Meghalaya State Council meet held on Climate Change and Sustainability

A CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG: In what may be termed as the State's proactive response to the impending climate change crisis, a meeting of the Meghalaya State Council on Climate Change & Sustainable Development under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister, Conrad K. Sangma.

The meeting centered around leveraging community institutions as part of a collaborative strategy for community-led climate action.

Despite abundant rainfall and lush green landscapes, the State stands at a critical juncture amidst climate change, where urgent and coordinated interventions are needed to ensure sustainable environmental management and resilience. In response to this, the Council unanimously agreed on the need for coordinated and targeted strategies towards climate action particularly on the Rejuvenation of critical water sources, Catchment area protection and massive afforestation.

With respect to the rejuvenation of critical water sources, the PHE Department has identified critical water sources in the State that require immediate rejuvenation to ensure source sustainability and supply of water. To bring about a collaborative response to this challenge, it was highlighted how the State is working on a GIS-based enabling technology platform to visualize various interventions for rejuvenation at the village level, emphasizing that these will allow the State to develop rejuvenation plans to meet the need for water, especially during the dry seasons. To ensure multiple departments and agencies work collaboratively on this effort, the need for a multi-sectoral approach by leveraging existing departmental initiatives or programs was highlighted to rejuvenate a targeted set of 100 critical sources on priority.

For catchment area protection, the Council discussed the need to have a regulatory framework through the Amendment of the existing Meghalaya Protection of Catchment Areas Act, 1990 to protect critical catchment areas from further degradation. In this regard, the Council emphasized the need for a consultative process in amending the Act with the community at the core, given that most of the forest land in Meghalaya belongs to individuals and communities. This approach aims to ensure that community participation remains central to decision-making processes regarding catchment area protection and fostering local ownership of the problem. The Mawsynram Declaration of 2019 was highlighted as a case example of how communities led the effort towards catchment area protection where 24 villages came together to declare their collective desire to take up conservation and sustainable livelihood opportunities.

Laying emphasis on an urgent need for Champions of Climate actions, it was highlighted that over the last five years through the World Bank-supported Community-led Landscape Management Project (CLLMP) project, over 13,000 village community facilitators have received training in various aspects of climate action.

Chief Minister and Council Chairman highlighted the dire situation in West Khasi Hills District, with its barren landscape spanning across large areas of the District. This brought to light the dire need for mass afforestation across such barren patches in Meghalaya by introducing the Miyawaki model of afforestation programmes. He underscored the need to counsel community members, especially the village headmen on the benefits of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and to prioritise the most vulnerable areas. Other initiatives that were shared that should be considered for afforestation included the use of Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT) and aroma plants which have a stronger capacity for water recharge.

The quick results and impact on forest cover achieved through the Miyawaki forest models for land rejuvenation was also highlighted by the Soil & Water Conservation Department, stating that pilot projects on the Miyawaki method of afforestation conducted in West Garo Hills & West Khasi Hills Districts between 2022 and 2023 are yielding promising results, with an 81% survival rate of plant and tree species.

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