Climate changes need to monitor in hill areas, says experts

PR, KalimNews, Darjeeling May 10, 2018: "We need to carefully study climatic changes occurring in the Darjeeling hills and take appropriate measures for adaptation", said Mr. Amar Singh Rai, MLA Darjeeling, while inaugurating the three-day workshop, began in the Darjeeling, today. He said that certain vector borne diseases are slowly emerging that were never heard of few years ago. This may be due to climate change. "Environment scientists must find out the reasons behind it", he said. He urged the media, civil society organization and government officials to work together to sensitise and to create awareness on climate change as it is the need of the hour.

The workshop was organized by Centre for Media studies, Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Programme (IHCAP) of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Department of Science and Technology(DST) Govt of India with state partner Department of Science Technology and Higher Education, Government of West Bengal.

The objective of the workshop is to brainstorm and share experiences on environment reporting with a special focus on climate change. During the workshop, experts from leading research institutes and the state government officials spoke about different aspects of climate change adaptation in the hilly districts of West Bengal.

"These kinds of workshops are being organized to make media persons aware about the importance of climate change and how it should be communicated to the masses," says Mr. Shirish Sinha, Deputy Director, SDC .

Mr. Dinesh C Sharma, Managing Editor, India Science Wire, says, "Journalist should appreciate that climate change is not an event but a process. Focussing on people and communities while reporting about climate change impacts could make interesting stories. At the same time it is important that we keep science of climate change intact and quote experts".

"These workshops give participants a platform to interact with state level experts on climate change and media fraternity on various aspects of climate change," said Ms. Annu Anand in her welcome address. She informed that seven such workshops have already been held in Almora (Uttarakhand), Imphal (Manipur) and Gangtok (Sikkim), Shillong (Meghalaya), Aizawl (Mizoram), Kohima(Nagaland) and Itanagar(Arunachal Pradesh) and this is eighth workshop in the series.

Other environment experts who were present during the workshop were Dr. Sanjib Bandyopadhyay, Dy. Director General of Meteorology & Scientist, Regional Meteorological Centre, Government of India, Dr. Pankaj Jaiswal, Director, Landslide Studies Division, GSI, Ms. Subrata B. Dutta, Senior Scientist, Department of Higher Education, Science & Technology and Biotechnology, Government of West Bengal, Mr. Prahalad Chetri, Project Director Darjeeling Tea Research Association, Darjeeling, Mr. Mrityunjay Choubey, SeniorScientific Officer, Tea Board of India and Mr. Saikat Pal, Secretary, Rajarhat PRASARI.

The Indian Himalayan Region is one of the most vulnerable mountain systems in the world. If effective measures are taken in time, experts believe, it may be possible to prevent further degradation of the ecosystem. It is also expected that these workshops would enhance the capacity of environmental journalists and highlight climate change adaptation issues in local and regional context.