Alarmed by the cataclysmic changes in the geographical region around Bay of Bengal which supports one of the earth's largest hinterlands, it saw 120 participants from 42 organisations across four countries coming together to take part in the third sub-regional Workshop on Community Resilience to Climate Change in Bay of Bengal which was held in Kolkata recently.
The geographical region around Bay of Bengal witnessing drastic climatic changes over the years sparking disasters such as HudHud, Phailin, wayward weather pattern and steady submersion of coastal areas participants in the workshop said.
These in turn ruined the socio-economic patterns triggering large-scale migration and causing demographic imbalance organisers said adding the "participants deliberated upon the successes and challenges of the past decade in the disaster risk reduction sector."
The effort would enable the policy makers "to identify and articulate high priority areas for making the roadmap of the next fifteen years truly meaningful for the last mile communities facing unprecedented threats in the region." The workshop took place on March 11 and 12.
The "primary themes of the deliberations" stressed on "the linkages between science, policy and practice," "localising disaster risk reduction approaches to ensure better impact of policies" and devicing "implementation strategies and instruments that are simple enough for deployment at the local level by stakeholders including local Governments and civil society organisations." It also laid stress on strengthening "institutional instruments to support data management, habitat planning, capacity building etc" participants said.
Recent climatic changes have seen a number of islands such as the Ghoramara Island in riverine Bay of Bengal
getting submerged by about
80 percent triggering large-scale migration of local population including trans-border infiltration.
The slow rate of implementation of programmes aimed at "sustainable development" and adamant policies of developed world against transferring technology to the developing countries seem to have only made the problem worse, experts said.