Can Environment Reporting Dominate Kashmir’s News Ecosystem?

5 mins read
Environment
Pic: The Legitimate

Shabir Ahmad
Blessed with unique climate, ecology, environment and topography, Kashmir is undoubtedly a nature’s paradise. But the paradise has been disturbed, and disturbed violently by the mean human influence and by climate change and global warming.

Pic: Agencies

Unabated cutting of forests, unchecked urbanization and expanding concretization has been the spoilers. Jammu and Kashmir being part of the Himalayan mountain range is being impacted hugely by the climate change and the most significant impact is on water availability. So this should be our top concern. But that seems not to be the case. Our policymakers, civil society, environmentalists and even media are not much focused on the issues concerning environment and effects of climate change. The continuing armed conflict has dominated every aspect of our life and society. Because of which the environmental concerns and climate change impact on J&K’s ecology and environment has received least attention both at policy and at public levels. The news cape or the news ecosystem in Kashmir or on Kashmir too remains dominated by conflict, and so media, journalist and writers see less or no incentive in highlighting or fussing on the issues related to environment and climate change.

But very recently, a non-governmental organisation took an initiative to sensitize journalists and enhance their understanding of environmental concerns including the impacts of climate change on sensitive environment of J&K.

Three-day workshop on climate change reporting was conducted in Srinagar from July 9-11, 2019 by Centre for Media Studies (CMS) and Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Programme – a joint initiative of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Centre for Environment Education and the Third Pole. The workshop tried to bridge the gap of reporting on environmental issue and to improve journalists’ understanding of climate change and adaptation issues in the Himalayas. It was actually aimed to brainstorm and share experiences on environment reporting with a special focus on climate change.

The workshop was attended by over 40 journalists from Srinagar, Jammu, Ladakh, and Poonch areas of J&K besides scientists and environment experts. This was a right attempt in the direction to sensitize the society at large including common people, policy makers and media people towards the pressing issues concerning environment and the affects of climate change and global warming. The significance of such workshops can be gauged from the fact that J&K state is third most vulnerable state to climate change in Indian Himaliyan region. So there is a huge demand and need to sensitize the journalists and improve and enhance their understanding on environmental issue including the climate change impact on ecologically sensitive place like Kashmir. There is also a need to have a dedicated reporting and reportage on environment in J&K. The three-day workshop was a successful endeavour in this regard. The journalists not only had brainstorming sessions with the experts, but also got acquainted with latest jargons and terminologies of environment reporting.

The workshop also brought to fore one important aspect of the climate change or environmental reporting. That is the communication gap between scientists and journalist. On the first day when the experts and policy makers in the workshop flagged the issue of J&K’s vulnerability to clime change of J&K state and called for urgent steps to address the challenge, journalists completely misunderstood it. It was B. Siddhartha Kumar, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Director, Department of Ecology, Environment and Remote Sensing who said: “The Jammu and Kashmir is the third most vulnerable state in regard to climate change due its fragile eco system.”

The next day reporting in press from Kashmir to Delhi was completely opposite to what was actually said. The press reported that J&K is the third most vulnerable state in India to floods. And there was no rebuttal or corrigendum in any newspaper in next days, that how wide is the gap in climate change communication process between scientists, experts and journalists. That is why Annu Anand, Head CMS Advocacy, Centre for Media Studies said: “The real challenge of climate change reporting is to connect changes occurring at the ground level with climate science and policies. We are trying to build this capacity among journalists.”

Pic: The Legitimate

Experts also stressed the need for bridging the gap between media and scientists as well as policy makers for improving the quality of climate change reporting in media.

Dr. Mustafa Ali Khan, Team Leader, IHCAP said that media engagement plan was a great opportunity for media persons to highlight issues relating to climate change in the Himalayas and what people are doing to cope with it.

Sonam Wangchuk, Founder of SECMOL expressed that recent research had shown that glaciers are melting fast but not only due to global warming but also due to local carbon emissions from various sources. He said ice stupas being built in Leh were a measure for climate adaptation in villages that face water shortage during summers.

The experts also called for evidence-based reporting of climate change vulnerability, adaptation, mitigation and impacts.

Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, Commissioner Secretary, Forests, Ecology and Environment, while delivering the valedictory address, urged media persons to highlight issues relating to climate change in the context of the state climate action plan with an objective to generate awareness about climate change among people.

He announced that the Green Skills Development Programme, which was launched in the state last year, would be soon expanded to new subjects. “We need a large number of people trained in different skills with a capacity to deal with various aspects of climate change and environment such ad renewable energy and data science,” he added.

Pic:The Legitimate

During the workshop journalists were taken on field visit to many villages of Budgam where J&K agriculture department was running a successful and appreciable programme on adaptation to climate change effects. Many agri-land owners who had leased their holdings for over a decade to brick klins had got their land restored back for agricultural purposes. All this was possible in the district with the active efforts of agriculture department which is also running sustained campaign to ensure brick klins adopt modern technology so that emission from them are reduced considerably. One such farmer is Ghulam Hassan Mir of Waterwani village of central Kashmir’s Budgam district. He is a content vegetable farmer after he retrieved his 14-kanals of land back after 15 years from brick klin.

Jammu & Kashmir is predominantly an agrarian economy with about 80% of its population engaged in agriculture and allied sectors. The agro-climatic diversity of the state varying from sub-tropical in Jammu, temperate in Kashmir and cold arid in Ladakh, makes it ideal for varied cultivation. The main role of agriculture department is to help farmers to adopt better technology and to facilitate establishment of infrastructure for farm production and marketing.

“Over the years, agriculturists and farmers have adopted several area- specific and time specific cultivation practices to meet the requirement of their staple food crops. There is currently a shift towards cultivating low-volume high-value cash crops, such as, flowers, vegetables, quality seeds, aromatic & medicinal plants, mushrooms etc. round the year,” said director agriculture Kashmir while appreciating his department’s effort in climate change efforts. He also stressed upon journalists to improve the environment reporting, enhance understanding of the climate issues and bring facts to fore.

Latest from Archives