Frame forest fire policy in three months: Green Tribunal to govt
Frame forest fire policy in three months: Green Tribunal to govt
03 August 2017
published by http://www.thehindubusinessline.com
India – NEW DELHI, AUGUST 3: Coming down hard on the government for failing to prevent forest fires, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday has asked the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to formulate a national policy to prevent such incidents along with the States.
The States of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, despite a semblance of Forest Fire Management Plans, have failed to take preventive steps required as a precautionary measure. The result is loss of forest biodiversity, degradation of environment and air quality in particular thereby affecting public health besides leading to a long-term effect of climate change, the NGT said in its order.
The government has been told to formulate the first set of the policy within three months.
The financial resources, manpower, transport/vehicle and fire fighting equipment should be made available to the Forest Department both at the State and district/division level, at the beginning of the financial year so that the Forest Fire Management Plan could be implemented in totality and effectively, the Tribunal said in an order on Thursday.
It has also asked the government to ensure participation and cooperation of the local communities and prepare the Forest Fire Management Plan in partnership with the village-level panchayati raj institutions and van panchayats, that would be revised every year.
Uttarakhand had witnessed a massive forest fire in 2016 that devastated at least 3,500 hectares of forest area. Minor instances of forest fires recur almost every year.
Besides directing the government to ensure manpower and resource availability, NGT has asked it to make adequate use of technology to prevent incidents of forest fire, which have an impact on biodiversity, ambient air quality and general health and welfare of people.
A network of automated surveillance or watch towers/observation posts should be set up at strategic locations to provide regularly, on a real time basis, data for forest fire alerts for timely interventions of fire incidences, the order said.
An international team of climate researchers from the US, South Korea and the UK has developed a new wildfire and drought prediction model for southwestern North America. Extending far beyond the current seasonal forecast, this study published in the journal Scientific Reports could benefit the economies with a variety of applications in agriculture, water management and forestry.
Over the past 15 years, California and neighboring regions have experienced heighteneddrought conditions and an increase inwildfire numbers with considerable impacts on human livelihoods, agriculture, and terrestrial ecosystems. This new research shows that in addition to a discernible contribution from natural forcings and human-induced global warming, the large-scale difference between Atlantic and Pacific ocean temperatures plays a fundamental role in causing droughts, and enhancing wildfire risks.
“Our results document that a combination of processes is at work. Through an ensemble modeling approach, we were able to show that without anthropogenic effects, the droughts in the southwestern United States would have been less severe,” says co-author Axel Timmermann, Director of the newly founded IBS Center for Climate Physics, within the Institute for Basics Science (IBS), and Distinguished Professor at Pusan National University in South Korea. “By prescribing the effects of man-made climate change and observed global ocean temperatures, our model can reproduce the observed shifts in weather patterns and wildfire occurrences.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-atlanticpacific-ocean-temperature-difference-fuels.html#jCpAn international team of climate researchers from the US, South Korea and the UK has developed a new wildfire and drought prediction model for southwestern North America. Extending far beyond the current seasonal forecast, this study published in the journal Scientific Reports could benefit the economies with a variety of applications in agriculture, water management and forestry.
Over the past 15 years, California and neighboring regions have experienced heighteneddrought conditions and an increase inwildfire numbers with considerable impacts on human livelihoods, agriculture, and terrestrial ecosystems. This new research shows that in addition to a discernible contribution from natural forcings and human-induced global warming, the large-scale difference between Atlantic and Pacific ocean temperatures plays a fundamental role in causing droughts, and enhancing wildfire risks.
“Our results document that a combination of processes is at work. Through an ensemble modeling approach, we were able to show that without anthropogenic effects, the droughts in the southwestern United States would have been less severe,” says co-author Axel Timmermann, Director of the newly founded IBS Center for Climate Physics, within the Institute for Basics Science (IBS), and Distinguished Professor at Pusan National University in South Korea. “By prescribing the effects of man-made climate change and observed global ocean temperatures, our model can reproduce the observed shifts in weather patterns and wildfire occurrences.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-atlanticpacific-ocean-temperature-difference-fuels.html#jCp
