Reflections from the Field: Short-Term Progress, Long-Term Strategies?
20/06/09 09:35
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4 June Alia update from Sundarbans Adaptation Center
15/06/09 13:56
Anurag Danda, director of the Sundarbans Adaptation Center, has been assisting with relief efforts in the region. Here’s the latest report I’ve received from him. Photos relating to this entry are located here. — JM Read More...
From Climate Crisis to Weather Disaster: Tropical Storm Alia Strikes the Sundarbans
29/05/09 14:14
The Sundarbans are a
chain of islands spanning the mouths of the
Ganges-Brahmaputra rivers off the shores of India and
Bangladesh. They’ve been the subject of several
entries here, including some of their human, species,
and ecosystem-based
vulnerabilities to climate
change,
disaster risk reduction, and the founding of a
regional
climate adaptation center. A major tropical storm has hit
the region. The regional WWF director for the
Sundarbans is Anurag Danda, where he focuses on
community-based adaptation and assists with the
Bengal tiger program. He emailed me this morning with
an update, which I have edited here. Please read his
update, see the images he’s sent of the damage, and
consider his request for assistance. Contact
information included. — JM
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Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sundarbans Climate Adaptation Center
04/04/09 14:16
A significant number of the hits to this blog are from South Asia, mostly directed at a 2008 entry on the Sundarbans islands that sit on the coast of Bangladesh and northeastern India. These islands are home to millions of very poor people, have one of the largest coastal mangrove forests in the world, and are the major refuge for the remaining Bengal tigers. These island exist in a balance between accruing sediment flowing down the Brahmaputra-Ganges rivers, the ability of the mangroves to capture the sediment, and the erosive action of the Indian ocean. A 1970s-era sediment-capturing dam upstream in combination with rising sea levels have caught the islands in a dangerous vice: sediments are no longer accumulating at sustainable levels, while tropical storm frequency and severity seem to be increasing — on top of accelerating sea-level rise. According to Arjan Berkhuysen, an expert on climate adaptation in river deltas and estuaries with WWF-Netherlands, “These problems are similar in deltas all over the world.... [We’re] looking for natural solutions that respect the dynamics of the system while helping people towards sustainable development in the face of climate change.” Happily, we have some good news about the Sundarbans: a regional Climate Adaptation Center has just been founded on Mousuni island on the Indian side on 29 March 2009.
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Islands on the Edge: Climate Resilience in the Sundarbans
14/08/08 14:18
When I was an academic biologist, I certainly felt passionately about climate change, but (a) no one really listened to me, (b) I could say pretty much anything I wanted without fear of repercussion (or hope for influence), and (c) most of the impacts seemed -- ultimately -- rather theoretical. That’s no longer the case. I frequently give talks where I have to fight the urge to suppress strong feelings, usually anger or grief. Normally I do a pretty good job. But the feelings are there, whether or not they’re visible. Perhaps the most moving climate-related conversation occurred last April in New Delhi, about a place that I knew almost nothing about before a year ago: the network of islands off the Bangladeshi and eastern Indian coasts called the Sundarbans. They are arguaby among the most important and threatened ecosystems on the planet today. Read More...
