Abstract
We studied the perception of forest-dependent communities on climate change with its associated risk and their adaptation strategies in Mizoram, Northeast India. A total of 360 respondents (household heads) were randomly selected from 24 villages across the three different agro-climatic zones prevalent. The community perceived awareness of climate change phenomena in the region with a positive correlation between age, education and occupation of the respondents. The overall perception of climate change in temperature was medium (0.49), while low for change in precipitation (0.26) and seasonal durability (0.23). The community showed over-all low score of perception on risk of climate change (0.10) where risk on livelihood and socio-economic factors was higher than risk to environment or forest. Perception on impact of climate change was high for forest abi-otic ecological factors (0.66) and flora and fauna (0.62), while medium on livelihood of forest-dependent communities (0.44). The majority (more than 75%) of the respondents agreed that human beings are involved and responsible for climate change. Adoption of adaptive strategies to cope climate change ranged from 0.07 to 0.91, amongst which zero tillage, use of traditional knowledge, forest fire prevention, soil and water conservation techniques, agroforestry practices and social forestry are popular. However, rain water harvesting and investments for crop insurance were adopted on low scores clearly implied by the educational and socio-economic status of the farmers in the majority. The study brings out the knowledge and perceptions to climate change by forest-dependent communities and their adaptive strategies to cope had been assessed. The finding results seek the attention of researchers and policy makers to integrate technological and financial interventions in supporting farmer’s effort to cope with climate change with a long term objective for improving their livelihood and climate sensitive resources at the same time.
Highlights
Climate change is generally recognized as a major issue having negative impacts on the earth’s geological, biological and ecological systems
We studied the perception of forest-dependent communities on climate change with its associated risk and their adaptation strategies in Mizoram, Northeast India
The community showed overall low score of perception on risk of climate change (0.10) where risk on livelihood and socio-economic factors was higher than risk to environment or forest
Summary
Climate change is generally recognized as a major issue having negative impacts on the earth’s geological, biological and ecological systems. It was recognized that protective functions of forests get affected by climate change as well. Climate change is expected to exacerbate the vulnerability of forest tribes and communities especially with adverse impact on their livelihood [4] [5]. Forests are sensitive to climate change, because the long life-span of trees depends on environmental stability. The impact of climate change on forest and biodiversity has recently become an issue of increasing importance [10]. Though there have been several reports on climate change on agriculture [11], studies pertaining to forest and biodiversity are somewhat limited
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