Forests Policies and Programmes in India: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation (original) (raw)
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Climate change and forests in India: adaptation opportunities and challenges
Climate change is projected to lead to shift of forest types leading to irreversible damage to forests by rendering several species extinct and potentially affecting the livelihoods of local communities and the economy. Approximately 47% and 42% of tropical dry deciduous grids are projected to undergo shifts under A2 and B2 SRES scenarios respectively, as opposed to less than 16% grids comprising of tropical wet evergreen forests. Similarly, the tropical thorny scrub forest is projected to undergo shifts in majority of forested grids under A2 (more than 80%) as well as B2 scenarios (50% of grids). Thus the forest managers and policymakers need to adapt to the ecological as well as the socio-economic impacts of climate change. This requires formulation of effective forest management policies and practices, incorporating climate concerns into long-term forest policy and management plans. India has formulated a large number of innovative and progressive forest policies but a mechanism to ensure effective implementation of these policies is needed. Additional policies and practices may be needed to address the impacts of climate change. This paper discusses an approach and steps involved in the development of an adaptation framework as well as policies, strategies and practices needed for mainstreaming adaptation to cope with projected climate change. Further, the existing barriers which may affect proactive adaptation planning given the scale, accuracy and uncertainty associated with assessing climate change impacts are presented.
Climate Change Strategies and Forests in India
Forest Matters, June 2015
Discusses the world climate change prognoses issued by bodies like the IPCC, the optimal strategy for countries like India that have much lag to make up in terms of energy consumption and per capita incomes and standard of living. Reviews the limited relevance of the AR-CDM and REDD-Plus mechanisms in India, where national programs for forest carbon sequestration and sustainable forestry are already in place.
Climate Change and India’s Forests
India in a Warming World, 2019
Forests influence, and are impacted by, climate in multiple ways. India has pledged to sequester 2.5–3 gigatonne of carbon dioxide equivalent in its forests by 2030. As per official estimates, India already has a positive carbon sequestration rate, suggesting that little extra effort is required to achieve this target, but these estimates are debated. Prioritizing carbon sequestration can also adversely affect local livelihoods, biodiversity, and hydrological regulation functions. Moreover, the mechanisms through which the state hopes to achieve this target do not take into consideration the history of conflict and ongoing shifts in forest governance. The influence of forests on regional climate, especially rainfall, further complicates this debate. Climate change will, in turn, influence India’s forests in complex and unclear ways: a possible expansion of the moist broadleaf forests in central India and a shrinking of temperate broadleaf and alpine forests; a possible increase in p...
Implementation of forestry activities as a climate change mitigation option is likely to result in a range of outcomes in addition to carbon sequestration and these include changes with respect to environmental, social and economic aspects. These impacts to the extent when positive are deemed "co-benefit" and if adverse and uncertain, imply risk. It is important to recognize that implementation of forestry mitigation activities can have varied environmental, socio-economic co-benefits and/or risks. Further, there is no general agreement on attribution of co-benefits and risks to specific forestry mitigation activities. An overarching risk to mitigation potential that could be realised by implementation of forestry activities is climate change. But, overall, forestry mitigation activities also contribute to the sustainable development agenda. Maximizing co-benefits of forestry mitigation measures can increase efficiency in achieving the objectives of other international agreements.
Community Forest Management and Climate Change Adaptation Linkages
International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management (Germany, 2011), 2011
Climate variability right now is the single most vindictive factor which is playing critical mass differentiation in the sub continent especially rural vulnerable communities living in forest fringe areas. The present study on socio-economic and socio-ecological aspects of Kalahandi Forest Division of Orissa reveals that forests play an important role in the economy of the State in terms of contribution to state revenue, State Domestic Product as well as dependence of people for livelihood and how ecosystem services associated with forest is being affected. The people living flanking to the reserved forests of Kalahandi Forest Division (pre-reorganised) are profoundly dependent on these forests and developing resilience capacities and strategies to counter excruciating effect of global warming. Although the insignificant forest cover of the state continues to remain unchanged one notices a gradual decline in the effective forest cover of the state. The paper talks about the nature of dependence on forest and people's perceptions about the causes of degradation, climate change impacts and sustainable forest management. It also talks about essential drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and how community by effective sustainable forest management practices can bring it down. Community based sustainable forest management and climate change adaptation strategies are closely linked and both of them increase community's overall resilience against climate change.
Implications of climate change on mitigation potential estimates for forest sector in India
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2011
Climate change is projected to impact forest ecosystems, including biodiversity and Net Primary Productivity (NPP). National level carbon forest sector mitigation potential estimates are available for India; however impacts of projected climate change are not included in the mitigation potential estimates. Change in NPP (in gC/m 2 /yr) is taken to represent the impacts of climate change. Long term impacts of climate change (2085) on the NPP of Indian forests are available; however no such regional estimates are available for short and medium terms. The present study based on GCM climatology scenarios projects the short, medium and long term impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems especially on NPP using BIOME4 vegetation model. We estimate that under A2 scenario by the year 2030 the NPP changes by (−5) to 40% across different agro-ecological zones (AEZ). By 2050 it increases by 15% to 59% and by 2070 it increases by 34 to 84%. However, under B2 scenario it increases only by 3 to 25%, 3.5 to 34% and (−2.5) to 38% respectively, in the same time periods. The cumulative mitigation potential is estimated to increase by up to 21% (by nearly 1 GtC) under A2 scenario between the years 2008 and 2108, whereas, under B2 the mitigation potential increases only by 14% (646 MtC). However, cumulative mitigation potential estimates obtained from IBIS-a dynamic global vegetation model suggest much smaller gains, where mitigation potential increases by only 6% and 5% during the period 2008 to 2108.
2017
Certificates i-v Acknowledgement vi Executive Summary viii List of Figures xi List of Plates xiii List of Tables xiv I 59 3.4.1 Monitoring Land Use/ Land Cover Change 59 3.4.2 Biodiversity Index 63 3.4.3 Analysis of Household Level Data 68 3.4.4 Indicators used to draw inferences 72 IV Study Area & Resource Assessment 74-121 4.1 Introduction to Chhattisgarh 74 4.2 Overview of Marwahi Forest Division 76 4.3 Resource Assessment of the study area 79 4.3.1 Climate 79 4.3.2 Terrain Characteristics 81 4.3.3 Water Resources 4.3.4 Natural Vegetation 4.3.5 Demography V Vulnerability Assessment of Tropical Forests 122-227 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Weather and Climate of the Study Area 5.2.1 Rainfall Pattern and its deviation from normal 5.2.2 Temperature 5.2.3 Relation between climate parameters 5.3 Vulnerability aspects of Natural forests 5.3.1 Deforestation and forest Degradation 5.3.2 Land use/ Land cover changes 5.3.3 Status of Forest Trees Species 5.3.4 Tree Species distribution and IVI 5.3.5 Biomass and Carbon assessment 5.3.6 Regeneration status 5.3.7 Status of Climbers 5.3.8 Status of herbs and shrubs 5.4 Anthropogenic Factors 5.4.1 NTFP Collection and its vulnerability 5.4.2 Status of Fuel wood and Fodder collection 5.4.3 Grazing and forest vulnerability 5.5 Vulnerability associated terrain aspects 5.5.1 Risk related to current land use/ land cover 5.5.2 Depth to water table 5.5.3 Community opinion on the impacts of climate 200 5.6 Factors identified and vulnerable areas forests 208 5.7 Identification of the mitigation options and possible forest management (adaptive) strategies. 5.8 Conclusion 224 VI References 228-239 VII Annexures 240-261 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The present piece of work owes its successful completion to the cooperation, guidance and support of many persons during the entire training period to whom I, Atri Shaw, student of P.hD (Environment Management),
Forestry Initiatives in the Wake of Climate Change Impacts: A case study from Tripura
Tripura, a Himalayan foothill state in the western edges of North-East India is highly prone to climate change impacts. The impacts are being felt with occurrence of irregular rainfall events and temperature fluctuations. This has led to shift in cropping seasons in the agriculture sector resulting in overexploitation of forest resources. Over the last few decades, there has been increased pressure on forest resources in the state and much higher due to the increasing demand from Bangladesh posing a threat to the forest ecosystems. All these could be linked to the epidemic effect of climate instability that is being felt in the neighbouring country of Bangladesh apart from the domestic problems. As measures to cope with these challenges, the local communities traditionally dependent on forest are taking up alternative means of forest based livelihood activities in the state. Though these measures may address sustainability of livelihood of the communities, anomalies in the climate could affect forest ecosystems especially with respect to monoculture practices being carried out. This paper discusses the past and present initiatives and practices in the forestry sector in Tripura to cope with the problems associated with climate change on the forests and to improve the economic conditions of the communities dependent on the forests. It studies the collective effort of the State Forest Department and the local communities to address the problems of forest degradation and to sustain the livelihoods of the people. Keywords: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Communities, Livelihood, Forest Degradation, Tripura.
Forest Policy and Economics, 2010
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol allows Afforestation and Reforestation (A/R) projects as mitigation activities to offset the CO2 in the atmosphere whilst simultaneously seeking to ensure sustainable development for the host country. The Kyoto Protocol was ratified by the Government of India in August 2002 and one of India's objectives in acceding to the Protocol was to fulfil the prerequisites for implementation of projects under the CDM in accordance with national sustainable priorities. The objective of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of using large-scale forestry projects under the CDM in achieving its twin goals using Karnataka State as a case study. The Generalized Comprehensive Mitigation Assessment Process (GCOMAP) Model is used to observe the effect of varying carbon prices on the land available for A/R projects. The model is coupled with outputs from the Lund–Potsdam–Jena (LPJ) Dynamic Global Vegetation Model to incorporate the impacts of temperature rise due to climate change under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A2, A1B and B1. With rising temperatures and CO2, vegetation productivity is increased under A2 and A1B scenarios and reduced under B1. Results indicate that higher carbon price paths produce higher gains in carbon credits and accelerate the rate at which available land hits maximum capacity thus acting as either an incentive or disincentive for landowners to commit their lands to forestry mitigation projects.