated TBI values less than 1 were found to suitable for planting and can be used as in greenbelt development programmes while Dalbergiasissoo and Mangiferaindica which have values more than 1 were not recommended for planting especially for mitigating ozone pollution. Hence, Tree BVOC index can be used as a sustainable way to mitigate ozone pollution and can be used for landscape development programmes.


295

References Arneth, A., Monson, R.K., Schurgers, G., Niinemets, U., & Palmer, P.I. 2008. “Why are estimates of global terrestrial isoprene emissions so similar (and why is this not so for monoterpenes)?”. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 8: 4605-4620. Benjamin, M.T., Sudol, M., Bloch, L., & Winer, A.M. 1996. “Lowemitting urban forests: a taxonomic methodology for assigning isoprene and monoterpene emission rates”. Atmospheric Environment: Urban Atmospheres 30: 1437-1452. Donovan, R.G., Stewart, H.E., Owen, S.M., Mackenzie, A.R., & Hewitt, C.N. 2005. “Development and application of an urban tree air quality score for photochemical pollution episodes using the Birmingham, United Kingdom, area as a case study”. Environmental Science and Technology 39: 6730-6738. Grote, R. 2007. “Sensitivity of volatile monoterpene emission to changes in canopystructure: a model-based exercise with a process-based emission model”. New Phytologist 173:550-561. Guenther, A., Zimmerman, P., Harley, P., Monson, R., & Fall, R. 1993. “Isoprene and monoterpene emission rate variability: Model evaluation and sensitivity analysis”. Journal of Geophysical Research 98: 12609-12617. Guenther, A., Hewitt, C.N., Erickson, D., Fall, R., Geron, C., Graedel, T., Harley, P., Klinger, L., Lerdau, M., McKay, W.A., Pierce, T., Scholes, B., Steinbrecher, R., Tallamraju, R., Taylor, J., & Zimmerman, P. 1995. “A global model of natural volatile organic compound emissions”. Journal of Geophysical Research 100: 8873-8892. Guenther, A., Karl, T., Harley, P., Wiedinmyer, C., Palmer, P.I., & Geron, C., 2006. “Estimates of global terrestrial isoprene emissions using MEGAN (Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature)”. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 6: 3181-3210. Gulden, L. E., & Yang, Z. L. 2006. “Development of species-based, regional emission capacities for simulation of biogenic volatile organic compound emissions inland-surface models: an example from Texas, USA”. Atmospheric Environment 40: 1464-1479. Harley, P. C., Monson R. K., & Lerdau M. T. 1999. “Ecological and evolutionary aspects of isoprene emission from plants”. Oecologia 118: 109–123. Keenan, T., Niinemets, U., Sabate, S., Gracia, C., & Penuelas, J. 2009. “Process based inventory of isoprenoid emissions from European

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forests: model comparisons, current knowledge and uncertainties”. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 9: 4053-4076. McPherson, E. G., Simpson, J. R., Peper, P. J., Maco, S. E., & Xiao, Q. 2005. “Municipal forest benefits and costs in five U.S. cities”. Journal of Forestry 103: 411-416. Millstein, D.E., & Harley, R.A. 2009. “Impact of climate change on photochemical air pollution in southern California”. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions 9: 1561-1583. Niinemets, Ü, Copolovici, L., & Hüve, K. 2010. “High within-canopy variation in isoprene emission potentials in temperate trees: implications for predicting canopy-scale isoprene fluxes”. Journal of Geophysical Research 115: G04029. Pressley, S., Lamb, B., Westberg, H., & Vogel, C. 2006. “Relationships among canopy scale energy fluxes and isoprene flux derived from long-term, seasonal eddy covariance measurements over a hardwood forest”. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 136: 188-202. Scott, K. I., & Benjamin, M. T. 2003. “Development of a biogenic volatile organic compounds emission inventory for the SCOS97-NARSTO domain”. Atmospheric Environment 37 (Suppl. 2): S39-S49. SMAQMD. 2008. “Sacramento Regional 8-hour Ozone Attainment and Reasonable Further Progress Plan”. Appendix C, Proposed Control Measures. Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District. Steiner, A. L., Tonse, S., Cohen, R. C., Goldstein, A. H., & Harley, R. A. 2006. “Influence of future climate and emissions on regional air quality in California”. Journal of Geophysical Research 111: D18303. Steiner, A. L., Cohen, R. C., Harley, R. A., Tonse, S., Millet, D. B., Schade, G. W., & Goldstein, A. H. 2008. “VOC reactivity in central California: comparing an air quality model to ground-based measurements”. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 8: 351-368. Varshney, C. K., & Singh, A. P. 2003. “Isoprene emission from Indian trees”. Journal of Geophysical Research 108(D24): 4808.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO EFFECTS OF FIRE AND GRAZING INTERACTION ON CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN THE GRASSLAND ECOSYSTEM OF SOHRA (CHERRAPUNJEEE), INDIA U. SHILLA1 AND B.K. TIWARI2

1.Introduction Carbon sequestration is the long term storage of carbon in long-lived pools in the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Advantages from grassland practices that sequester carbon can be as beneficial as that of the forestry and agricultural sequestration. Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon (C) reservoir in the world. Global estimates are that grazing lands occupy approximately 3.6 billion ha and account for about one-fourth of potential carbon sequestration in world soils (Follett & Reed 2010). About 20% of the world’s soil carbon stocks are contained in grassland ecosystems. They covered approximately 3.5 billion ha in 2000, representing 26% of the world land area and 70% of the world agricultural area (FAOSTAT 2009; Ramankutty et al. 2008; Schlesinger 1977). They remove the equivalent of about 20% of the CO2 released annually into the earth’s atmosphere from global deforestation and land-use changes (Follett & Reed 2010). Soil carbon mostly originates from decaying aboveground and belowground plant tissue, but root exudates are also an important source of carbon input to soil, especially in areas harbouring actively growing plants (Bardgett et al. 2005). Soil C stocks in grassland are influenced by fire, grazing intensity, fertilizer management, liming, irrigation, re-seeding

1 2

Department of Botany, Union Christian College, Umiam, Meghalaya Department of Environmental Science, North Eastern Hill University, Meghalaya

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with more or less productive grass species and mixed swards with N fixing legumes (Conant et al. 2001; Follett et al. 2001; Ogle et al. 2004). Grasslands are highly vulnerable to climate change (Thornton et al. 2007; 2009). Primary production in grassland ecosystems is strongly limited by precipitation (Le Houerou 1984). Human activities cause adverse effects to portions of grassland ecosystems, with about 7.5% of grassland having been degraded because of overgrazing (Oldeman 1994; Conant & Paustian 2002a) which is detrimental to plant communities (Chapman & Lemaire 1993; Milchunas & Lauenroth 1993) and soil carbon stocks (Conant & Paustian 2002a; Smith et al. 2008). However, improved grassland management practices such as sustainable grazing management, fire management can potentially rebuild soil carbon losses, sequestering atmospheric CO2 (Follett, Kimble & Lal 2001). Enhanced ecosystem water balance and building of soil organic matter stocks tend to enhance water infiltration and soil moisture status in arid-semi-arid environments (Unger et al. 1991). Previous studies have attributed increases in soil C storage in croplands and grasslands to increase in aboveground and belowground plant production (Tilman, Hill & Lehman 2006; Fornara & Tilman 2008). Sohra (Cherrapunjee) receives extremely high rainfall that results into loss of sediment and nutrients that impoverishes the soil. The topography of the region is undulating with the land surface bearing thin topsoil and exposed rocks. Except for few patches of forests occurring in the low lying areas such as along the streams and valleys, the vegetation of Sohra (Cherrapunjee) mainly consists of grasses and herbaceous forbs. The grassland ecosystem is under constant anthropogenic pressure. Human interference such as annual fire, grazing, mining of coal, limestone quarry, sand extraction and other developmental activities have further accelerated the pace of the degradation of the landscape of Sohra (Cherrapunjee). Fire and grazing are the two most common disturbances found in the grassland ecosystems of Sohra (Cherrapunjee). Fire is often deliberately started by the local people to increase grass growth. Fire and grazing interaction and the high rainfall regime in this region have caused significant changes in the structure and function of these grassland ecosystems. Apparently, fire would seem enriching as it releases the nutrients from the burnt plant biomass but frequent fires in these grasslands have exposed the frail soil. So most of the ashes which are rich in nutrients are blown away and dispersed easily even before they are eroded by water during the rainy season.

Effects of Fire and Grazing Interaction on Carbon Sequestration

Fig. 2.1: Location of the study site in Sohra (Cherrapunjee)

299

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Chapter Twenty Two

The present study is intended to look deeper into the effects of fire and grazing interaction on Carbon sequestration in grassland ecosystem of Sohra (Cherrapunjee), Meghalaya, in Northeast India.

2. Study Area The study was conducted at Sa-I-Mika Park which is 1.3 km north of Sohra (Cherrapunjee) town (Latitude 25⁰ 17'18.2'' N and Longitude 91⁰ 42'21'' E; Elevation 1419 m a.s.l) in East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya. The Park is 50 km south of Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya (Fig. 2.1).

2.1. Climate Sohra (Cherrapunjee) is one of the wettest place on Earth with average annual rainfall as high as 1200 cm. It has a mild subtropical highland climate, with monsoonal influences. It receives both the southwest and northeast monsoonal winds, giving it a single monsoon season. It lies on the windward side of the Khasi Hills, so the resulting orographic lift enhances precipitation. During the monsoon season, clouds are formed and the low pressure depression in the Bay of Bengal enters into the State from its southern border. The high hills along the border act as a barrier for the movement of the clouds which rise up and get precipitated. In the winter months it receives the Northeast Monsoon showers that travel down the Brahmaputra valley. Based on the climatic conditions, the year may be divided into spring, summer (rainy), autumn and winter (dry) seasons. The summer is characterized by relatively high temperature, occasional thunderstorms with high rainfall and high wind velocity. The rainy season commences with the onset of the Southwest Monsoon in May and continues up to September. Three-fourths of the total rainfall is received during the summer (rainy) season. The rainy season is followed by a brief autumn during October and November. Rainfall and temperature sharply decline during this period. December, January and February constitute the winter season and the characteristic features of this season are morning fog and frost, and dry weather condition. Spring season is represented by March and April.


301

Fig. 2.2. Ombrothermic diagram showing monthly rainfall, mean monthly minimum and maximum temperature and mean relative humidity (0830 and 1730 hrs IST in %) at Sohra (Cherrapunjee) during 2012-2013.

The meteorological data were collected from Sohra (Cherrapunjee) meteorological station. The annual rainfall recorded was 13364.4 mm during 2012 and 7534.3 mm during 2013. 84-86% of the total rainfall was received during the rainy season in the year 2012 and 2013, respectively, during the study period. During the wet season the monthly rainfall ranged from a maximum of 3624.6 mm in July 2012 to a minimum of 836.2 mm in May 2012, and from a maximum of 1833.8 mm in July 2013 to a minimum of 1422.9 mm in May 2013 (Fig. 2.2). The maximum mean monthly temperature varied from 23.9⁰C and 24.9⁰C in the months of October 2012 and September 2013 and the minimum mean monthly temperature were recorded as 5.1⁰C and 4.8⁰C in the months of January 2012 and January 2013 respectively (Fig. 2.2). Monthly mean relative humidity at 0830 hrs IST varied from a maximum of 96% in the month of June and July 2012 respectively and 95% in July 2013 to a minimum of 56 and 49% in the months of February 2012 and February 2013, respectively. Monthly mean relative humidity at

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1730 hrs IST varied from a maximum of 93 and 91% in the month of July 2012 and August 2013, respectively, to a minimum of 60 and 64% in the month of February 2012 and 2013, respectively (Fig. 2.2).

3. Experimental Design In the year 2011, 20 plots of size 20m by 20m were established with a 3m buffer in between the plots. Three treatments and one control were assigned randomly to each plot within a block, viz., (i) C plots were fenced and left ungrazed and unburnt (UGUB). (ii) Open-grazed but unburnt plots, that is, the plots were left unfenced for grazing purpose and no burning took place (GUB). (iii) Burnt and ungrazed, that is, the plots were burnt (prescribed) but they were fenced with no grazing allowed (BUG). (iv) Open-grazed and burnt plots where both grazing and burning took place (GB). For each treatments and control plots five replicates were maintained (Fig. 2.3. 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7). Fire lines and fencing to prevent access to grazing were established. The livestock were cattle and goats. Experimental fire was ignited in the experimental plots which required burning during the dry winter of January in the years 2012 and 2013 to imitate the anthropogenic fires which take place in the region every year during early winter. Grazing plots were not fenced in order to allow free movement of cattle and goats for feeding.


EXPERIMENTAL 3m

303

DESIGN

GB plot

GUB plot

BUG plot

UGUB plot

GUB plot

GB plot

UGUB plot

BUG plot

BUG plot

GUB plot

GB plot

UGUB plot

UGUB plot

BUG plot

GUB plot

GB plot

BUG plot

UGUB plot

GB plot

GUB plot

20 m

Fig 2.3: Scheme of the experimental site, each plot is 20x20m with 3m buffer in between them. Shaded boundaries are the fencing with five replicates for each treatment

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Fig. 2.4. The Ungrazed and Unburnt control plots (UGUB)

Fig . 2.5: Grazed-Unburnt plots (GUB)


Fig. 2.6. The Burnt and Ungrazed plots (BUG)

Fig. 2.7. The Grazed and Burnt plots (GB)

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306

4. Materials and Methods 4.1. Soil organic Carbon (%) From each plot assigned for each treatment in all the five replicated blocks, soil cores were collected randomly using an iron corer. Corers were divided into three depths: 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30cm starting from the soil surface and mixed thoroughly depth-wise to obtain one composite sample respectively. The soil samples were air dried, powdered, sieved (0.2 mm) and stored for the analysis of Soil organic carbon (SOC). SOC was determined by colorimetric method (modified Walkley and Black method) with external heating. One gram of air dried grounded soil sample (