Page 15 - FMR64_Trafficking and smuggling & Climate crisis and local communities_2020_web

FMR 64 Climate crisis and local communities 15

June 2020 www.fmreview.org/issue64

Trapped or resettled: coastal communities in the
Sundarbans Delta, India

Shaberi Das and Sugata Hazra

When local communities face the brunt of the impacts of climate change, how able are they
to make choices in their response? And whose responsibility is it to provide support?
Forced migration due to environmental limited capacity to adapt to and cope with
stressors must be differentiated from adverse environmental changes. Electricity on
voluntary migration. Blurred and the island is powered by solar panels which
contradictory definitions abound, leading the government and NGOs have installed in
to inadequate or an absence of regulations almost every household, and drinking water
regarding the provision of support is obtained from tubewells. Infrastructure
and compensation. Culpability – and investment remains low, however, because
responsibility – can be established relatively of the high rate of coastal erosion; within the
easily in instances of development-induced last 40 years, the island has been reduced to
displacement. In cases of forced migration less than half of its original size, displacing
triggered by climatic factors, however, thousands. The first storm shelter is currently
3
no single party or parties (whether the under construction, while the school
displaced individual, the government building serves as a makeshift refuge.
or an international agency) can be held Respondents to semi-structured
unquestionably accountable and therefore interviews revealed that health care and
responsible for alleviating related education remain inadequate, with children
hardship. The human costs are borne by often travelling to or boarding on the
local communities in locations rendered mainland in order to attend high school.
inhospitable by the interplay of different Loss of livelihoods or inadequate returns
forces – climate change and sea level rise from more traditional rural livelihoods
being key among them. Glimpses from forces at least one male member of most
communities in the islands of Ghoramara households to migrate seasonally to the
and Sagar in the Indian Sundarbans far-away states of Kerala or Tamil Nadu
Delta convey the stark realities of forced for construction work. Over the last two
migration for these communities. decades, seasonal migration has become a
coping mechanism for a large proportion
Ghoramara: a highly vulnerable island of the population in the Sundarbans.
With lush green fields, abundant freshwater, Recently, the households of these seasonal
nutrient-rich soil and a breathtaking view migrants have been taking the decision
of the river Hooghly, Ghoramara Island is to migrate permanently to safer places
picturesque – but is rapidly being submerged. where wage labour is in demand, thereby
Located in the south-western edge of the turning a temporary coping mechanism
Hooghly estuary, Ghoramara has experienced into a means of long-term adaptation to
high rates of coastal erosion since the 1970s, environmental degradation and climate
and from the 1970s to the 1990s there was change. However, the absence of support
sustained government action to resettle and compensation for the land that has been
displaced households to nearby Sagar Island. lost to erosion (or soon will be) not only
With 34% of the population in the Indian makes such adaptation measures extremely
Sundarbans living below the poverty line challenging in terms of people’s finances
1
and 47% unable to afford two proper meals and mental health but also raises concerns
a day throughout the year, the population about the State’s refusal to acknowledge this
2
in vulnerable islands like Ghoramara has migration as forced rather than voluntary.