Agro & social forestry have been traditionally practiced in India. Policy inclusion of agro & social forestry have not however brought in desired results. The article examines how agro & social forestry can be revisited and norms revised to make it more sustainable and meaningful.
Agroforestry –
Agroforestry is any sustainable land-use system that maintains or increases total yields by combining food crops (annuals) with tree crops (perennials) and/or livestock on the same unit of land, either alternately or at the same time, using management practices that suit the social and cultural characteristics of the local people and the economic and ecological conditions of the area.
Agroforestry is a collective name for land-use systems involving trees combined with crops and/or animals on the same unit of land. It combines:-
1) Production of multiple outputs with protection of the resource base;
2) Places emphasis on the use of multiple indigenous trees and shrubs;
3) Particularly suitable for low-input conditions and fragile environments;
4) It involves the interplay of socio-cultural values more than in most other land-use systems; and
5) It is structurally and functionally more complex than monoculture.
Its benefits include the diversification of agricultural income, cleaner environmental surroundings, provision of habitats, and maintenance of soil quality, food sources, carbon storage, increased agricultural incomes, and sustainability (National Agroforestry Centre, 2014).
Agroforestry, whether in small or large scale, is a characteristic feature of agriculture in India, although contemporary times have witnessed a lesser focus on traditional methods of agricultural practices. Estimations of area under agroforestry were initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1977 is as per revenue records and satellite data. S.K. Dhyani (2014) in recent times has however, highlighted the need for proper area estimates of land in India under agroforestry.
BENEFITS OF AGROFORESTRY SYSTEM
A) Environmental benefits
ii More efficient recycling of nutrients by deep rooted trees on the site
iii) Better protection of ecological systems
iv) Reduction of surface run-off, nutrient leaching and soil erosion through impeding effect of tree roots and stems on these processes
v) Improvement of microclimate, such as lowering of soil surface temperature and reduction of evaporation of soil moisture through a combination of mulching and shading
vi) Increment in soil nutrients through addition and decomposition of litterfall.
vii) Improvement of soil structure through the constant addition of organic matter from decomposed litter.
B) Economic benefits
i) Increment in an outputs of food, fuel wood , fodder, fertiliser and timber;
ii) Reduction in incidence of total crop failure, which is common to single cropping or monoculture systems
iii) Increase in levels of farm income due to improved and sustained productivity
C) Social benefits
i) Improvement in rural living standards from sustained employment and higher income
ii) Improvement in nutrition and health due to increased quality and diversity of food outputs
iii) Stabilization and improvement of communities through elimination of the need to shift sites of farm activities.
Functional Basis of Agroforestry
All agroforestry systems have two functions.
A) Productive functions,
B) Protective functions
The Productive functions are:
I) Food
II) Fodder
III) Fuel wood
IV) Cloths
V) Shelter
VI) NTFPs
The Protective functions are:
i) Wind breaks
II) Shelterbelts
III) Soil conservation
IV) Soil improvement
TYPES OF AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS
I) AGRISILVICULTURAL SYSTEMS
It involves the conscious and deliberate use of land for the concurrent production of agricultural crops including tree crops.
Based on the nature of the components this system can be grouped into various forms.
(i) Improved fallow species in shifting cultivation
(ii) The Taungya system
(iii) Multispecies tree gardens
(iv) Alley cropping (Hedgerow intercropping)
(v) Multipurpose trees and shrubs on farmlands
(vi) Crop combinations with plantation crops
(vii) Agroforestry fuelwood production
(viii) Shelterbelts
(ix) Windbreaks
(x) Soil Conservation hedges
Improved Fallow Species in Shifting Cultivation
Fallows are cropland left without crops for periods ranging from one season to several years. The objective of improved fallow species in shifting cultivation is to recover depleted soil nutrients. Once the soil has recovered, crops are reintroduced for one or more seasons.
This system is practised extensively in the north-eastern hill region comprising the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura and the two Union territories of Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram and to some extent Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Karnataka states. It is called ‘jhum’ in the north-eastern hill region and ‘podu’ in AP and Orissa states and considered most destructive for forest areas.
Taungya System
A form of agroforestry system in which short term crops are grown in the early years of the plantation of a woody perennials species in order to utilize the land, control weeds, reduce establishment costs, generate early income and stimulate the development of the woody perennials species.
The taungya (taung = hill, ya = cultivation) is a Burmese word coined in Burma in 1850s. The taungya system was introduced into India by Brandis in 1890 and the first taungya plantations were raised in 1896 in North Bengal. It is practised in the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh and to a lesser extent in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka and the north- eastern hill region. In southern India, the system is called ‘kumri‘. It is practised in areas with an assured annual rainfall of over 1200-1500 mm.
This is a modified form of shifting cultivation in which the labour is permitted to raise crops in an area but only side by side with the forest species planted by it. This labour is responsible for the upkeep of a plantation. The practice consists of land preparation, tree planting, growing agricultural crops for 1-3 years, until shade becomes too dense, and then moving on to repeat the cycle in a different area. In some cases crops may be grown one year before the trees are planted. A large variety of crops and trees, depending on the soil and climatic conditions.
Taungya systems are of three types:
(a) Departmental Taungya : Under this, agricultural crops and plantation are raised by the forest department by employing a number of labourers on daily wages. The main aim of raising crops along with the plantation is to keep down weed growth.
(b) Leased Taungya: The plantation land is given on lease to the person who offers the highest money for raising crops for a specified number of years and ensures care of tree plantation.
(c) Village Taungya: This is the most successful of the three taungya systems. In this, crops are raised by the people who have settled down in a village inside the forest for this purpose. Usually each family has about 0.8 to 1.7 ha of land to raise trees and cultivate crops for 3 to 4 years.
Advantages offered by the taungya system are:
(i) Artificial regeneration of the forest is obtained cheaply
(ii) Problems of unemployment are solved
(iii) Helps towards maximum utilisation of the site
(iv) Low cost method of forest plantation establishment
(v) In every case highly remunerative to the forest departments
(vi) Provision of food crops from forest land
(vii) Weed, climber growth etc. is eliminated.
Disadvantages of the taungya system
(i) Loss of soil fertility and exposure of soil
(ii) Danger of epidemics
(iii) Legal problems created
(iv) Susceptibility of land to accelerated erosion increases
(v) It is a form of exploitation of human labour
Multispecies Tree Gardens
In this system of agroforestry, various kinds of tree species are grown mixed. The major function of this system is production of food, fodder and wood products for home consumption and sale for cash.
Alley Cropping (Hedgerow Intercropping)
Alley cropping, also known as hedgerow intercropping, involves managing rows of closely planted (within row) woody plants with annual crops planted in alleys in between hedges.The woody plants are cut regularly and leaves and twigs are used as mulch on the cropped alleys in order to reduce evaporation from the soil surface, suppress weeds and/or add nutrients and organic matter to the top soil. Where nitrogen is required for crop production, nitrogen-fixing plants are the main components of the hedgerows.
The primary purpose of alley cropping is to maintain or increase crop yields by improvement of the soi, microclimate and weed control. Farmers may also obtain tree products from the hedgerows, including fuelwood, building poles, food, medicine and fodder andon sloping land, the hedgerows and prunings may help to control erosion. Alley cropping usually works best in places where people feel a need to intensify crop production but face soil fertility problems.
Ideally, trees and shrubs used for alley cropping should fix nitrogen and should also produce wood, food, fodder, medicine or other products used by farmers or other local community.
Shelter-belt:
These are belts/blocks consisting of several rows of trees established at right angles to
the prevailing wind. The purposes are:
a) to deflect air currents,
b) to reduce the velocity of prevailing winds,
c) to provide general protection to the leeward areas against the effects of wind erosion,
d) to protect the leeward areas from the desiccating effects of hot wind,
e) to provide food, fodder, timber etc.
Wind-break:
Wind-breaks are strips of trees and/or shrubs planted to protect fields, homes, canals or
other areas from wind and blowing soil or sand.
The important reasons for which wind-breaks are planted include:
to protect livestock from cold winds
to protect crops and pastures from hot, drying winds
to reduce/prevent soil erosion
to provide habitat for wildlife
to reduce evaporation from farmlands
to improve the microclimate for growing crops and to shelter people and livestock,
to retard grass fire
for fencing and boundry demarcation
Gaps are required for gates and tracks, but because of the funneling effect through gaps, wind velocity in these areas can be substantially increased. In multi row wind breaks this can be eliminated by angling the gap at about 45 degrees to the prevailing wind direction. Alternatively, a few plant, trees or shrubs can be used on either side of the gate or track to broaden the gap and reduce the funneling effect. Other solutions are to plant five or six trees at an angle to the main belt as a wing or to plant a second short row to cover the gaps.
Soil Conservation Hedges
Trees can be planted on physical soil conservation works (grass strips, bunds, risers and terraces) wherein they play two roles: ie., to stabilise the structure and to make productive use of the land they occupy.
Stabilisation is through the root system. In some
of sloping landscapes of the country, the risers or terraces are densely planted with trees, with multiple use being made of them for fruit, fodder and fuel wood . In this system the major groups of components are: multipurpose and trees and common agricultural species. The primary role of multipurpose trees and agricultural species is soil conservation and provision of various tree products.
Criteria of Good Agroforestry Design
A good agroforestry design should fulfill the following criteria:
i) Productivity: There are many different ways to improve productivity with agroforestry viz., increased output of tree products, improved yields of associated crops, reduction of cropping system inputs, increased labour efficiency, diversification of production, satisfaction of basic needs and other measures of economic efficiency or achievement of biological potential.
ii) Sustainability: By seeking improvements in the sustainability of production systems, agroforestry can achieve its conservation goals while appealing directly to the motivation of low income farmers , who may not always be interested in conservation for its own sake
iii) Adoptability: No matter how technically elegant or environmentally sound an agroforestry design may be, nothing practical is achieved unless it is adopted by its intended users. This means that the technology has to fit the social as well as environmental characteristics of the land-use system for which it is designed.
II) SILVOPASTORAL SYSTEMS
The production of woody plants combined with pasture is referred to Silvipasture system. The trees and shrubs may be used primarily to produce fodder for livestock or they may be grown for timber, fuelwood, fruit or to improve the soil.
This system is classified in to three categories
|
a) Protein bank
b) Livefence of fodder trees and hedges
c) Trees and shrubs on pasture |
a) Protein bank:
In this Silvipastoral system, various multipurpose trees (protein rich trees) are planted in or around farmlands and range lands for cut and carry fodder production to meet the feed requirement of livestock during the fodder deficit period in winter.
b) Livefence of fodder trees and hedges:
In this system, various fodder trees and hedges are planted as live fence to protect the property from stray animals or other biotic influences.
c) Trees and shrubs on pasture:
In this system, various tree and shrub species are scattered irregularly or arranged according to some systemic pattern to supplement forage production.
III) AGROSILVOPASTORAL SYSTEMS
The production of woody perennials combined with annuals and pastures is referred Agrisilvopastural system.
This system is grouped into two categories.
a) Home gardens
b) Woody hedgerows for browse, mulch, green manure and soil conservation
a) Home gardens
This system is found extensively in high rainfall areas in tropical South and South east Asia. This practice finds expression in the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu with humid tropical climates where coconut is the main crop. Many species of trees, bushes , vegetables and other herbaceous plants are grown in dense and in random or spatial and temporal arrangements. Most home gardens also support a variety of animals. Fodder grass and legumes are also grown to meet the fodder requirement of cattle. In India, every homestead has around 0.20 to 0.50 ha land for personal production.
Home gardens represent land use systems involving deliberate management of multipurpose trees and shrubs in intimate association with annual and perennial agricultural crops and livestock within the compounds of individual houses. The whole tree- crop- animal units are being intensively managed by family labour. Home gardens can also be called as Multitier system or Multitier cropping.
Home gardens are highly productive, sustainable and very practicable. Food production is primary function of most home gardens.
b) Woody Hedgerows:
In this system various woody hedges, especially fast growing and coppicing fodder shrubs and trees are planted for the purpose of browse, mulch, green manure, soil conservation etc.
IV) OTHER SYSTEMS
a) Apiculture with trees: In this system various honey (nector) producing trees frequently visited by honeybees are planted on the boundary of the agricultural fields
b) Aquaforestry: In this system various trees and shrubs preferred by fish are planted on the boundary and around fish ponds. Tree leaves are used as feed for fish. The main role of this system is fish production and bund stabilization around fish ponds
c) Mixed wood lots: In this system, special location specific MultiPurpose Trees ( MPTs) are grown mixed or separately planted for various purposes such as wood, fodder, soil conservation , soil reclamation etc.
Constraints in agroforestry
The following are the major constraints in agroforestry
1. Depression in crop yields due to interference effects caused by the tree
2. Delayed liquidation of planting investments due to long gestation period
3. Increased damage to crops due to birds which the trees attract
4. Increased damage to crops due to pests for which the tree serve as alternate hosts
5. Allelopathy – UPSC Question
Interference effects
In an agroforestry system, trees being the dominant partners,will compete with the herbaceous substratum for resource pools of light, water and nutrients. When the immediate supply of a single necessary factor falls below the combined demands of the plant, then the competition begins.The competition is also referred as Allelospoly.
The nature and quantum of these adverse effects depend upon I) the age and size of the trees, ii) nature of the tree species iii) nature of the agricultural crops ,iv) availability of water, nutrients , light, etc. The impact of the adverse effects is greatest in the close vicinity of the trees and diminishes as the distances increases Such effects were observed in different crops with a combination of different tree species.
Allelopathy
Muller(1969) emphasized that allelopathy, the direct or indirect effect of one plant upon another through the production of chemical inhibitors that are released in to the environment , should also be recognized as another factor in analyzing mechanisms of plant interactions. The species interaction due to chemical influences is also designated as Allelochemistry, Phytochemical ecology or Ecological biochemistry and Allelobiology.
Most of the chemical substances involved in allelopathic reactions are secondary compounds. Though the toxic metabolites are distributed in other plant parts also, leaves are the potent source of allelochemicals. Summer materials are more toxic than those of rainy and winter season. Toxins released from plant litter are the primary causes of allelopathy.
ROLE OF TREES IN SOIL FERTILITY
Tree root pattern-
It is generally assumed that trees have deep and spreading roots and hence are capable of exploiting more soil volume and taking up nutrients and water from deeper layer not usually contacted by herbaceous crops. This process of taking up nutrients from deeper soil profiles and eventually depositing at least some portion of them on the surface layers through litter-fall and other mechanisms is referred to as ‘nutrient pumping’ by trees. It is well known that the development of plants depends on site characters and environmental factors. Many woody species have the largest number of roots and the majority of the fine roots are located in the uppermost fertile portion of the soil profile. Some tree species are shallow rooted. Prosopis chilensis has a shallow and spreading root system whereas P. juliflora, is known to have a very deep root system.
Role of trees in soil fertility
1)Organic matter and nutrient addition to the soil -litter fall
2)Dinitrogen fixation by trees – Mimosoideae and Fabaceae are well known to fix nitrogen.
3)Nutrient cycling
Policy on Agroforestry
B. Chavan, n his paper ‘National Agroforestry Policy in India: a low hanging fruit’ (2015) talks about agroforestry being a traditional form of land use in India. He argues that although it is beneficial to both the environment and farmer’s income, and enjoys support in certain regions of India from industry, wide adoption of agroforestry remains a bulwark due to a lack of policy initiatives and the strictness of trade regulations.
The authors cite that a lack of a clear-cut mechanism to moderate the agroforestry sector makes it difficult for it to be a success. Their paper mostly talks about the ‘National Agroforestry Policy, 2014’ that addressed certain aspects of agroforestry without providing an archetype for clear-cut management of the sector.
The National Agroforestry Policy (NAP) was born out of consultations in the World Congress on Agroforestry held in New Delhi in 2014. In the presence of delegates from 80 countries worldwide, the President of India Pranab Mukherjee launched the Policy – the first of its kind globally.
However, there are many hurdles in implementing the NAP in a proper manner. First, there is incoherency in the regulation regime as regards the species utilized by agroforestry. The multifarious restrictions over the harvesting, transit and marketing of various species in the absence of uniform systems lead to farmers adopting crops that are sometimes outside their natural habitats.
Second, given that forests are located usually at the fringes of populated areas, and some farmers might be cultivating in such regions, only 10 per cent of quality planting material reaches the remote regions.
Third, given that farmers involved in agroforestry are sometimes poor and remotely located, there is a lack of insurance and credit from organized finance (S.B. Chavan, et. al. 2015). The traditional methods of agroforestry tend to preserve the biomes in localities and thus aid ecosystem services. A lack of policy sensitive to the widespread traditional technique of planting trees by farmlands or as farming could disrupt entire ecosystems.
The Bansal Committee, instituted in 2011 by the Ministry of Environment, Government of India to carry out studies on regulations for tree-species on non-forest private lands, recommended that the permissions for the felling of tree-species required by farmers be relaxed. The plan is not included in the policy yet, but is intended to encourage the large-scale cultivation of crop tree-species.
However, the NAP in 2014 identified 20 tree-species most utilized by farmers to be free from such restrictions. The supply of quality planting material to remote regions is also a bottleneck to large-scale cultivation, which can involve the application of biotechnology in forest land.
Throughout the conditions for the implementation of the NAP, forest certification acts as a hurdle rather than facilitator, preventing the large-scale planting and cultivation of crop tree-species. Forest certification is often tapped through international accreditation agencies like the Forest Stewardship Council and the International Timber Trade Organization. There is a possibility though to include agroforestry under organic farming as forests tend to be self-sustained systems of production that require less external inputs, and bring their products under organic farming certification.
Social Forestry
Social forestry slightly differs from agroforestry in that while social forestry involves human intervention in managed forests, here though, management is not private, and engages involvement from the people in managing forests, i.e. social management (AgriInfo.in, 2015). There can be a wide range of social and economic goals to social forestry, and the objectives are based on the useful benefits of growing trees, placing a focus on social efforts towards afforestation. Social forestry involves more than just social co-operation in planting trees. Social forestry engages social collectivities in the activity of large or small scale planting of trees and vegetation outside traditional forest areas with the objective of achieving balanced and symbiotic land use that can have environmental, social or economic goals. The term can be used in conjunction with any programme involving social activation in afforestation.
Policy on Social Forestry
Social forestry is especially important for marginalized and poor rural people and communities as a source of social and economic security. The form of land use is important for social forestry as it utilizes community lands, land under public ownership, and replenishes degraded lands and puts them to ecologically beneficial social and economic uses. This form of cultivation is suitable even for remote areas as governmental intervention is not an important determinant for its ends, and finance is usually arranged through the Panchayat.
In such a scenario, the National Commission on Agriculture (NAC) suggested certain guidelines in 1976 to encourage the widespread adoption of social forestry. These guidelines were intended with a view to protect rural communities against the spread of production forestry. However, most forest renovation efforts of degraded forests are taken up by forest departments, while on the ground the majority of intended participants were poor, marginalized rural folk usually living in remote areas who fall outside the policy radar. The onus instead falls on certain NGOs and local collectivities that are too sparse to make a total impact across the country.
The guidelines include pastoral requirements; household, cottage and small-scale requirements for raw materials; employment for rural poor through social forestry activities; rejuvenation of degraded forest lands; supplementing the NAP; providing recreation or tourism; and improvement of the aesthetic value of landscapes.
Conclusion
The problem in both agro & social forestry is a lack of policy outreach, and is borne from the transition from traditional ways of living in rural communities to modern forms of agriculture and livelihood. There is thus a lack of participation from local communities with respect to policy, that has not yet assimilated the traditional methods and ethos of agro & social forestry.
While social forestry is invaluable to conservation efforts towards forests and ecosystems, agro forestry opens up certain tree-species to production processes. Traditional methods of agriculture involve the maintenance of a balance and co-existence with the native ecology, which is disturbed by artificial and extraneous constraints placed on farmers by income expediency and the market.
Agro forestry can work in tandem with forest certification if it can maintain this healthy co-existence, especially when it can be a significant practice in remote locations. Activating this traditional ethos can be a step forward towards social forestry as well. Agro & social forestry thus needs active research and best practice norms to mark its efficacy.
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- Floods
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- Coastal States, particularly on the East Coast and Gujarat are vulnerable to cyclones.
- 4 crore hectare landmass is vulnerable to floods
- 68 per cent of net sown area is vulnerable to droughts
- 55 per cent of total area is in seismic zones III- V, hence vulnerable to earthquakes
- Sub- Himalayan sector and Western Ghats are vulnerable to landslides.
- Mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Reduction in Developmental Strategy-Prevention and mitigation contribute to lasting improvement in safety and should beintegrated in the disaster management. The Government of India has adopted mitigation and prevention as essential components of their development strategy.
- Mainstreaming of National Plan and its Sub-Plan
- National Disaster Mitigation Fund
- National Earthquake Risk Mitigation Project (NERMP)
- National Building Code (NBC):- Earthquake resistant buildings
- National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project (NCRMP)
- Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project (ICZMP)-The objective of the project is to assist GoI in building the national capacity for implementation of a comprehensive coastal management approach in the country and piloting the integrated coastal zone management approach in states of Gujarat, Orissa and West Bengal.
- National Flood Risk Mitigation Project (NFRMP)
- National Project for Integrated Drought Monitoring & Management
- National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme (NVBDCP)- key programme
for prevention/control of outbreaks/epidemics of malaria, dengue, chikungunya etc., vaccines administered to reduce the morbidity and mortality due to diseases like measles, diphtheria, pertussis, poliomyelitis etc. Two key measures to prevent/control epidemics of water-borne diseases like cholera, viral hepatitis etc. include making available safe water and ensuring personal and domestic hygienic practices are adopted. - Training
- Education
- Research
- Awareness
- Hyogo Framework of Action- The Hyogo Framework of Action (HFA) 2005-2015 was adopted to work globally towards sustainable reduction of disaster losses in lives and in the social, economic and environmental assets of communities and countries.
- United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)-In order to build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters through the implementation of the HFA , the UNISDR strives to catalyze, facilitate and mobilise the
commitment and resources of national, regional and international stakeholders of the ISDR
system. - United Nation Disaster Management Team (UNDMT) –
- To ensure a prompt, effective and concerted country-level support to a governmental
response in the event of a disaster, at the central, state and sub-state levels, - To coordinate UN assistance to the government with respect to long term recovery, disaster mitigation and preparedness.
- To coordinate all disaster-related activities, technical advice and material assistance provided by UN agencies, as well as to take steps for optimal utilisation of resources by UN agencies.
- To ensure a prompt, effective and concerted country-level support to a governmental
- Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR):-
- GFDRR was set up in September 2006 jointly by the World Bank, donor partners (21countries and four international organisations), and key stakeholders of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR). It is a long-term global partnership under the ISDR system established to develop and implement the HFA through a coordinated programme for reversing the trend in disaster losses by 2015.
- Its mission is to mainstream disaster reduction and climate change adaptation in a country’s development strategies to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards.
- ASEAN Region Forum (ARF)
- Asian Disaster Reduction Centre (ADRC)
- SAARC Disaster Management Centre (SDMC)
- Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER):-The Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER) is a regional training programme initiated in 1998 by the United States Agency for International Development’s, Office of U.S Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) to strengthen disaster response capacities in Asia.
- Policy guidelines at the macro level that would inform and guide the preparation and
implementation of disaster management and development plans across sectors - Building in a culture of preparedness and mitigation
- Operational guidelines of integrating disaster management practices into development, and
specific developmental schemes for prevention and mitigation of disasters - Having robust early warning systems coupled with effective response plans at district, state
and national levels - Building capacity of all stakeholders
- Involving the community, NGOs, CSOs and the media at all stages of DM
- Addressing gender issues in disaster management planning and developing a strategy for
inclusive approach addressing the disadvantaged sections of the society towards disaster risk reduction. - Addressing climate risk management through adaptation and mitigation
- Micro disaster Insurance
- Flood Proofing
- Building Codes and Enforcement
- Housing Design and Finance
- Road and Infrastructure
A disaster is a result of natural or man-made causes that leads to sudden disruption of normal life, causing severe damage to life and property to an extent that available social and economic protection mechanisms are inadequate to cope.
The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) of the United Nations (U.N.) defines a hazard as “a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.”
Disasters are classified as per origin, into natural and man-made disasters. As per severity, disasters are classified as minor or major (in impact). However, such classifications are more academic than real.
High Powered Committee (HPC) was constituted in August 1999 under the chairmanship of J.C.Pant. The mandate of the HPC was to prepare comprehensive model plans for disaster management at the national, state and district levels.
This was the first attempt in India towards a systematic comprehensive and holistic look at all disasters.
Thirty odd disasters have been identified by the HPC, which were grouped into the following five categories, based on generic considerations:-
Water and Climate Related:-
Geological:-
Biological:-
Chemical, industrial and nuclear:-
Accidental:-
India’s Key Vulnerabilities as articulated in the Tenth Plan, (2002-07) are as follows:
Vulnerability is defined as:-
“the extent to which a community, structure, service, or geographic area is likely to be damaged or disrupted by the impact of particular hazard, on account of their nature, construction and proximity to hazardous terrain or a disaster prone area”.
The concept of vulnerability therefore implies a measure of risk combined with the level of social and economic ability to cope with the resulting event in order to resist major disruption or loss.
Example:- The 1993 Marathwada earthquake in India left over 10,000 dead and destroyed houses and other properties of 200,000 households. However, the technically much more powerful Los Angeles earthquake of 1971 (taken as a benchmark in America in any debate on the much-apprehended seismic vulnerability of California) left over 55 dead.
Physical Vulnerability:-
Physical vulnerability relates to the physical location of people, their proximity to the hazard zone and standards of safety maintained to counter the effects.
The Indian subcontinent can be primarily divided into three geophysical regions with regard to vulnerability, broadly, as, the Himalayas, the Plains and the Coastal areas.
Socio-economic Vulnerability:-
The degree to which a population is affected by a calamity will not purely lie in the physical components of vulnerability but in contextual, relating to the prevailing social and economic conditions and its consequential effects on human activities within a given society.
Global Warming & Climate Change:-
Global warming is going to make other small local environmental issues seemingly insignificant, because it has the capacity to completely change the face of the Earth. Global warming is leading to shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels. Along with floods, India also suffers acute water shortages.
The steady shrinking of the Himalayan glaciers means the entire water system is being disrupted; global warming will cause even greater extremes. Impacts of El Nino and La Nina have increasingly led to disastrous impacts across the globe.
Scientifically, it is proven that the Himalayan glaciers are shrinking, and in the next fifty to sixty years they would virtually run out of producing the water levels that we are seeing now.
This will cut down drastically the water available downstream, and in agricultural economies like the plains of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar, which are poor places to begin with. That, as one may realise, would cause tremendous social upheaval.
Urban Risks:-
India is experiencing massive and rapid urbanisation. The population of cities in India is doubling in a period ranging just two decades according to the trends in the recent past.
It is estimated that by 2025, the urban component, which was only 25.7 per cent (1991) will be more than 50 per cent.
Urbanisation is increasing the risks at unprecedented levels; communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable, since high-density areas with poorly built and maintained infrastructure are subjected to natural hazards, environmental degradation, fires, flooding and earthquake.
Urbanisation dramatically increases vulnerability, whereby communities are forced to squat on environmentally unstable areas such as steep hillsides prone to landslide, by the side of rivers that regularly flood, or on poor quality ground, causing building collapse.
Most prominent amongst the disasters striking urban settlements frequently are, floods and fire, with incidences of earthquakes, landslides, droughts and cyclones. Of these, floods are more devastating due to their widespread and periodic impact.
Example: The 2005 floods of Maharashtra bear testimony to this. Heavy flooding caused the sewage system to overflow, which contaminated water lines. On August 11, the state government declared an epidemic of leptospirosis in Mumbai and its outskirts.
Developmental activities:-
Developmental activities compound the damaging effects of natural calamities. The floods in Rohtak (Haryana) in 1995 are an appropriate example of this. Even months after the floodwaters had receded; large parts of the town were still submerged.
Damage had not accrued due to floods, but due to water-logging which had resulted due to peculiar topography and poor land use planning.
Disasters have come to stay in the forms of recurring droughts in Orissa, the desertification of swaths of Gujarat and Rajasthan, where economic depredations continuously impact on already fragile ecologies and environmental degradation in the upstream areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Floods in the plains are taking an increasing toll of life, environment, and property, amplified by a huge population pressure.
The unrestricted felling of forests, serious damage to mountain ecology, overuse of groundwater and changing patterns of cultivation precipitate recurring floods and droughts.
When forests are destroyed, rainwater runs off causing floods and diminishing the recharging of groundwater.
The spate of landslides in the Himalayas in recent years can be directly traced to the rampant deforestation and network of roads that have been indiscriminately laid in the name of development.
Destruction of mangroves and coral reefs has increased the vulnerability of coastal areas to hazards, such as storm surges and cyclones.
Commercialisation of coastal areas, particularly for tourism has increased unplanned development in these areas, which has increased disaster potential, as was demonstrated during the Tsunami in December 2004.
Environmental Stresses:- " Delhi-Case Study"
Every ninth student in Delhi’s schools suffers from Asthma. Delhi is the world’s fourth most polluted city.
Each year, poor environmental conditions in the city’s informal areas lead to epidemics.
Delhi has one of the highest road accident fatality ratios in the world. In many ways, Delhi reflects the sad state of urban centers within India that are exposed to risks, which are misconstrued and almost never taken into consideration for urban governance.
The main difference between modernism and postmodernism is that modernism is characterized by the radical break from the traditional forms of urban architecture whereas postmodernism is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions.
Illustration of Disaster Cycle through Case Study:-
The processes covered by the disaster cycle can be illustrated through the case of the Gujarat Earthquake of 26 January 2001. The devastating earthquake killed thousands of people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses and other buildings.
The State Government as well as the National Government immediately mounted a largescale relief operation. The help of the Armed Forces was also taken.
Hundreds of NGOs from within the region and other parts of the country as well as from other countries of the world came to Gujarat with relief materials and personnel to help in the relief operations.
Relief camps were set up, food was distributed, mobile hospitals worked round the clock to help the injured; clothing, beddings, tents, and other commodities were distributed to the affected people over the next few weeks.
By the summer of 2001, work started on long-term recovery. House reconstruction programmes were launched, community buildings were reconstructed, and damaged infrastructure was repaired and reconstructed.
Livelihood programmes were launched for economic rehabilitation of the affected people.
In about two year’s time the state had bounced back and many of the reconstruction projects had taken the form of developmental programmes aiming to deliver even better infrastructure than what existed before the earthquake.
Good road networks, water distribution networks, communication networks, new schools, community buildings, health and education programmes, all worked towards developing the region.
The government as well as the NGOs laid significant emphasis on safe development practices. The buildings being constructed were of earthquake resistant designs.
Older buildings that had survived the earthquake were retrofitted in large numbers to strengthen them and to make them resistant to future earthquakes. Mason and engineer training programmes were carried out at a large scale to ensure that all future construction in the State is disaster resistant.
This case study shows how there was a disaster event during the earthquake, followed by immediate response and relief, then by recovery including rehabilitation and retrofitting, then by developmental processes.
The development phase included mitigation activities, and finally preparedness actions to face future disasters.
Then disaster struck again, but the impact was less than what it could have been, primarily due to better mitigation and preparedness efforts.
Looking at the relationship between disasters and development one can identify ‘four’ different dimensions to this relation:
1) Disasters can set back development
2) Disasters can provide development opportunities
3) Development can increase vulnerability and
4) Development can reduce vulnerability
The whole relationship between disaster and development depends on the development choice made by the individual, community and the nation who implement the development programmes.
The tendency till now has been mostly to associate disasters with negativities. We need to broaden our vision and work on the positive aspects associated with disasters as reflected below:
1)Evolution of Disaster Management in India
Disaster management in India has evolved from an activity-based reactive setup to a proactive institutionalized structure; from single faculty domain to a multi-stakeholder setup; and from a relief-based approach to a ‘multi-dimensional pro-active holistic approach for reducing risk’.
Over the past century, the disaster management in India has undergone substantive changes in its composition, nature and policy.
2)Emergence of Institutional Arrangement in India-
A permanent and institutionalised setup began in the decade of 1990s with set up of a disaster management cell under the Ministry of Agriculture, following the declaration of the decade of 1990 as the ‘International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction’ (IDNDR) by the UN General Assembly.
Consequently, the disaster management division was shifted under the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2002
3)Disaster Management Framework:-
Shifting from relief and response mode, disaster management in India started to address the
issues of early warning systems, forecasting and monitoring setup for various weather related
hazards.
National Level Institutions:-National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA):-
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was initially constituted on May 30, 2005 under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister vide an executive order.
SDMA (State Level, DDMA(District Level) also present.
National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC)
Legal Framework For Disaster Management :-
DMD- Disaster management Dept.
NIDM- National Institute of Disaster Management
NDRF – National Disaster Response Fund
Cabinet Committee on Disaster Management-
Location of NDRF Battallions(National Disaster Response Force):-
CBRN- Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear
Policy and response to Climate Change :-
1)National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC)-
National Action Plan on Climate Change identified Eight missions.
• National Solar Mission
• National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
• National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
• National Mission for Sustaining The Himalayan Ecosystem
• National Water Mission
• National Mission for Green India
• National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
• National Mission for Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change
2)National Policy on Disaster Management (NPDM),2009-
The policy envisages a safe and disaster resilient India by developing a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster oriented and technologydriven strategy through a culture of prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response. The policy covers all aspects of disaster management including institutional and legal arrangements,financial arrangements, disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness, techno-legal regime, response, relief and rehabilitation, reconstruction and recovery, capacity development, knowledge management, research and development. It focuses on the areas where action is needed and the institutional mechanism through which such action can be channelised.
Prevention and Mitigation Projects:-
Early Warning Nodal Agencies:-
Post Disaster Management :-Post disaster management responses are created according to the disaster and location. The principles being – Faster Recovery, Resilient Reconstruction and proper Rehabilitation.
Capacity Development:-
Components of capacity development includes :-
National Institute for Capacity Development being – National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM)
International Cooperation-
Way Forward:-
Principles and Steps:-
The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.