51 Million People Practice Hill Agriculture In Himalayan Ecosystem
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Shimla, July 28 – As the Climate Change issues are of global concern, but it poses major challenge to our mountain environment as mountain ecosystem is highly vulnerable and sensitive to the climatic variations. Mountains have special role in showing the effects of climate change. The Himalayan ecosystem has 51 million people who practice hill agriculture and whose vulnerability is expected to increase on account of climate change. The rapid development over the years has also adversely affected the Environment & Ecology of the Himalayan Region as a whole. The Scientists also believe that the rise in temperature coupled with environmental degradation would also result in the rapid depletion of Glaciers, an important reservoir of freshwater available to us.
Lalit Jain, IAS Director (Env.S&T) and Member Secretary (HIMCOSTE) informed that in order to discuss the issues of environment degradation, Climate Change & Impact on the sectors like cryosphere which includes snow and glaciers, water, agriculture, forests in the mountain regions in general and the Himachal Pradesh in particular, the State Centre on Climate Change under the aegis of the HP Council for Science Technology & Environment in collaboration with Divecha Centre for Climate Change ( IISC Bangalore ) is organizing One Day Sensitization for the Policy Makers and Administrators on Climate Change and its Impact on the Mountain Ecosystem on 30th June 2022 at Hotel Holiday Home ,Shimla. Sh.Prabodh Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary (Fin. Env.S&T) Govt. of Himachal Pradesh will preside over the workshop.
While briefing the broad structure of the workshop, Sh Jain told that, Dr R.Krishnan, Director ,Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune will discuss with the participants on the Influence of climate change on the Hindu Kush Himalaya about the general climate change scenario. Dr.Anil Kulkarni, Distinguished Scientist from Divecha Centre for Climate Change of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore will apprise the participants on the impact of climate Change on the Himalayan cryosphere and the water over Himalayan region in general with special reference to Himachal Himalaya. Besides this, Dr J.C.Rana, Country Director, Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT-Region –Asia will discuss on the mainstreaming agro-biodiversity to improve livelihoods, ecosystem services to reduce climate vulnerability over Himalayan region. Dr. R.S Rawat from Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) Dehradun will talk on the mechanism for climate change, mitigation and adaptation in Forest sector. Sh. Apoorv Devgan, IAS , Member Secretary , HP State Pollution Control Board will share his experiences on the Israel visit and how the different practices being adopted there are relevant from the States perspective. Dr S.S.Randhawa , Principal Scientific Officer from HIMCOSTE will share his recent findings on the work done on Himalayan snow and glaciers during the workshop for sensitizing the audience., The audience will mainly comprises of the all Policy Makers, Heads of Departments , Vice Chancellors or their representative and the scientist from various research institutions across the State will likely to participate.
