India: tempered down

On temperaments, communities and conflicts in the river fisheries of Bihar, amidst rigidly persistent caste and class discrimination

Exploring trade-offs between SDGs for Indus River Dolphin conservation and human water security in the regulated Beas River, India

This work was supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund through quality-related funding (QR GCRF) and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (Grant number NE/N015541/1). J. Krishnaswamy acknowledges support from the Climate Change and Disaster Risk Mitigation component of the National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-being supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India and Google Research (Google Grant for AI on Social Good).In India’s Indo-Gangetic plains, river flows are strongly altered by dams, barrages and water diversions for irrigation, urban supply, hydropower production and flood control. Human demands for freshwater are likely to intensify with climatic and socio-economic changes, exacerbating trade-offs between different sustainable development goals (SDGs) dependent on freshwater (e.g. SDG2, SDG6, SDG7, SDG11 and SDG15). Freshwater ecosystems and endangered aquatic species are not explicitly addressed in the SDGs, but only nested as targets within SDG6 and SDG15. Thus, there is high risk that decisions to advance other SDGs may overlook impacts on them. In this study, we link a water resource systems model and a forecast extinction risk model to analyze how alternative conservation strategies in the regulated Beas River (India) affect the likelihood of survival of the only remaining population of endangered Indus River Dolphins (IRD) in India in the face of climate change-induced impacts on river hydrology and human water demands, explicitly accounting for potential trade-offs between related SDGs. We find that the frequency of low flow released from the main reservoir may increase under some climate change scenarios, significantly affecting the IRD population. The strongest trade-offs exist between the persistence of IRD, urban water supply and hydropower generation. The establishment of ecologically informed reservoir releases combined with IRD population supplementation enhances the probability of survival of the IRD and is compatible with improving the status of relevant SDGs. This will require water managers, conservation scientists, and other stakeholders to continue collaborating to develop holistic water management strategies.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

India: Some grains of salt

India’s 2019 Draft National Policy on Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture is an ambitious effort but limited in depth and vision

Fisheries policy: Chewing the policy cud

Reflections on the ICSF workshop and recommendations to India’s draft National Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy (NIFAP), September 2019. The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) organized a national workshop to discuss the draft National Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy (NIFAP), being finalized by India’s Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare. The main objectives of the workshop, held in Kolkata on September 6-7, 2019, were to review existing social and ecological knowledge-gaps, to develop long-term and short-term recommendations—action points—for implementation, to integrate the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (the SSF Guidelines) with NIFAP, and to build capacity and awareness of fishers and fishworkers about the draft policy and its realization

How Do Fruit Bat Seed Shadows Benefit Agroforestry? Insights from Local Perceptions in Kerala, India

Old-world fruit bats are known to provide significant benefits to tropical agroforestry through seed dispersal services. However, the social pathways through which local people perceive and actually utilize these benefits are not well understood. Through interview surveys with plantation owners and farmers in the Western Ghats of Kerala (India), we documented local perceptions and knowledge about the socio-ecological importance of fruit bat seed dispersal shadows. Respondents’ perceptions were highly positive, with greater benefits reported from seed dispersal, than costs from fruit damage by bats. Interestingly, seed aggregation of commercial fruit crops (cashew, areca) by fruit bats was perceived to reduce agricultural labour costs in plantations. Our study demonstrates that local perceptions can offer valuable insights toward understanding the contribution of bat-generated ecosystem services for tropical agroforestry systems, and in turn may facilitate effective fruit bat conservation

First record of a bat from the Lakshadweep archipelago, southwestern India

The first record of a bat species from the Lakshadweep archipelago (India) has been identified as Tadarida aegyptiaca (Chiroptera: Molossidae). It appears unlikely that any bat colony may have been resident on the islands. Stranding during migration, high aerial foraging, or disorientation by wind farms on the west coast of mainland India, are factors that need to be further explored to explain this occurrence

Green turtle herbivory dominates the fate of seagrass primary production in the Lakshadweep islands (Indian Ocean)

9 páginas, 5 figuras, 1 tabla.Historical global declines of megaherbivores from marine ecosystems have hitherto contributed to an understanding of seagrass meadow production dominated by detrital pathways— a paradigm increasingly being questioned by recent re-evaluations of the importance of herbivory. Recoveries in green turtle populations at some locations provide an ideal opportunity to examine effects of high megaherbivore densities on the fate of seagrass production. We conducted direct field measurements of aboveground herbivory and shoot elongation rates in 9 seagrass meadows across 3 atolls in the Lakshadweep Archipelago (India) representing a gradient of green turtle densities. Across all meadows, green turtles consumed an average of 60% of the total leaf growth. As expected, herbivory rates were positively related to turtle density and ranged from being almost absent in meadows with few turtles, to potentially overgrazed meadows (ca. 170% of leaf growth) where turtles were abundant. Turtle herbivory also substantially reduced shoot elongation rates. Simulated grazing through clipping experiments confirmed this trend: growth rates rapidly declined to almost half in clipped plots relative to control plots. At green turtle densities similar to historical estimates, herbivory not only dominated the fate of seagrass primary production but also drastically reduced production rates in grazed meadows. Intensive turtle grazing and associated movement could also modify rates of detrital cycling, leaf export and local carbon burial, with important consequences for the entire seascape.T.A. was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project CTM2010- 22273-C02-02).Peer reviewe

Flood-Pulse Variability and Climate Change Effects Increase Uncertainty in Fish Yields: Revisiting Narratives of Declining Fish Catches in India’s Ganga River

River-floodplains support a significant number of small-scale capture fisheries despite having undergone degradation due to human modification of river flows by dams, pollution, and climate change. River fish production is underpinned by the annual flood-pulse and associated environmental changes that act as cues for spawning and dispersal for most species. However, studies on fish stock declines have focused more on overfishing than on hydroclimatic variability. Therefore, understanding how changes in flood-pulse variability influence fishing effort and yields is critical to inform adaptive fisheries’ management. We investigated hydroclimatic factors driving flood-pulse variability and fish catch–effort dynamics in India’s Ganga River over two decades (2000–2020). We compiled fishers’ narratives of changing fish catches through semi-structured interviews to compare them with our observed trends. Flood amplitude showed increasing variability, longer duration, and earlier rise timings, linked to La Niña and El Niño phases. Catches per unit effort were correlated with total yield and effort but did not decline as fishers thought, despite overall declines in yield over time. Hydroclimatic variability was a more significant driver of changing yields than local fishing pressure. Rising uncertainty in fisheries’ production, in response to increasing flood-pulse variability and altered flows in the Gangetic Plains, may be affecting fishing behaviour and underlying resource conflicts