Impacts of Climate Change setting Extra stress to Majhi community

Climate Change is increasingly being accepted as a major issues facing Nepal (ICIMOD, working paper 2014/3). The general trends corroborated by the ground-level observations of various communities in Nepal, do give a basic framework of identified and projected change (Bartlett et. al. 2010). As a nation, Nepal is therefore extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change- especially those related to water resources. Many of these changes are already felt (NCVST 2009; ICIMOD 2009; Eriksson et al. 2009).

The 2011 census listed the population as belonging to 125 caste and ethnic groups, including 63 indigenous peoples, 59 castes (including 15 Dalit castes), and 3 religious groups, including Muslim groups. The indigenous nationalities (Adivasi Janajati) of Nepal comprise 35.81% of the total population of 26,494,504 persons. The Marginalized indigenous community is most vulnerable to impacts of Climate change.

Who are Majhi 

The direct translation of Majhi into English is ‘fisherman’. The Majhis are one of the indigenous peoples of the nation of Nepal - possessing their own language, dress, culture, etc. with ancestral occupations of boating and fishing. There are about 18,000 majhi people in Nepal.

Most of the Majhi people are below the poverty line. The economic status of the Majhi is very poor. They even have not sufficient land for agriculture that is why they are living impoverished kind of life. They are very vulnerable to impacts of climate change.

A Majhi Village; Bodgaun

Bodgaun is a village located in Bhimtar Village Development Committee of Sindhupalchowk district in Nepal with Majhi population of 2,000 in 350 families. The majority of the people of Bodgaun depend upon animal husbandry and agriculture for survival over the threatened ancestral occupation of fishing and boating. The land is not very fertile and the yield is also very low as people cultivate crops in a traditional way, despite the development of new technologies. Majorities of the people are illiterate and among those who are, many had just received primary or secondary level of education. There is very poor condition of hygiene and sanitation.

Impacts in Majhi Village; Bodgaun

The major impacts can be summarized as

Induced by Climate change		Impacts on
		Primarily	Secondarily	Extended
Extreme Events	Extreme Drought	Agriculture	Decreased production of rice and other food	-          Food insecurity -          Pressure on family economy -          Social impacts
	Extreme Rainfall	Landslide in agricultural land	Decrease area of cultivation
		River cutting
		Road damage	Blocked accessibility	-          Loose selling of local products -          High price of food
Prolonged summer		Prolonged favorable condition for Mosquito and other insects	Health Impacts	-          Right of well being -          Pressure on economy

There are several communities in Nepal, which are facing similar or severe challenges due to climate change impacts. Being mountainous, fragile, landlocked and underdeveloped, Nepal seems to be most vulnerable to these impacts and poor and marginalized people in the country are facing many difficulties. 

There are some initiatives taken by government and international agencies on adaptation but the initiatives are often seem to be not effective and making real change in the livelihood of people. A collaborative, strong and long term efforts is crucial to protect people, communities and environment. 

HI-AWARE Consultation from eye of Young Researcher; Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts in Gandaki River Basin of Nepal: Putting Research into Use

From the young researchers to researchers with long history, from pure science based researchers to practitioner and community workers, from local government officials to national level officials etc. were congregated in Kathmandu on August 10^th and 11^th for the consultation on adaptation to climate change impacts focusing on putting research into use.

Overview

In the two days, there were two sessions for presenting the view of the panelist in each day and two technical sessions for the touch table usages followed with the discussions by the involved participates in each.

In the first part of the session followed after the welcome remarks, the presenters presented the general introduction of the HI-AWARE, Research component 1 (Climate modeling), research component 2 (Vulnerability) and in adaptation component. The panelist from Ministry of land reforms, Environment and Municipality development section of MoFA, water induced disaster control department, DRR specialist of Practical Action put their remarks after the presentations.

The government officials in one hand gave the ongoing happenings of the respective coverage areas and in another hand urge to integrate the findings of previous research and projects like CHAL/SHAL/TAL, Hariyo Ban etc. The research for the scarcity of the water in many parts of country was a special urge. Government officials were committed to integrate the outputs of research in the policies and practices if the outputs are submitted in the concrete form.

The concept of touch table was presented and the participants practiced on the themes of precipitation/flood and temperature/drought during the workshop making two groups and inner and outer cluster in each group. The participants suggested for the integration of different maps as per need, to account the contribution of GOLF and expressed the kind concerns on Quality control of the data, Licensing and device uses are supposed to be made user friendly.

In Policies and Practices Panel on Adaptation in Nepal, eight panelist with a moderator interacted with the participants. Three of them were from the district development committees of Rasuwa, Chitwan, and Nuwakot, two of them were from Ministry of water and Sanitation and Forest and Soil conservation, one each from Adaptation fund, Media and Research Centre.

The NAP coordinator focused on the formulation of policies and milestones achieved whereas the representatives from sectorial ministries shared the plans and action of the respective ministries, the DDC representatives explained the current situation of the respective district, representative of IDF on research prospective, DRR specialist of Pratical action on the joint actions and media person on the media prospective focusing what is grabbed by the media.

Foci

-         Gandaki Basin; one of the 10 river basin in the Hind Kush Himalayan (HKH) region

-         Consideration of projected (by 2050) heat stress in the India and Bangaladesh

-         People moved to upstream due to malaria in the past and now water scarcity forced to move downward

-         Documentation of good development practices (IWRM, Seed Bank, Solar, Wind, Hydro)

-         Urge to research on the water scarcity

-         Publish the research outcomes in locally understandable language

-      Vulnerability map and zonation in implementation

-         Contribution for creating act on water induced disaster management in Nepal

-         Adaptation for the future

-         Need driven strategy for future

-         Issues of high land, midland and low land

-         Milestones in the adaptation process by the government of Nepal

-         Presentation of NAP implementation modal and reflection of wishes to affect the life of very general public to honorable Prime Minister

-         involvement of young graduates in NAP process for knowledge generation, capacity building and learning

-         Climate Resilient water supply safety plan of the MoWS

-         Necessity to be focused on new arrangement by constitution which seems to make the DDC a powerless body

-         Adaptation is most important factor and must be done for the better livelihood of poor people

-         Research component is very important

-         gap in demand and supply

-         Media lacking how to take researches and researchers lacking what and how to give media

Erudition

The knowledge generation and research are the ever ending process but there are still lacking of the basic research outputs that are vital for the policy formulation and implementation. The fractional study trend and individualistic approach is not well contributing the wholesome understanding of the scenario. In one hand government officials are asking for the concrete suggestions and in another hand the researchers are asking to start implementation with the available information.

There is still much needed in knowledge generation and need a lot of work in effective dissemination of the research outputs.

It has been realized that there needs to be engagement of wider range of researchers in the process but how to make it is much perplexing.  

Afterward

Collaborative efforts with responsible individual roles are the most demanding need. The trend and necessity of research is always dynamic and have to be driven as per the need. Every part of the research may not be directly useful but each part of the research contributes for making concrete outcomes to be applied.

The research for the current use over the modeling, the research reports in the simple local language over the complex complied reports, the well dissemination of results over the copyright/protection, involvement and trust to young passionate engagement over the handful of engagement etc. need to be considered.

The workshop was hosted by the Himalayan Adaptation, Water and Resilience Research (HI-AWARE) which is one of the four consortia of the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) and conducting research and pilot interventions, capacity building and policy engagement on climate resilience and adaptation in the mountains and flood plains of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra river basins.

Vermicomposting; Requirements, Procedure and Advantages

Vermicomposting; Requirements, Procedure and Advantages

The Environment Department of Kathmandu Metropolitan city says, more than 60 % of the total municipal solid waste is organic degradable waste. Segregation of waste at source is the most important step for the solving solid waste problem of Capital. How can we manage organic waste in home? The answer is Vermicomposting.

Vermicomposting is the method of making compost which involves joint action of earthworm and microorganism.

The importance of vermicomposting can be summarized as -

      Management of organic waste

      Simple technology

      Eco-friendly

      Waste reduction at the source

And the advantages at glance are-

      Income generation

      High quality manure production

      Small place

      Odorless, if manage properly

All the earthworms may not be suitable for compost making. Some of the effective compost making worms are-

      Eisenia foetida

      Eudrillus eugineal

      Lumbricus rubellus

      Perionyx excavatus

      Perionyx fovatus

      Lampito mauritti

There are some characteristics of the worms which make this species suitable for composting. The characteristics of composting making worms are-

      Fast multiplying nature

      Simple and quick digestive system

      Silent nature

      Prefer garbage

The detail procedure of the vermicomposting can be summarized as follows-

1. Selection of container-

Following can be used as the container for vermicomposting-

v  Wooden box

v  Plastic bucket/box

v  Bamboo container (Tokari)

v  Cement ring

v  Tyre

v  Ceramic container

2. Making outlet-

3. Preparation & Placement of beds           

Materials that can be used for bedding are-

2.       Saw dust

3.       Paper

4.       Coconut coir

5.       Dry leaves

6.       Hay

7.       Clothes waste

8.       Jute sacs

4. Spreading of cow dung

5. Placement of compost making worms

6. Covering with organic waste

7. Covering the container

   Organic waste into compost.

     It is very important to know how to separate worms after the preparation of the compost. Following are the procedures for it- 

• Removal of Surface foods from the top

• Take prepared vermicompost/ turn the container upside down

• Arrange the contents (vermicompost) in a cone shape

• Leave for 10 minutes

• Let the worms gather at the bottom 
• Collect the vermicompost from the top
• Transfer the worms in a new container

The product can be sold at market-

There are few precautions for effective and sustainable vermicomposting. Some of them are-

ü  Temperature control/Food Quantity

ü  Water Quantity

ü  Light Intensity

ü  pH maintenance

ü  Change into new beds

ü  Control from enemies of worms

The other products of vermin technologies are vermin wash which is very fruitful in rooftop/indoor gardening.

World Meteorological day 2015; Climate Knowledge for Climate action

World Meteorological day 2015

The International Meteorological Organization was established at the first International Meteorological Congress in Vienna, Austria, in 1873. The organization aimed to establish meteorological station networks. These networks were linked by telegraph and improved weather forecasts. This contributed to shipping services' safety and efficiency.

The International Meteorological Organization became the World Meteorological Organization on March 23, 1950. It became the UN's specialized agency for meteorology, operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences in 1951.

The World Meteorological Organization plays a crucial role in contributing to people's safety and welfare. Its work is important in providing food security, water resources and transport. World Meteorological Day has been observed on March 23 each year since 1961.

The Theme for 20215 is-

"Climate Knowledge for Climate Action"

Some  themes of World Meteorological Day have been:

• Weather, climate and the air we breathe (2009). 

• Observing our planet for a better future (2008).

• Polar meteorology: Understanding global impacts (2007).

• Preventing and mitigating natural disasters (2006).

• Weather, climate, water and sustainable development (2005).

• Weather, climate, water in the information age (2004).

• Our future climate (2003).

                                                     

Global Divestment Rally- Kathmandu, Nepal

Divestment Rally-Kathmandu with umbrella to demand shift from ceasing fossil fuels to enduring clean energy

More than Five hundred youth participants were in rally demanding shift away from dirty old fossil fuel dinosaurs to the shining symbols of hope like wind mills and solar panels from Bhirikutimandap to Basantapur from 8:00-9:00am on Feb 14. During rally participants put up an umbrella to symbolize that peoples are not prioritizing sun energy (solar) and struggling hard for the fossil fuel.

   More than 500 rallies are happening in more than 50 countries spanning six continents on Feb 13/14 across the Globe to mark global divestment day calling for action. The divestment campaign highlights a conflict that most politicians are reluctant to address. If the world is to avoid catastrophic global warming, most known fossil fuel resources need to stay in the ground. As world leaders plan to gather in Paris later this year to attempt once again to secure a global deal to address the climate crisis, divestment provides the means to take back power from the fossil fuel industry and deliver a mandate for bold climate leadership before its too late.

  In Nepal, the Climate Change policy, 2011 focus on reduction in GHG emission, asks to promote clean Energy and encourage polluters pay system. The 13^th national plan directs to promote environment friendly energy sources.
As an Activist/Campaigner, I demand urgent action for shift from ceasing fossil fuels and want to say, “We demand Cash not the cheque”.

This program was jointly organized by Youth Alliance for Environment (YAE), KRIDARC Nepal, Youth Alliance for Disaster and Climate Resilience(YADC), Youth Red Cross Tri-chandra Onus Nepal, Cycle City Network Nepal, PowerShift Nepal, Micro-point Nepal, Youth for Disaster Risk Reduction(YDRR), Nepal Creative House, Environment Student Council, Tri-Chandra. ) .

Natural Resources and Climate Change through Human Right Prospective

Natural Resources and Climate Change through Human Right Prospective

  

With an example of Climate Change Refugee from a village; Dhe of Upper Mustang to Lower Mustang Mr. Krishna Lamsal from LI-BIRB, indicated that the Climate Change policy, 2011 of Nepal is silent on Human Right. He added that, the adaptation frame work adopted by Nepal is also not clear about HR even though it ask for participation of the marginalized group, women etc. The issue of HR came in existence in Climate talk during COP 16 whether UNFCCC already have the provision of CBDR and RC. In Nepal, same groups which are most vulnerable to CC impacts are found with violated HR.

Starting from ‘Right to Development’ of Vienna Convention to REDD mechanism and Right of Indigenous people, Mr. Sanot Adhikari of YAE shared about the prospective of HR in UN negotiations. Meanwhile he stated some statements of Bali Action Plan in relation to HR and the concept of green economy and sustainable development of Rio+20.

Mr. Kamal Sampag shared about the provision of ILO 169, Access in Benefit shearing (ABS), CBD, 1992, and demanded Indigenous Local Peoples (ILCs) Traditional Knowledge Focal Point in Ministry for significant implementation of the rectified provisions. He said that peoples of developing countries are being the victim of the air politics as a business in new colonialism and strongly mentioned that Indigenous peoples are not stakeholders, they are the right holders.

Mr. Dhanman Gurung shared about the Indigenous People(IP) focal point at Human Right Commission(HRC) and the reports of NIFIN. He urged to have a same level of understanding in case of the ILO provisions and other international treaties.

Mr. Bajrakishwor Yadav  from MoFSC, shared about the activities of ministry regarding CBD.

Dr. Purna Bdr. Nepali shared his view in Land context in UPR and debate in intellectual peoples circle. He pointed that how the Nepali Politicians whether they are Congress or Communist, leans to the policy of IMF and World Bank.

The DDR and CC specialist Mr. Man Bdr BK from Care Nepal shared the HR of the people during the Disasters and possible impacts of the Climate induced Disasters to the peoples. He shared about the Sphere Project.

Mr. Naresh Sharma from MoSTE said that Nepal have provision of spending 80% of Climate Budget at local Level. He shared about the effective participation of Nepal after Climate discussion at Indonesia, LAPA preparation and implementation, role of Nepal in cooperation and common understanding between LDCs being chair of it, raise of Mountain issue from SAARC, Climate Change council and policies of Nepal government to address the concerns of the poor and vulnerable people. 

The views were expressed on a consultation meeting on Natural Resource and Climate Change through HR prospective  organized by National Forum for Advocacy Nepal (NAFAN) in order to prepare report to UN Human Right Council for Universal Periodic Review-2015 by the side of civil society.