The sun-baked mud is hard below my feet, as I walk along the Mapusa river, a tributary of the Mandovi, one of the two major rivers in India’s western coastal state of Goa. Aron*, a local river fisherman, walks two steps ahead of me, complaining about his poor catch this fishing season. His concern echoes that of a number of other fishermen I have spoken to over the course of my fieldwork in Goa – the weather is unpredictable; cyclonic storms and unseasonal rain have thrown typically seasonal fishing practises off course. Even as he struggles to eke a living from his meagre catch, costs of living continue to rise and eat into the little he is able to make. He has taken up additional work as a taxi driver now, and has denigrated fishing to an unpredictable and unreliable secondary source of income.
Globally, climate change has gone from a looming, imminent danger to a tragic reality. While developed countries and privileged classes can afford to remain in denial, the global climate crisis is an extremely real and present threat to millions from lesser privileged backgrounds and poorer countries. Like fisher-folk across the country, Aron* and the river fishermen of Goa, by virtue of their occupation, are the among the most sensitive to even minute climatic changes. In the face of the global climate crisis and impending catastrophe, such occupations – including fisheries, agriculture, and pastoralism – are first on the list of casualties.
Warming waters have resulted in changes in migratory patterns of fish, reduction in algae that forms the base of aquatic food chains, and subsequently a decline in fish catch. Tidal surges, poor rainfall, erosion of river banks, salination of water, and cyclonic storms are a few additional climate change induced problems that reduce fishing seasons and suitable fishing sites. Shifting monsoon patterns, and extreme climatic events such as floods and drought, are also problematic for land-based agriculture. Climate change reduces viable growing seasons in many areas, or destroys standing crop through untimely rainfall or natural disasters.
India’s dependence on agriculture places India at a particularly vulnerable position with regards to climate change. The seasonality of cropping patterns and dependence on rainfall for irrigation intricately bind farmers to the climate, and this dependence of Indian agriculture on stable weather patterns makes it extremely susceptible to shifts in local and global climate. Additionally, countries along the equator are at an additional disadvantage as they are already warm and are expected to experience the strongest repercussions of climate change in terms of natural disasters, and drastic changes in weather patterns. Agricultural belts in India are majorly situated in areas that are prone to floods, cyclones, and drought – all of which will likely be far more frequently felt as we move steadily towards the impending climate catastrophe. In fact, this disparate vulnerability is reinforced by the possibility that agriculture in temperate regions may actually benefit from the longer warm, growing periods that climate change is likely to cause in these areas.
Changing climatic conditions can alter the fruiting and flowering seasons of wild flora as well, and result in a desynchronization between wild and domestic herbivores, pollinators, seed dispersers that typically adjust their behavioural patterns around these growing seasons. This has led to escalated conflict between wild animals like brown bears in the Himalayas, and reductions in the production of honey by wild-flower fed bees.
A little over six months before meeting Aron*, I was in the village of Tabo in the Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh. A jeep parked at the interface of a dirt road and an open pasture had attracted my attention, and I wandered over to talk to the driver who was unloading white wooden boxes from the back of the jeep. Casting a furtive glance at the sky, Farooq explains to me that he is a beekeeper, and that he has travelled here because a local friend had informed him that the rains had not arrived yet, and the flowers in the pasture were in bloom. Back in his own village, an untimely monsoon has disrupted the flowering season, and Farooq had been forced to escape with his bees to hopefully drier pastures dotted with flowers in bloom. When I left Tabo a day later, the rain had reached here too, and I spotted him on the mountainside, resignedly loading his bee-boxes back into his jeep.
It is difficult for those involved in agriculture to suitably adjust their practises in response to experienced or predicted climatic changes and impacts. While small-scale adaptations are already in practise, the adaptive capacity of the sector is greatly hindered by poverty and poor technical development. Information regarding climate change and possible adaptive measures is poorly disseminated amongst those involved in these most climate-sensitive of occupations.
Climate change has, and continues to, compound and exacerbate the existing disparities and marginalisation of poorer communities, women and developing countries. Those with limited access to renewable or resilient resources are at a disadvantage when their resources come under threat due to the climate crisis.
In light of this disproportionate impact on poorer communities, based on existing financial hardship and political apathy, along with their strong dependence on natural resources and weather patterns, one must recognise that climate change is a driver of social injustice and will only continue to widen the existing gap between the rich and the poor. With the burden of bearing the burden of climate change disproportionately on the shoulders of the most vulnerable sections of our society, it is possibly an ideal time to analyse whether current climate change discourse and policy at a national and international level are firmly grounded in social and environmental justice.
It has been pointed out before that social justice and conservation of the environment are compatible goals, if not critical to the success of the other. Social justice takes into account the need for a redistribution of wealth, and rethinking resource consumption patterns that promise a safer, more equitable future for some of the world’s poorest communities, as well as greater hope for the safeguarding of the environment.
Developed countries contribute the most heavily to climate change, yet tend to shirk their responsibilities towards curbing its progression and impact. While every country holds responsibilities towards the common goal of addressing climate change, this responsibility is not equally shared, as outlined in international environmental law by the principle of CBDR or ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities.’
The imperative to adapt to climate change cannot then lie solely on the shoulders of those who are least equipped to deal with its impacts, along with the responsibility to feed not just themselves, but a growing population. There need to be interventions at a national and international level to develop and implement policies that improve agricultural productivity without compromising the environment, reducing the carbon footprint of the agricultural industry, and building resistance to climate change within food-production systems.
Under the hot sun, Aron* sets up his nets in the river as beads of sweat drop from his forehead into the water below. As I watch him, I wonder to myself if Farooq ever found his flowers.
* All names are changed to protect privacy
