What mackerel and a volcano can tell us about climate change

                                                                                                                                                Researchers assert that bit of history gives clues about what food security could be like in a world that is fast accepting the reality of global warming

What could an Indonesian volcanic eruption, a 200-year-old climate disaster and a surge in the consumption of mackerel tell us about today’s era of global warming? Quite a bit, researchers say.

A group of scientists and academics with the University of Massachusetts and other institutions made that assessment while conducting research about a long-ago calamity in New England that was caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora half a world away in 1815.

A cooled climate led to deaths of livestock and changed fish patterns in New England, leaving many people dependent on the mackerel, an edible fish that was less affected than many animals. The researchers assert that bit of history gives clues about what food security could be like in the modern era of climate change.

“How we respond to these events is going to be critically important for how we come out of this in the long term,” said Karen Alexander, the lead author of the study and a research fellow in environmental conservation. “We can learn from the past how people dealt with the unanticipated.”

The research group’s findings were published this month in the journal Science Advances. They looked at what the catastrophic Tambora eruption meant for the Gulf of Maine and nearby human food systems.

The Tambora eruption was one of the most powerful in recorded history, and was followed by a short time of climate change specifically, global cooling and severe weather. Its impact on weather, food availability and human and animals deaths worldwide has been studied extensively. The year that followed the eruption, 1816, is often described as the “Year Without a Summer.”


The researchers behind the Science Advances article found that alewives, a fish used for everything from fertilizer to food by 19th-Century New Englanders, did not fare well. But mackerel had better survival rates and became a criticalsource of protein and jobs, Alexander said.

As crops failed and famine began to spread, the little fish emerged as a staff of life, the report states. It’s a scenario similar to what parts of the developing world are experiencing today as climate change affects food security.

The study states there is a parallel between the need for immediate adaptation after Tambora and the challenges in coping with the climate-driven devastation caused by storms, floods and droughts today. It notes that the loss of food staples due to climate change caused people in the northeastern states to move something seen today in places such as Pakistan and Syria.

“Understanding how adaptive responses to extreme events can trigger unintended consequences may advance long-term planning for in an uncertain future,” the report states.

The report illustrates how abrupt changes in climate can have unexpected consequences long after conditions moderate, said Andy Pershing, chief scientific officer and ecosystem modeller for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland.

“Good stewardship of our natural resources can help buffer against some climate impacts. Unlike the people in 1815, we have an idea of what’s coming, and we need to make sure we are prepared,” he said.

Setback to climate action plans

That Donald Trump’s scepticism about climate change will adversely impact policies to address global warming became abundantly clear minutes after his swearing-in as U.S. President. The White House website quickly deleted all mention of climate change. Turning its attention to other agencies, the Trump administration instructed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to follow suit and scrub all mention of climate change from its website as well. But following a protest by scientists and others, the administration softened its stand and indicated that the agency’s website was only being “reviewed” and that it had “no immediate plans to remove the content” on climate change. Mr. Trump has also resurrected the controversial Keystone XL, that former President Barack Obama had blocked after a protracted battle with policymakers, and Dakota Access pipelines. The Trump administration had issued a gag order to scientists at the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop them from speaking to the media; it subsequently changed its policy with respect to EPA but has mandated that even routine data and studies be “reviewed” before being released to the public. In line with his thinking that “global warming is an expensive hoax”, Mr. Trump plans to re-energise the fossil-fuel industry. The America First Energy Plan listed on the White House website aims to increase fossil fuel extraction in the name of creating more jobs, and in the process “eliminating”, among other things, Mr. Obama’s climate action plan.

Even more alarming is Mr. Trump’s intention to reverse America’s involvement in the historic Paris climate accord. Under the pact, 195 countries have agreed to limit the increase in global temperature since pre-industrial time to less than 2°C in the 21st century, and try to work towards reaching a tougher target of 1.5°C. In November 2014, Mr. Obama announced a new target to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Among other measures taken in 2015, the U.S. had finalised the clean power plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector to 32% below 2005 levels by 2030. With the average global temperature already reaching 0.8°C above pre-industrial levels, there are fears that further delay will have long-term repercussions that would be near impossible to mitigate. With the current and proposed policies by the U.S. already inadequate to meet the Paris target, any negative deviation from the plan will have implications for the entire world.

Get Immersed in Curiosity’s 360 Degree Mars Dune

Late last year, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity arrived at the "Bagnold Dune Field" on the slopes of Mount Sharp, rolling up to the base of the dark sands of "Namib Dune." The mission has since been studying the area, scooping samples and surveying the surrounding sands. And, of course, taking some pretty spectacular imagery of these extraterrestrial sand dunes.

In January, mission scientists released a full 360 degree view of this fascinating region of the Martian surface, but this week you can really get the Mark Watney experience -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists have uploaded an immersive, 360 degree "virtual reality" experience to YouTube. Check it out:

What you are seeing is the view from Curiosity's Mastcam as it snapped a series of hi-res photos, assembled as a mosaic. Namib Dune is the dark slope that makes up the majority of the scene and the peak of Mount Sharp can be seen towering in the distance.

Apart from making for a cool immersive experience, Curiosity's studies of the dune and the material it is made of is key to our understanding of wind-blown (aeolian) processes on the red planet. The Bagnold field is known to be "active" and from orbital observations, the dunes are known to roll across the Martian landscape at a pace of around 1 meter per year.

I took particular joy from panning the camera down to look at Curiosity's deck -- red dust can be seen collecting around the instrumentation and cables, making the rover (which landed on Mars in 2012) look as if it absolutely belongs on the dusty alien surface.

World’s Oldest Bird Welcomes New Chick

Beloved Laysan albatross Wisdom, the world's oldest banded wild bird, has added yet another branch to her sprawling family tree.

In a blog post, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service reveals that the bird, who is at least 65 years old, and her mate welcomed a healthy hatchling into the world on February 1.

Wildlife researchers named the chick Kukini, which is Hawaiian for "messenger."


Throughout the colony, Wisdom's isn't the albatross family with a new addition -- officials have identified nearly 500,000 active nests at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, a USFWS facility in the northern Pacific Ocean that houses the world's largest albatross colony.

Wisdom was first banded by renowned ornithologist Chandler Robbins in 1956. She has "nested consecutively" at the refuge since then, according to USFWS data.

Based on decades of observations, researchers believe that she has raised as many as 40 chicks and logged millions of miles of ocean flight time throughout her life.


"Wisdom is an iconic symbol of inspiration and hope," Refuge Manager Robert Peyton remarked in a statement.

"She is breaking longevity records of previously banded birds by at least a decade. With over a million albatross on Midway Atoll alone, this shows just how much is left to learn about the natural world around us."

Source- Discovery Blog

Averting water wars in Asia

Water is a precious resource, for which there is no substitute. One-third of the people in the world facing water stress or water scarcity live in India, which generously signed a treaty in 1960 reserving over 80 per cent of the waters of the six-river Indus system for its adversary Pakistan. Since then, water shortages in India’s Indus basin have become acute, triggering silent water wars between states in the north. The paradox is that India has failed to tap its treaty-allocated 19.48 per cent share of the Indus resources.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done well to initiate moves to correct this anomaly. The high-level inter-ministerial task force set up by Modi for this purpose held its meeting on December 23.

Averting water-related conflicts is actually a major challenge across Asia, which has less freshwater per capita than any other continent, except Antarctica. This reality has helped promote growing interstate and intrastate disputes over shared water resources. An MIT study this year found a high risk that Asia’s current water crisis could worsen, to severe water shortages by 2050.

Yet Asia’s maritime-security challenges draw much greater international attention than its river-water disputes. This is largely because sea-related issues, such as in the South China Sea, affect even outside powers by threatening the safety of sea lanes and freedom of navigation. The truth is this: Asia’s sharpening competition over transnationally shared freshwater resources holds strategic ramifications just as ominous as those relating to maritime territorial disputes.

Recent developments are highlighting how the competition and fight over shared water resources is a major contributory factor to the growing geopolitical discord and tensions in Asia. In fact, China’s ‘territorial grab’ in the South China Sea has been accompanied by a quieter ‘freshwater grab’ in transnational river basins. Re-engineering trans-boundary water flows is integral to China’s strategy to employ power, control, influence, and fashion a strongly Sino-centric Asia.

China’s relationship with India, for example, is roiled by increasing discord over shared water resources. To complete a major dam project, China said recently that it has cut off the flow of a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, the lifeline of Bangladesh and northeastern India. The tributary drains into the Brahmaputra within Tibet itself.

The blocking of the Xiabuqu River’s flow comes amid ongoing Chinese work to dam another Brahmaputra tributary, the Lhasa River, into a series of artificial lakes.

With the focus of China’s dam building and other water diversions moving from internal rivers to international rivers, Chinese mega-projects now are increasingly concentrated in the resource-rich minority homelands, especially the Tibetan Plateau — the starting point of 10 major Asian rivers.

This has spurred growing concern in downstream countries over how China is using its control over Asia’s largest river systems to re-engineer cross-border flows. With as many as 18 downstream neighbours, China enjoys riparian dominance of a kind unmatched in the world.

Meanwhile, China’s close ally, Pakistan, has sought to initiate — for the second time in this decade — international arbitral tribunal proceedings against India under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty. Seeking international intercession is part of Pakistan’s ‘water war’ strategy against upstream India. Indeed, Pakistan has used the treaty to sustain its conflict and tensions with India, including over Kashmir.

Asia’s economic rise has been aided by peace and stability. But the upsurge of resource and territorial disputes are highlighting major new dangers, including the linkage between water and peace. In the coming years, water scarcity could become Asia’s defining crisis. In this light, India must treat water as a strategic resource for its own well-being.

The author is a strategic thinker and commentator

Researchers estimate 10,000 metric tons of plastic enter Great Lakes every year

A new study by Rochester Institute of Technology that inventories and tracks high concentrations of plastic in the Great Lakes could help inform cleanup efforts and target pollution prevention.

Researchers found that nearly 10,000 metric tons -- or 22 millionMarine Pollution Bulletin.

pounds -- of plastic debris enter the Great Lakes every year from the United States and Canada. Matthew Hoffman, assistant professor in RIT's School of Mathematical Sciences, is the lead author of "Inventory and transport of plastic debris in the Laurentian Great Lakes," which will run in an upcoming issue of 

"This study is the first picture of the true scale of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes," Hoffman said. Hoffman used computer simulations to follow the volume of plastic debris moving across state and international boundaries -- from Illinois to Michigan and from Canada to the United States.

Earlier studies estimate 40,000 to 110,000 metric tons of plastics enter the oceans along the U.S. coastline, Hoffman said.

In their study, Hoffman and co-author Eric Hittinger, assistant professor of public policy at RIT, report that half of the plastic pollution entering the Great Lakes -- 5,000 metrics tons per year -- goes into Lake Michigan, followed by Lake Erie with 2,500 metric tons and Lake Ontario with 1,400 metric tons. Lake Huron receives 600 metric tons of plastic and Lake Superior, 32 metric tons per year.

Estimates of surface microplastics entering the lakes each year show 4.41 metric tons in Lake Erie, 1.44 metric tons in Lake Huron and .0211 metric tons in Lake Superior.

Plastic pollution in Lake Michigan is approximately the equivalent of 100 Olympic-sized pools full of plastic bottles dumped into the lake every year, Hittinger said, whereas the yearly amount of plastic in Lake Ontario equates to 28 Olympic-sized pools full of plastic bottles.

Prior observational studies measured localized concentrations of plastic pollution in the open water, tributaries and along the shorelines. The new study applied mathematical modeling for the first time to extend the scope of the problem over time and spatial scales.

The inventory gives full mass estimates on the entire connected lake system and maps plastic debris moving between lakes and across interstate and international borders. The results provide environmentally realistic concentrations of plastic in the Great Lakes.

Findings of the study show debris travels differently in the Great Lakes than in the ocean. Instead of the floating "garbage patches" found in the ocean, plastic in the Great Lakes are carried by persistent winds and lake currents to the shore -- often washing up in another state or country, Hoffman said.

Plastic accounts for approximately 80 percent of the litter on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. The study quantifies dense plastic that quickly sinks and surface plastics like microbeads, fragments and pellets, plastic line and Styrofoam, which could be consumed by wildlife and potentially enter the food chain.

Major population centers are the primary sources of plastic pollution in the Great Lake system, with Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland and Detroit releasing more plastic particles than accumulate on their shorelines.

"Most of the particles from Chicago and Milwaukee end up accumulating on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, while the particles from Detroit and Cleveland end up along the southern coast of the eastern basin of Lake Erie," Hoffman said. "Particles released from Toronto appear to accumulate on the southern coast of Lake Ontario, including around Rochester and Sodus Bay."

Estimates of plastic pollution throughout the Great Lakes were derived using population dynamics within 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, of the shores and hydrodynamic modeling to simulate the distribution of plastic debris throughout the Great Lakes from 2009 to 2014. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Coastal Forecast System were used to simulate currents transporting plastic debris throughout the lake system.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Rochester Institute of Technology. Original written by Susan Gawlowicz. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

These 25 Creatures Used To Roam The Earth… And Are Mind-Boggling

Paleontologists, scientists and other researchers have collected enough samples over the years to form some pretty solid theories about what kinds of creatures used to roam this earth. If you’ve ever seen Jurassic Park or have been to a natural history museum, you’d know that life here used to consist of three things: huge monsters, dangerous plants and quick deaths. These 25 creatures used to roam the very ground you walk on today. You’ll be so glad they aren’t around any more…

1.) Microraptor: Its name means “one who seizes.” It was a very small dinosaur and paleontologists have long debated the use of its four wings.

One Species of Microraptor Had Black Feathers

2.) Nyctosaurus: This ancient genus of Pterorsaur was found in the Mid-western sections of the US. The name means “naked reptile.”

Nyctosaurus by HaughtyFlaki 

 3.) Opabinia: This is one of the strangest creatures that ever lived. It had 30 flippers, 30 legs, a trunk-like nose and one lobster claw.

 

Picture from: Western Carolina University

4.) Phorusrhacidae: People know this creature as the “terror bird.” It was one of the largest predatory birds that ever lived and could run at speeds up to 40mph.

5.) Pterodaustro: Also known as the Pterosaurs, it had a wingspan of 4 feet. It’s bristle-like teeth implies it probably fed on a diet of plankton and small crustaceans.

Pterodaustro

6.) Quetzalcoatlus: This was the largest pterosaur in the sky, as big is a common African giraffe. Its wingspan was 30 whole feet.

 

Size comparison of Q. northropi (green), Q. sp (blue), and a human

7.) Sharovipteryx: Ths gliding reptile, found in Central Asia, was about one foot long. It would feed on insects and wasn’t capable of powered flight, it would just glide

Sharovipteryx on a glide

8.) Stethacanthus: A type of extinct prehistoric shark, they would grow up to 6 feet long with a strange looking back growth on males.

CGTPL Stethacanthus

9.) Tanystropheus: Its name means “long necked one” and the prehistoric reptile was easily over 20 feet long.

Tanystropheus by PaleoGuy

10.) Therizinosauridae: Or “reaper lizard,” may have been found in Mongolia, China, and the United States. Because they had long necks, pot bellies, four-toed feet, and beaky mouth, scientists weren’t sure if their parts belonged to one creature or several.

Therizinosauridae

11.) Archaeopteryx: The “first bird” supposedly existed during the Jurassic period, discovered in Germany in 1861.

Archaeopteryx artwork

12.) Deinocheirus: There are only a handful of fossil remains of this creature, including two forelimbs and some vertebrae. Its name means “terrible hands.”

13.) Deinotherium: The “hoe tusker” resembled a modern day elephant and were discovered at major hominid extinction sites at Lake Turkana in Kenya.

14.) Dimorphodon: This flying creature had two distinct types of teeth in its jaw. It had great eyesight and huge claws for hunting.

15.) Dunkleosteus: Or “Dunkle’s bone,” was one of the largest armored jaw fishes that ever existed. It was one of the fiercest predators in the ocean. It could be up to 10 meters long and weighed 3.6 tons.

16.) Elasmosaurus: This creature could be up to 46 feet in length (with most of its length in its neck). Its neck was 4x larger than a giraffe’s.

17.) Epidendrosaurus: This was the first reptile to be closer ro a bird than a dinosaur. It was about 6 inches long, with clawed hands on its arms/wings.

18.) Epidexipteryx: These small, feathered dinosaurs were found in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Their large display feathers were the earliest known representation of ornamental feathers in the fossil record.

19.) Hallucigenia: A relative of modern arthropods, Hallucigenia is a strange creature only 3 millimeters long. It has a bulbous round head connected to its cylindrical trunk. It was an ancestor of today’s velvet worms.

20.) Helicoprion: Also known as “spiral saw,” this shark-like cartilaginous fish appeared in the late Carboniferous era. The only evidence of its existence was a curled-up coil of triangular teeth. Some scientists think that it was used to grind shells, while others believed it to be a weapon.

21.) Jaekelopterus: This sea scorpion was massive, at an estimated length of 2.5 meters. It was one of the largest arthropods ever discovered. It supposedly STILL exists in present day freshwater rivers and lakes in Germany.

22.) Josephoartigasia: This capybara-like animal was the biggest rodent on the planet, weighing up to 1000kg.

23.) Liopleurodon: This marine predator lived on a diet of fish, squid, and other sea reptiles. It was bigger than a sperm whale and its skull was nearly 1/4 of its body, filled with many smooth teeth.

24.) Longisquama: This creature was known as the first archosaur to have been able to glide or parachute. It is known for its elongated pair of scales along its back, with the anterior ones resembling feathers.

25.) Megalania: Otherwise known as the giant ripper lizard, it fed on a diet of mammals, snakes, other reptiles, and birds. A modern day relative would be the Komodo dragon that inhabits the Flores Islands in Indonesia.

तूफान के निशान

देश ने समुद्री लहरों का सबसे भयानक कोप दिसंबर 2004 में देखा, जब सुनामी ने

दक्षिण भारत के साथ-साथ श्रीलंका और इंडोनेशिया पर भी कहर बरपाया था।

प्राकृतिक आपदा को रोका नहीं जा सकता। पर उसके कहर को कम जरूर किया जा सकता है, और जाहिर है, यह निर्णायक रूप से पूर्व-सूचना तथा पूर्व-तैयारी पर निर्भर करता है। ‘वरदा’ तूफान से, पूर्व के अनुभवों की तुलना में, जान-माल का कम नुकसान हुआ, तो इसका बड़ा कारण चेतावनी प्रणाली का विकास है। तूफान के आने की सूचना समय से लोगों तक पहुंचा दी गई थी और सरकारों ने भी अपनी तैयारी कर ली थी। सोमवार को दोपहर बाद जब वरदा नामक समुद्री तूफान तमिलनाडु के तट से टकराया, उसके पहले राज्य सरकार ने कोई दस हजार लोगों को तटीय क्षेत्र से हटा कर सुरक्षित स्थानों पर पहुंचा दिया था। इसी तरह आंध्र प्रदेश की सरकार ने भी हजारों लोगों को तटीय क्षेत्र से दूर पहुंचा दिया था। मछुआरों समेत तटीय इलाकों में रहने वाले सारे लोगों को तूफान के बारे में आगाह कर दिया गया था। केंद्रीय आपदा रक्षक बल के कई दस्तों और सेना की कई टुकड़ियों को आपात-सहायता के लिए पहले ही बुला लिया गया था। अभी तक तमिलनाडु और आंध्र प्रदेश में तूफान के चलते कुल मिलाकर दस लोगों के मारे जाने की खबर है। क्या पता यह तादाद कहीं ज्यादा होती, अगर वरदा से निपटने की पूर्व-तैयारी न हो पाती।

हाल के इतिहास में जिस सबसे भयंकर चक्रवात की याद लोगों को है वह 1999 में ओड़िशा में आया था। जब वह चक्रवात जगतसिंहपुर जिले के पारादीप बंदरगाह से टकराया तो उसकी गति करीब ढाई सौ किलोमीटर प्रतिघंटा थी। उस तूफान ने भयावह तबाही मचाई थी। हजारों लोग मारे गए और लाखोें घर उजड़ गए थे। उसके मुकाबले वरदा की रफ्तार काफी कम थी, सवा सौ से डेढ़ सौ किलोमीटर के बीच। पर जान-माल का नुकसान अपेक्षया कम हुआ तो इसकी वजह तूफान की गति कम होने के अलावा बरती गई सतर्कता भी थी। ओड़िशा के चक्रवाती तूफान के बाद देश ने समुद्री लहरों का सबसे भयानक कोप दिसंबर 2004 में देखा, जब सुनामी ने दक्षिण भारत के साथ-साथ श्रीलंका और इंडोनेशिया पर भी कहर बरपाया था। उसी के बाद चेतावनी प्रणाली विकसित करने पर तेजी से काम चला। फिर, अंतरिक्ष कार्यक्रम में हुई प्रगति से इसमें और मदद मिली। अब मौसम संबंधी भविष्यवाणियां पहले से ज्यादा प्रामाणिक होने लगी हैं। चक्रवाती तूफान के साथ अक्सर भारी बारिश भी होती है। तूफान, तेज हवाओं और भारी बारिश ने चेन्नई तथा चित्तूर समेत तमिलनाडु और आंध्र के कई तटीय जिलों में बहुत सारे पेड़ और मकान ढहा दिए हैं।

यों चेन्नई हवाई अड्डे से विमानों के उड़ान भरने का क्रम फिर से चालू हो गया है, और गिरे हुए पेड़ हटा कर कई प्रमुख रास्ते फिर से आवागमन के लिए खोल दिए गए हैं। पर कई रास्ते अब भी बंद हैं और कुछ इलाकों में बिजली की आपूर्ति फिलहाल ठप है। सामान्य स्थिति बहाल होने में अभी वक्त लग सकता है। वरदा की पूर्व सूचना मिल जाने और बचाव की पूर्व तैयारी हो जाने पर लोगों ने राहत की सांस ली है। पर तूफान की मारकता और कम हो सकती थी अगर समुद्रतटीय वनों को नष्ट नहीं किया गया होता। सुनामी के समय यह देखा गया था कि जहां मैंग्रोव वन थे वहां कम तबाही हुई। लेकिन विडंबना यह है कि सुनामी के भीषण अनुभव के बाद भी मैंग्रोव वनों को बचाने का कोई खास प्रयास शुरू नहीं हो पाया, और यह कोताही अब भी जारी है।

Rights for the rightful owners

On the tenth anniversary of the historic passage of the Forest Rights Act, tribal resistance to defend their rights is growing even as government after government tries to dilute its provisions

On this day 10 years ago the historic Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act was passed in the Lok Sabha. Its conception and passage was the result of the decades of struggles and sacrifices of millions of tribals across India, of their organisations, of numerous activists and intellectuals working on tribal issues, and because of the commitment and efforts of the Left parties.

Attempts at dilution

A century ago colonial chicanery had turned tribal owners of the forests and its resources into encroachers. A decade ago, the Indian inheritors of this legacy of fraud were working against the Bill till literally the last moment. The real encroachers and plunderers of the forests, the mining companies, the private power sector companies, those involved in irrigation projects, the timber and paper industries, the forest resort tourist industry had high stakes in preventing the passage of the Bill. They were in the company of fundamentalist wildlife and environmentalist groups with their close links with the powerful forest bureaucracy. They made a motley though influential crowd and had the ear of very important people in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government hierarchy.

They succeeded in diluting some important recommendations of the Parliamentary Select Committee on community forest rights, access to minor forest produce and so on. The clause that Non-tribal Traditional Forest Dwellers would have to show evidence of their occupation of the land for 75 years virtually negated the inclusion of these largely poorer sections, many of them Dalits, in the law. The Left had proposed that for these sections the Supreme Court-proposed cut-off year of 1980 would be appropriate, while for tribal communities the cut-off year should be 2005. But at the last moment the government surreptitiously brought in the three generation or 75-year clause.

The Bill with these obnoxious clauses was circulated and listed for immediate discussion and passage. As soon as we saw it, the Chairman of the Select Committee, Kishore Chandra Deo, and I rushed to the chamber of Pranab Mukherjee, then External Affairs Minister, who was the point person for the Bill on behalf of the government in the negotiations with the Left. There was a mini-drama and heated discussion which finally ended with the arrival of the Tribal Affairs Minister, P.R. Kyndiah, who had been summoned by his senior. In the discussions he assured us that he would move amendments to the Bill. At that time there was no choice but to accept the assurance at face value. It had taken more than a year of struggle to finally get the Bill included in the business agenda of Parliament and listed. The powerful lobbies against the Bill would have used our opposition to once again shelve it. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was playing a duplicitous role — its Adivasi MPs supported the Bill while others were dead against it. They ran a campaign among MPs from the Northeast that if passed, the law would legalise encroachment by “illegal Bangladeshis”. This was utterly misleading, but anything was fair in the war against tribal rights.

The missing amendments

The Bill became law, but without the amendments promised. After much discussion and pressure, some of them were included in the Rules. This also was a big struggle and there was a strong group of activists who along with the Left representatives could work out a fairly good set of Rules. It included giving prime importance to the role of the gram sabhas.

In spite of its inadequacies, there can be little doubt that the Forest Rights Act (FRA) stands as a powerful instrument to protect the rights of tribal communities. It is a hindrance to corporate interests to their free loot and plunder of India’s mineral resources, its forests, its water. But the Narendra Modi government is systematically implementing its plan to weaken and dilute the Act in several ways.

New attempts at dilution

First, it has brought a series of legislation that undermine the rights and protections given to tribals in the FRA, including the condition of “free informed consent” from gram sabhas for any government plans to remove tribals from the forests and for the resettlement or rehabilitation package. The laws were pushed through by the Modi government without any consultation with tribal communities. They include the amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act and a host of amendments to the Rules to the FRA which undermine the FRA. The requirement of public hearings and gram sabha consent has been done away with for mid-sized coal mines. BJP State governments and partners in the National Democratic Alliance such as the Telugu Desam Party government in Andhra Pradesh have introduced government orders to subvert the FRA. In Telangana, in total violation of the FRA, the government has illegalised traditional methods of forest land cultivation. The Jharkhand government has brought amendments to the Chotanagpur and also the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Acts which eliminate rights of gram sabhas and permit tribal land to be taken over by corporates, real estate players, private educational and medical institutions in the name of development, without tribal consent. In Maharashtra the government has issued a notification of “Village Rules” which gives all rights of forest management to government-promoted committees as opposed to the gram sabha. This is the law-based offensive.

Second, there is the policy-based war. The Modi government has declared its commitment to ensuring “ease of business”, which translates into clearing all private sector-sponsored projects in tribal-inhabited forest areas. The National Board for Wildlife, with the Prime Minister as Chairperson, was reconstituted, slashing the number of independent experts from 15 members to three, packing it with subservient officials. In the first three months of assuming office, the Modi government cleared 33 out of 41 proposals diverting over 7,000 hectares of forest land. Of this the major share was for Gujarat companies. In two years the clearances for projects have included “diversion” — or more appropriately land grab — to the extent of 1.34 lakh hectares of forest land. In many areas this will lead to massive displacement of tribal communities. In the multipurpose Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh alone, now given a national status by the Central government, 2 lakh hectares of forest land will be submerged affecting around 85,000 families, more than half tribals, including 100 habitations of particularly vulnerable tribal communities. In almost all these projects, the affected tribal families have not yet received their pattas (land ownership documents), one of the conditions set by the FRA. This wilful disregard and blatant violation of the legal protections given to tribals has become the cornerstone of the policy.

Third, there is the deliberate freeze of the actual implementation of the FRA. Neither individual pattas nor pattas for community forest resources are being given. During the UPA-II government the implementation of the Act was virtually hijacked by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and rejections of claims increased. However, now the situation has worsened, and the rate of rejections has gone up during the Modi regime. According to one analysis, between May 2015 and April 2016, eight out of every 10 claims were rejected. This is the ‘Gujarat model’ in operation. The State has one of the worst records in implementation of the FRA. Although 98 per cent of the approximately 1.9 lakh tribal claims had been approved by the gram sabhas, the bureaucrats in the sub-divisional committee and above brought the acceptance down to just 38 per cent. This is in sharp contrast to a Left-led State such as Tripura, where 98 per cent of tribal claims have been recorded and titles given.

Mixed signals from the judiciary

The judiciary has also had a role to play. The same institution, which gave tribals hope through the Samata judgment, the historic Niyamgiri judgment, has also clubbed together a number of hostile petitions to the FRA and is giving them a sympathetic hearing. In January last year the court in an ominous intervention in a writ petition filed by Wildlife Trust of India and others issued notice to all State governments to “file an affidavit giving data regarding the number of claims rejected within the territory of the State and the extent of land over which such claims were made and rejected and the consequent action taken up by the State after rejection of the claims”.

This has rightly been taken by tribal communities and their organisations as a prelude to mass evictions. Maharashtra issued a notification dated April 23, 2015, directing the police to take action against “identified encroachers”, namely those whose claims have been rejected. Till 1985, the department of “Tribal Affairs” was under the Home Ministry. Tribal rights and struggles for justice were viewed as a “law and order issue, always a problem”. Under the present dispensation this retrograde approach seems to have been resurrected.

On the tenth anniversary of the historic passage of the FRA, tribal resistance is growing all over the country to defend their rights under FRA and other related issues

The nowhere people

People migrating due to environmental disasters should be accorded ‘refugee’ status in international law

An increasing number of people globally are facing displacement due to droughts, famines, rising sea levels and other natural disasters caused by climate change. This class of migrants has been labelled as ‘environmental refugees’ in popular literature. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international body reviewing trends of internal displacement, an estimated 24 million people are being displaced annually by natural disasters since 2008. This crisis will make almost half a billion people worldwide “environmental refugees” by the end of the century.

The UN Refugee Convention (1951) grants certain rights to people fleeing persecution because of race, religion, nationality, affiliation to a particular social group, or political opinion. The rights they are entitled to follow principles of non-discrimination, non-penalisation, and non-refoulement. However, people migrating due to environmental disasters have no such recognition of their ‘refugee’ status in international law, leaving them without any basic rights of rehabilitation and compensation. In September 2015, in the run-up to the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, New Zealand reportedly refused a man and his family asylum. Ioane Teitiota from Kiribati, who had sought it on the grounds of being an ‘environmental refugee’, lost his appeal before the New Zealand Supreme Court, which rejected the argument that he faced persecution because of climate change, since no such category is listed under the UN Refugee Convention. He was deported to his native island, which regularly witnesses environmental problems including storm surges, flooding and water contamination.

The Paris let-down

The Paris Agreement presented a unique opportunity to set the record straight by addressing the challenge of increasing environmental refugees. Before the negotiations commenced, numerous demands were made to incorporate ways to tackle climate migration in the final agreement. These included recognising the threat posed by climate change to livelihoods and human safety, and environmental refugees or migrants affected by climate change; providing technical and capacity building support to national and local initiatives tackling such displacement; and developing suitable policies to manage loss and damage by addressing climate change-induced displacement. However, the Paris Agreement falls considerably short of these expectations. While some hail this agreement for alluding to the rights of ‘migrants’ in its Preamble, it is an anaemic attempt at appreciating the gravity of this crisis. There is also little follow-up in the text of the agreement to address this problem.

The agreement, in Paragraph 50 of the Loss and Damage section, creates a task force to build upon existing work and develop recommendations for addressing climate migration. But this is meaningless for two main reasons — first, the recommendations of the task force have no binding authority; and second, no details are provided on its functions, operations, funding and other aspects. This ambiguity further erodes confidence in the realistic capability of this task force to effectively tackle climate migration.

The way forward

Almost one year after the Paris Agreement, its significance in displaying collective political will to take meaningful action against climate change cannot be undermined. However, this should not excuse its deficiencies in addressing a burgeoning population of environmental refugees.

The draft of the Paris Agreement discussed before COP 21 provided for a Climate Change Displacement Coordination Facility. This facility was intended to target organised migration and planned relocation of displaced persons, securing emergency relief, and arranging compensation for those displaced — actions more meaningful than those of the task force in the Paris Agreement. Unfortunately, this coordination facility did not make it to the final text of the agreement, but it may be worthwhile to reconsider its establishment.

While such a coordination facility can provide short-term support to relocate migrants and rehabilitate them in safer regions, a permanent solution requires an international treaty framework that recognises ‘environmental refugees’ and the obligations of nation states in accommodating them within their territories. We are already witnessing a world that is reactionary towards political refugees. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump are two events that testify to the underlying paranoia towards immigrants. Ignoring environmental refugees or their status under international law keeps them in legal limbo and endangers their survival.

This scenario can be averted by either expanding the ambit of the existing UN Refugee Convention to include climate migration, or by creating an independent treaty framework addressing the challenges of climate change-induced migration comprehensively. It is also pertinent to mention that while India, the U.S., and China have all ratified the Paris Agreement, there is little discussion on steps to be taken by the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases. The absence of such discourse is ironic given that the three countries are predicted to suffer tremendously from climate change-induced migration, resulting in large-scale displacement of their own populations. Therefore, it should be in their collective interest to lead efforts on finding an international resolution to this problem before the ensuing harm becomes irreparable.

Ameen Jauhar is a Research Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi. Views are personal.