Climate Witness stories

Climate Witness: Mr. Anil Khara, Sagar Island

Mr. Anil Khara, resident of Bamankhali in Sagar Island is a key witness who shared his view points with our CW working group members during our workshops and group meetings. This 67 year old retired school teacher settled here from Midnapore and has his own observations over the years which could be interesting CW stories.

As Mr. Anil Kr. Khara explained…..I have never seen such high speed winds earlier and frequency of depression at Bay of Bengal is much higher now-a-days. We have been experiencing delayed monsoon every year over the last 12-15 years.”

“Small & marginal farmers don’t have lands of their own and extreme weather pattern is forcing them to opt for livelihoods other than agriculture. Because untimely rain, prolonged hot spells in summer contributed to damage of crops.”

“Disease broke out in recent years in the cultivation of betel, sunflower and coconut plants which are the major produces of Sagar and adjoining islands. But the farmers are helpless as we don’t get any practical help from the agricultural department . Very little part of Sagar island has electricity and that too for a fixed period of the day, hence there is no storage system to save our crops.”
“There is no use of better agrotechniques, farmers are still practicing trial and error methods while applying fertilizer and pestcides. Varieties of misbeliefs and faulty methods practiced to save their crops rendered no permanent solution to the farmers instead of high cost of production and ultimate inflation in the market.”
Erratic climatic variations has remarkably changed the people’s llives and livelihood.

“A hype of fisheries and specially prawn collection for better income could generate profitable income for a brief period, but now that has also reduced to a great extent. Varieties of fish diseases brought further troubles to these fishermen who believe must be climatic effects are the reasons behind low yield and death of fishes.

Mr. Khara have further pointed out towards the absence of Avicennia, Sonneratia and Phoenix varieties which were common a few decades before. He clearly mentioned the shift in vegetation pattern due to anthropogenic impact, spread of introduced variety like Eucalyptus and its commercial exploitation. “Changed vegetation is no way suitable to protect the island and islanders from erosion and loss of land”….he mentioned with a despair in his heart. “Climate change would accelerate these dangers in coming years”

Ultimately his remarks indicated a threat on food and livelihood security in these region.