Although preventing all the consequences of climate change is now impossible, we can adopt policies to mitigate its impact.
Although preventing all the consequences of climate change is now impossible, we can adopt policies to mitigate its impact. In a set of policy recommendations produced by the University of Jyväskylä, researchers examine the development of sustainable livelihoods in the Sundarbans, a coastal region of India and Bangladesh that is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The Sundarbans is one of the largest threatened mangrove ecosystems, which efficiently store carbon dioxide and protect coastal areas from cyclones.
In a research project funded by the Research Council of Finland entitled Sustainable Livelihoods and Politics at the Margins: Environmental Displacement in South Asia, researchers Sirpa Tenhunen, Mohammad Jasim Udd and Dayabati Roy have prepared recommendations for developing sustainable livelihoods in coastal areas where fragile mangrove forests occur.
Climate change will increase the intensity and frequency of tropical cyclones in the region and raise sea levels, increasing salinity and threatening settlement in the most vulnerable areas. However, land level fluctuations are nothing new in this estuary, as the Sundarbans have been and continue to be shaped by the silt carried by rivers from the Himalayan mountains. Strips of land are constantly rising from the shore, while elsewhere they are being submerged.
Read more at University of Jyväskylä
Photo Credit: sarangib via Pixabay
