Rara Lake of Nepal: Disaster prone

Source: http://epaper.ekantipur.com/showtext.aspx?boxid=235153493&parentid=35981&issuedate=22122013

Disaster Prone area of Nepal: Kalikot
Source:http://epaper.ekantipur.com/epaperhome.aspx?issue=3082013

Early Warning System/ Landslide

Climate Change, Is It a Burning Issue of Nepal?

Most of the organizations working in Nepal are providing a discussion topic, climate change. Either NGOS or INGOS, the relation with their major activities has been added with the suffix ‘climate change’. Waste and climate change, human health and climate change, road and climate change, prime minister and climate change, politics and climate change, forest and climate change, child and climate change, water and climate change, fight and climate change etc are so called burning issues in Nepal.

It is the reality that climate change has impacted the globe. There is no doubt that Nepal being the part of the globe has a tremendous effect of climate change. The political situation went wrong in Nepal has also been regarded as the part of climate change. Thus, the real scene of climate change has been diverted from the Nepalese society. The terminology ‘climate change’ has been used elsewhere without any proper justification. It is being misused by numbers of organizations and itself government working in the area of climate change. While attending climate change related programs or seminars, it will be much more difficult to understand their result related to climate change. The results are real but not practical oriented and seems like copied from the developed countries.  It is a simple example where input is highly expended but far behind the real problems with practical solution.

What Nepal lacks, where is it suffering, what is to be done? are the real questions that should be related with climate change?  Let’s discuss, what Nepal has done? It is participating with a huge crowd in CoP (Conference of the Parties). Since 2009, Nepalese politics also get influenced by climate change. Former PM, Madhab Kumar Nepal led Government conducted a ministry level meeting in base camp of Sagarmatha, Kalapatthar to symbolize the impacts of climate change in Nepal. Government participation in international climate change program is also increasing. The climate change policy has also been prepared. Similarly, National adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) has been prepared and different LAPA (Local Plan of Action) are being prepared. Using the same terminology, CAPA (Community Adaptation Plan of Action) is also prepared by different organizations. Many research oriented activities in the books, journals etc. These are the some of the action of Nepal to combat with climate change.

What the real scenario, what we are doing? It is the real issue of climate change. It is easy to know or understand that the impacts of climate change is very high because of its altitudinal variation (6o m asl to 8848 m asl). Within this high variation, a least statistical change has more influence on every aspects of the total environment. The impacts are different and it’s difficult to study too. Within a small spherical area, a large variation in the climate and environment can be seen. The change in agricultural calendar, increase in natural disaster like landslide, flood, drought are more pronounced. The low yield in agriculture has more influence on the local farmers. Now, how we need to tackle these problems are the real burning issues? The real field based approach is necessary to study it and tackle it. What type of crops is to be cultivated, how can we improve irrigation system, how can we increase the yield of the crops, how can we manage the markets are the real burning issues of Nepal.

So far I am also related with the topic, climate change. I have graduated in environmental science from the Tribhuvan University. The dissertation, I chose, was on the same theme as I discussed above i.e. climate change impacts on the Phakhel communities of Kulekhani Watershed Area. During the research period, I stayed there for a month. The real problems related with climate change are low yield in agriculture (drought, untimely rainfall), new pest infestation (Gathe Rog in cauliflower and cabbage), landslide, flood, drought etc. During the interview time, when I asked about the agricultural products of the recent years of that area, nearly forty year old Tamang lady of ward no. five scolded me. She wept and asked a question “Can you support me during my starvation after collecting these data’s? I had provided data to numbers of people just like you every year; no one came to solve the problem. You are enjoying in your job”. This question made me speechless. My dissertation research of this topic seems to complete master’s thesis but unable to solve the real problem. Now, it is clear that the real impact of climate change is the starvation. The issue raised by that woman is the real burning issue of climate change as she symbolizes Nepalese farmers suffering from climate change. The similar issue has been shared during seminars, conferences organized by NGOS/INGOS/GON expending a huge amount of money without the real solution on the grassroots level. The approach, program or research to solve her problem is the real solution of climate change issue to be solved by the NGOs/ INGOs/ GOs rather than advertising the propagandas of climate change and adding ‘climate change’ suffix in their programs.

Finally, Nepal is receiving huge amount of funds from the donor. It is necessary to prioritize the real problem and made clear to all the donor organizations for the real field base program to tackle the issues. If not done, the real problem will be increasing and the statistics on finely hard covered reports always speak on the problem of climate change as hot burning issue of Nepal. Hope that the students of Masters Level are to be guided to prepare their dissertation to seek the real problem and to be there with practical solution.

Rajan Subedi

M Sc. in environmental Science

rsrajansubedi@gmail.com

9841895557

                      Disasters in Nepal

 Nepal's Position in the world: Disaster Related Scenario


Water Related Disaster = 30^th  position
Earthquake Related Disaster = 11^th Position 
Climate Change Related Disaster = 6^{th Position}

DRR Initiatives in Nepal

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is a systematic approach to identifying, assessing and reducing the risks of disaster. It aims to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities to disaster as well as dealing with the environmental and other hazards that trigger them. Similarly, Disaster risk reduction is the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyse and reduce the causal factors of disasters. 

History

Disaster Risk Reduction was used in mid of 1900 A.D. The meaning of DRR was only to solve the problem of risk in systematic way. Now, the concept of DRR has changed. Inevitably, there are different definitions in the technical literature, but it is generally understood to mean the broad development and application of policies, strategies and practices to minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout society.

Here have been growing calls for greater clarity about the components of DRR and about indicators of progress toward resilience — a challenge that the international community took up at the UN’s World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) in Kobe, Japan, in 2005, only days after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The WCDR began the process of pushing international agencies and national governments beyond the vague rhetoric of most policy statements and toward setting clear targets and commitments for DRR. The first step in this process was the formal approval at the WCDR of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005–2015) (HFA). This is the first internationally accepted framework for DRR. It sets out an ordered sequence of objectives (outcome – strategic goals – priorities), with five priorities for action attempting to ‘capture’ the main areas of DRR intervention. The UN's biennial Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction provides an opportunity for the UN and its member states to review progress against the Hyogo Framework. It held its first session 5–7 June 2007 in Geneva, Switzerland.

UN initiatives have helped to refine and promote the concept at international level, stimulated initially by the UN's  of the 1990s as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.                         Source: a

Nepal 

Hyogo Framework for Action (2005–2015) (HFA) has been regarded as the basis for the DRR program, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) initiatives in Nepal – and especially those aspects related to environmental management and earthquake resilience – face the constant challenge of the country’s relative poverty and the increasing competition for resources for economic development, at both the national and local level. The country’s GDP is small in comparison to global data and the IMF estimated that per capita share of national GDP in 2010, based on global purchasing power parity, was only around NPR 21,628.095 (or approximately USD 310 per year).20 In the UNDP Human Development Report 2010, which uses human development indicators based on both economic and social factors such as health and education, Nepal was ranked in the low human development category and positioned at number 138 out of 169 countries and areas. Nepal was, however, ranked first in terms of human development indicators (HDI) improvement over the last thirty years, a measure of progress in comparison with other countries with a similar initial level.21 It is not surprising, however, that for the National Planning Commission of Nepal, poverty reduction is the main priority.22 In this context, the establishment and implementation of DRR laws and regulations needs to be linked, legally and conceptually, to development and poverty reduction in Nepal. 

In this sense it is particularly important to take a broad view of DRR law and regulation, moving outside the notion of a ‘disaster cycle’, so that many elements of what may be termed ‘good governance’ towards sustainable development could be seen as an integral part of DRR in Nepal. These include such measures as land use planning and prevention of environmental degradation, preparation for the possibility of more extreme climatic events arising from climate change in the future, and urban planning and regulation of building and infrastructure construction that recognize the high risk of earthquake. In this sense ‘disaster risk reduction’ is a much broader concept than ‘disaster management’. 

some laws in Nepal

Ø  National Water Resource Strategy, 2002

Ø  National Water Plan, 2005

  Ø  Water Induced Disaster Management Policy, 2006

  Ø  Hyogo Framework of Action (2005-15) and Nepal's Response

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