A three-day workshop on the sensitization of media persons in the area of climate change and to engage them on climate change adaptation commenced here today.
Theworkshop themed ‘climate change reporting in the Himalayas’ is being jointlyorganized by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Centre for MediaStudies (CMS) and Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Programme (IHCAP) ofSwiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Ten such workshops havealready been conducted in various States in India.
The experts informed that the Indian Himalayan Region is one of the most vulnerable mountain systems in the world. “Jammu and Kashmir is the third most vulnerable to climate change state in India”, the experts informed. They added, if effective measures are taken in time, it may be possible to prevent further degradation of the ecosystem.
Theinaugural session of the workshop was attended by Director, Department ofEcology Environment and Remote Sensing, B. Siddhartha Kumar; Director, IndianMeteorological Department, Srinagar, Sonam Lotus; and resource persons fromgovernment institutions and NGOs.
Besides,dozens of journalists from various parts of Jammu and Kashmir, working withlocal, national and international media and the researchers from KashmirUniversity attended the workshop.
Inhis inaugural address, B. Siddhartha Kumar spoke on the causes leading toglobal warming. He said that environmental degradation through deforestationand other practices are the main cause of global warming.
Hehoped that these workshops will enhance the capacity of environmentaljournalists and help them to highlight climate change adaptation issues inlocal and regional context. On theoccasion, media manual for journalists ‘Himalayas, Climate change and themedia’ was also released.
Inthe first technical session, Sonam Lotus spoke on climate change – trends,adaptation and mitigation strategies with special emphasis on J&K.
Whilespeaking on the topic, Lotus urged the journalists to stop attributing everynormal environmental process to climate change. “Many times journalistsattribute the heavy rain or thunder to climate change, but these things havebeen happening from the early times and have no linkage to climate change.Sometimes there may be some connection, but not always,” he said.
Nodalofficer and Scientific Assistant, Department of Ecology Environment and RemoteSensing, Majid Farooq gave the overview of the State Action Plan on Climatechange.
ManagingEditor, India Science Wire, Dinesh C Sharma gave the overview of ‘Media and climatechange’ and also shared his experience on environment reporting with a specialfocus on climate change.
Later,a question-answer session was also held wherein various participants putforward their questions which were answered by the experts and resourcepersons.
Inthe second technical session, resource persons including Founder and AdvisorSECMOL, Sonam Wangchuk; Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences,University of Kashmir, Dr Irfan Rashid; Dr Anurag Saxena from ICAR-Central AridZone Research Institute, regional Research Station, Leh; Assistant Professorand Head, Division of Wildlife Sciences, SKUAST, Dr Khursheed Ahmad shed lighton the theme.
Presentationsand short films for the better understanding of the climate change in Himalayaswere also displayed.
Duringthe three-day workshop, experts from environment, agriculture, wildlife andearth sciences will be speaking on science and policy related to climate changeand adaptation initiatives in context of Jammu & Kashmir.