Need to build resilience of communities living in coastal areas: Bhupender Yadav on climate change

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Saturday said there is a need build the resilience of communities living in coastal areas amid increasing threat of climate change. Addressing the first "National Conference on Sustainable Coastal Management in India" in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, he said there is a great diversity of ecosystems within the country's coastal regions that support more than 17,000 species of plants and animals.

"The Indian coastline is of immense strategic, economic and social importance to the country. Spanning 7,500 kilometres, it is the seventh longest in the world, and is home to 20 percent of the country's population. Three of our four metropolitan cities lie on the coast," a statement quoted Yadav as saying.

"With the changing climate, we need to build the resilience of communities living in coastal areas," he said.


The minister tweeted, "Marine ecosystems are particularly threatened by climate change, natural disasters, ocean acidification, sea level rise."

"The degradation, unless arrested, will impact the livelihood, health and well-being of the coastal population and impact India's sustained economic growth. The govt under PM Narendra Modi stands firmly committed to reverse these trends," he said in another tweet.

The conference in Bhubaneswar is being organised by the Green Climate Fund supported project -- Enhancing Climate Resilience of India's Coastal Communities.

The objective of the conference is to bring officials from all 13 coastal states of India under one roof to focus on the three interrelated themes of coastal and marine biodiversity, climate mitigation and adaptation and coastal pollution.

Minister of State for Environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey said, "Such conferences are important to bring the conversations of resilience and sustainability to our country's coastal areas. This was also envisioned in the Prime Minister's LiFE movement."

Sustainable coastal management is recognised as the need of the hour. Data-driven policies and management frameworks, participatory conservation models, and convergence between stakeholders are the key pillars for effective coastal management, the statement said.

A programme on Enhancing Climate Resilience of Coastal Communities is being implemented in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Supported by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the initiative is integrating ecosystem and community-based approaches to adaptation into coastal management and planning, it said.