Sarikah Atreya

Gangtok, Jan 18 Sikkim will soon begin work on preparing an inventory on glaciers and an assessment of its retreat mechanism.

This was announced by Prof SI Hasnain, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and Chairman of the Glaciers & Climate Change Commission, here today.

The nine-member Commission, set up by the Sikkim Government in September 2007 to study the state of the glaciers and its impact on water system in this tiny Himalayan State, held its first meeting here today.

With the setting up of this high-level panel, Sikkim has become the first State in the country to take up issue of global warming and its effects on the glaciers of the Himalayas in right earnest.

While delivering his lecture on the impact of climate change on glaciers, the ecosystem and livelihood in Sikkim, Prof Hasnain said that the research and data generated on the subject will lead to institutionalising studies in climatic changes in the country.

“Sikkim has become the torchbearer in the field of climate change and its impact on Himalayan glaciers. The State responded well in time to find ways and means to tackle this global phenomenon,” he said.

In his keynote address, the Chief Minister, Mr Pawan Chamling, said that like people living in the Himalayas who intermingle and interact with nature on a daily basis, Sikkimese too have observed the growing impact of global warming on the climate, the food chain system, unseasonal river flooding, landslides, etc.

“With a sense of heightened urgency, we have been called upon to think clear and act tough on issues of safeguarding environmental sanctity in this region and generate abounding global commitment towards effective measures to contain global warming,” he said.

Sikkim, which accounts for only 0.5 per cent of the total geographical area of the country with a population of a little over five-and-a-half lakh, has always remained the custodian of the Himalayan ecosystem, the Chief Minister said.

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