Bhubaneswar: A seminar on “Environmental Change and Governance” was organised by the University of Waterloo, IIT- Kharagpur, and NIRMAN, a city-based NGO, at Yatri Nivas, Satapada, near Chilika lagoon. The theme of the Field School of the year was Governing Coastal Commons for Resilience and Wellbeing.
The rapid social and biophysical changes confronting coastal communities—ranging from shifting livelihood opportunities and globalization impacts to ocean acidification and sea-level rise—are in many respects unprecedented.
The implications for the resilience and well-being of coastal communities are profound, as are the threats to the commons (e.g., fisheries) upon which many coastal communities depend. There is a need to enable coastal communities to develop resilience to respond and adapt to rapid environmental change, better understand the key attributes driving such changes, and craft governance arrangements that foster deliberate transformations and help to build resilience of social-ecological systems (e.g., coastal commons).
The week-long field school brings together a selected group of 40 graduate students, 5 NGO professionals, 20 fishing community leaders and government marine and coastal departmental officials, 12 professors to provide training on a host of concepts and approaches in the area of coastal commons, social-ecological system resilience and well-being.
It includes a creative mix of both classroom teaching and field training right in the heart of Asia’s largest lagoon – Chilika. Topics covered during the field school are disaster preparedness, community resilience, well-being and governance, happiness index and the commons.
There was interaction with community leaders of fishing communities, women SHGs, producer groups to understand the various issues faced by the coastal communities. They shared the difficulties during Fani cyclone due to the non-existence of cyclone shelters in Alupatana and Balabhadrapur villages.