Dr Rajan Kotru,Verinder Raina
At the Kathmandu-based International Centre of Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in 2020, Environment Ministries of 8 Himalayan Countries (including India and China) committed to Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) Call to Action (‘Ministerial Declaration’) that envisions a future of this region in which its societies-children, women, and men are: Prosperous, healthy, peaceful, and poverty-free. Call to Action was triggered by a well-researched publication launched by ICIMOD in 2019 on “Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme” that has knowledge-based messages to Himalayan countries. It recognized that as a key driver of change in mountain sustainability, climate change is interacting in complicated ways with many other important drivers such as globalization, population growth, urban expansion and local land use changes having significant ramification on the way our lives and livelihoods in future will be shaped. One of the key calls for actions is that we need to recognize and prioritize the uniqueness of the HKH and its people. Renowned Sir David Attenborough, an English broadcaster and natural historian who has explored our planet for the last 70 Years no longer minces words on the issue of climate change. In the film “A Life on Our Planet”, he laments Earth’s decline and states emphatically, “Our planet is headed for disaster.” Sir Attenborough warns about the dangers of climate change as he maintains “The Crime Has been Committed”. Despite our attempts at the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change and several regional groupings (e.g., in Alps, Andes etc.) we can barely claim that counter-actions and plans (e.g., National and State Action Plans for Climate Change) are yielding results for adapting to and mitigating climate change.
Hence, while the world is bemoaning on rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers and intense heat waves, in the past few days of early monsoon we are reminded that Climate Change is for real as clouds are bursting simultaneously from J&K to Uttarakhand. Hundreds of roads are blocked, landslides are menacing, Infrastructure is destroyed and surging waters of rivers and nalas have washed away motor vehicles, and people and cattle have died. Alone Himachal Pradesh for each monsoon season reports a damage of Rs. 1000 to 1500 Crore. Asian Development Bank (2014) for South Asia, projects an average economic loss of around 1.8 percent of our collective annual gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, rising sharply to 8.8 percent by 2100.
For us mortals living within the Himalayas, GDP is perhaps the last thing that strikes our minds when we are directly facing the combined fury of naturally fragile Himalayas and unpredictably intensive monsoon each year with a venom that brings misery to people and nature from Ganderbal, Jammu, and Dharamsala to Devprayag and more. Clearly it shows that our development paradigms as well as our execution to reach these paradigms have serious flaws. Some of us are made to believe that the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) is naturally prone to various natural hazards such as cloudbursts, flash floods, landslides, earthquakes, and extreme temperatures. On an average here, we witness two landslides per square kilometre. The mean rate of land loss is around 120 metres per square kilometre per year, and the annual soil loss is around 2500 tons per square kilometre (GoI 2011). Whether we believe or question the blatant truth on changing climate, in both the cases, natural disasters to great extent reveal that “More than God’s, it is Human Hand” that has led to ferocity of extreme events such as “Cloud Bursts” and their fatal consequences. Poor quality and design of infrastructure, unplanned developmental activities such as in Khads around Jammu being mined and encroached and hindering safe passage of waterways, enormous land use changes, forest degradation, are only few indicators of mis-management done by human hands.
The common wisdom tells us that to counter disasters witnessed since past few days we need strong, aware and capacitated institutions (formal and informal) to deliver mountain specific policies, strategies supporting action-oriented interfaces from national to local levels and vice-versa. These institutions also need to ensure -as disasters will be exacerbated- that non-adherence to land-use/settlement planning and regulations (e.g., road building, housing, type and design of plantations etc.) as well as building codes etc., if not implemented in “Letter and Spirit, will be penalized. Having a real-time information system leading to timely actions with outreach to all stakeholders; Making IHR climate- and disaster-resilient (roads, buildings, power supply, water); Updating capacities of service delivery institutions; and adoption of communication technologies and early warning systems, and a mechanism in place that delivers insurance and public funds for countering and sharing risks and to provide relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction efforts; may sound appropriate but two facets of delivering inclusive and sustainable development are inevitable as opportunities. The first, is the Management facet. It ultimately is defining, for instance, whether we have relevant information that is understandable and is timely delivered, or we are managing our Himalayan ecosystems judiciously and showing no compromise on quality, integrated-ness and inclusiveness at landscape scale between sectors and actors. The other facet is that of “Monitoring” that brings us timely data and information on the impacts of investments and interventions we make, and these are then used to correct our course, innovate and inform all decision makers towards the requirements on improving management. It is time that we review our policies, development strategies, actions and investments that we are making for wellbeing of people and ecosystems of IHR. Remember, Prevention is always better than cure!
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