The increasing trend of environmental disaster due to changing climate has escalated the occurrence of Tsunami, Forest fire, Flood, Epidemics and other extreme health and environmental and hazardous events across the globe. Establishment of effective and transparent communication during the crisis phase is extremely important to reduce the after-effects of the events. In recent times, fake news or news with fabricated content have emerged as major threats of communications during and and post -disaster phase. The present study critically evaluates the nature and consequences of fake news spread during the four major environmental disasters in recent era (Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Keralan Flood, Amazon Forest Fire and African Ebola Epidemic) and prepared a framework for present COVID-19 Pandemic. The criticality and potential threat created by the fake news have been quantified and analyzed through the timeline of news spreading. It has been observed that the adverse impact related to the African Ebola Epidemic was highest due to its multiple fake news origin sites, both online and offline propagation methods, well fabricated content and relatively low effort on containment. However the COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing disaster expected to have a long- drawn impact covering most countries in the world with combined consequences hence it tends to overtake all other events. Policy recommendations have been prepared to combat the spreading of fake news during the present and future environmental disasters. The importance of the study relies on the fact that the number of environmental disasters will increase in future and strategy for risk communication during the time is still not explored adequately. In addition the study will contribute significantly for understanding the present status of information paradigm for COVID-19 and helps in preparing region-specific real-time contingency measures for effective risk communication.
The impact of climate change on agricultural practices is raising question marks on future food security of billions of people in tropical and subtropical regions. Recently introduced, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) techniques encourage the practices of sustainable agriculture, increasing adaptive capacity and resilience to shocks at multiple levels. However, it is extremely difficult to develop a single framework for climate change resilient agricultural practices for different agrarian production landscape. Agriculture accounts for nearly 30% of Indian gross domestic product (GDP) and provide livelihood of nearly two-thirds of the population of the country. Due to the major dependency on rain-fed irrigation, Indian agriculture is vulnerable to rainfall anomaly, pest invasion, and extreme climate events. Due to their close relationship with environment and resources, indigenous people are considered as one of the most vulnerable community affected by the changing climate. In the milieu of the climate emergency, multiple indigenous tribes from different agroecological zones over India have been selected in the present study to explore the adaptive potential of indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK)-based agricultural practices against climate change. The selected tribes are inhabitants of Eastern Himalaya (Apatani), Western Himalaya (Lahaulas), Eastern Ghat (Dongria-Gondh), and Western Ghat (Irular) representing rainforest, cold desert, moist upland, and rain shadow landscape, respectively. The effect of climate change over the respective regions was identified using different Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario, and agricultural practices resilient to climate change were quantified. Primary results indicated moderate to extreme susceptibility and preparedness of the tribes against climate change due to the exceptionally adaptive ITK-based agricultural practices. A brief policy has been prepared where knowledge exchange and technology transfer among the indigenous tribes have been suggested to achieve complete climate change resiliency.
Ground level survey along with key informant Interviews has resulted in to identification of two rookeries and several habitat of the mangrove Horseshoe crab (Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) in Satjelia-Lahiripur Island under Gosaba block. This is the first confirmed HSC habitat and rookeries which have been identified from the eastern side of Bidyadhari and areas around project tiger areas. Three pairs of live HSC and forty-five (45) carcasses have been found. The identified location is the lowest point of human inhabited islands in eastern part of river Matla. Key Informant Interview by Snowball sampling or chain-referral sampling method revealed that that the HSC are sighted throughout the year while the pick time of sighting may be March-June in the estuary. The study has found out that HSCs entangle regularly in the galsha or the gillnet and Chawrpata and Khalpata (Shore stake nets and channel stake nets) while the juveniles have been mostly affected by the Chawrpata (shore stakes nets) in which they entangle themselves with receding waters and both desiccate to die in profuse numbers in low tide exposures. The females were found to be morphometrically larger than the males and are also found to be more prone to entangling in fishing nets. While the local population has reported about the coexistence of this species from time immemorial but progressive accretion and generation of new mud flats suitable as breeding beaches of mangrove horse shoe crabs in contrast to what is happening in their eroding rookeries in western Sundarbans might definitely be played some positive role towards this activities. Extensive awareness, restriction in use of certain fishing gears in breeding and nursery time of HSC by declaring certain areas as community eco sensitive zones with feasible fiscal alternatives are being recommended as immediate conservation action to save the species.
The impact of climate change on agricultural practices is rising question marks on future food security of billions of people in tropical and sub-tropical region. Recently introduced, Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) techniques encourages the practices of sustainable agriculture, increasing adaptive capacity and resilience to shocks at multiple levels. However, in reality, it is extremely difficult to develop a single framework for climate change resilient agricultural practices for different agrarian production landscape. Agriculture accounts for nearly 30% of Indian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provide livelihood of nearly two-third of the population of the country. With 60% of the agricultural land still depends on rain-fed irrigation, agrarian production economy of India has become extremely vulnerable to the monsoonal anomaly, heat stress, pest invasion and increasing rate of extreme events in upcoming decades. Due to their close relationship with environment and resources, indigenous people are considered as one of the most vulnerable community due to the changing climate. In the milieu of the climate emergency, we have selected multiple indigenous tribes from different agro-ecological zones over India in the present study to explore the adaptive potential of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK) based agricultural practices against climate change. The selected tribes are inhabitants of eastern Himalaya (Apatani), western Himalaya (Lahaulas), Eastern Ghat (Dongria-Gondh) and Western Ghat (Irular) representing rainforest, cold desert, moist upland and rain shadow landscape respectively. The effect of climate change over the respective regions has been identified using different IPCC scenario and agricultural practices resilient to climate change are quantified. Primary results indicate moderate to extreme susceptibility and preparedness of the tribes against climate change due to the exceptionally adaptive ITK based agricultural practices. A policy brief has been prepared where knowledge exchange and technology transfer among the indigenous tribes have been suggested to achieve complete climate change resiliency.
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