Invasive Alien Species Dispersal - The Millennium Biodiversity Disaster

Praseeda Sanu V. and Newport Jayanth K.

Even though natural disasters like droughts, cyclones, tsunamis, etc. are considered as major disasters that disturb the socio-economic conditions of the people in many parts of our country, it is not a miss to mention that the next generation disaster is going to be the biodiversity disaster. Species disbursal will be the prime reason for the biodiversity disaster that will have adverse effect on food security and nutrition of human beings. Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are those that are transmitted from their own ecological niche to a new niche due to man made reasons, which cause the biodiversity disaster. International boundaries are indeed porous to the intentional and unintentional movement of species from various eco systems in our country. Few initiatives are being taken by IUCN and governance of eco system from invasive alien species is a felt need in this millennium. Sustainable Eco System Governance (SESG) from Invasive Alien Species should be emphasized to avoid biodiversity disaster that will have impact on food security and nutrition of human beings.

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‘Gendering’ Disaster Management mainstreaming gender in disaster interventions

Chauhan Sunil

Disasters cause great damage, destruction and human suffering. Though often caused by nature, ironically disasters are not impartial and neutral as nature is. They do not impact men and women alike and are greatly discriminatory. An OXFAM report on the Asian tsunami puts this clearly “disasters, however natural, are profoundly discriminatory. Wherever they hit, pre-existing structures and social conditions determine that some members of the community will be less affected while others will pay a higher price. Among the differences that determine how people are affected by such disasters is that of gender”. Today, the importance of the gender perspective during times of crisis and emergencies is acknowledged both on account of the differentiated impact on men and women and on account of the different strategies adopted by them to deal with such situations. However mainstreaming of gender dimension in disaster interventions is yet to receive the impetus it deserves. This paper explores gender dynamics in disaster management and puts forth few recommendations for mainstreaming of gender issues in disaster management. The arguments are in no way exhaustive and serve only as a tool for advocacy and awareness building of this important facet in disaster management.

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Role of NGOs in Management of Natural Disasters

Mohanty Manoranjan

Whenever natural disasters strike, then the management comes into picture because immediate relief is a must. Government extends the help but it takes its own time and therefore Non Government Organizations (NGOs) play the key role in reducing the sufferings of victims of disasters.

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Role of Psycho-social Support Programmes following Natural Disasters

Prewitt Diaz Joseph O

In poor disaster situation, an approach towards people’s physical, psychological and social needs is very necessary. Red Cross Society is doing a good job towards recovery operation and re-establishment. Disasters have very serious impacts and support should be as per specific local needs

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Disaster Management from Crisis to Cure – The Indian Scenario

Dutta Baisakhi and Shastri Vijaya

Disaster management is a macroscopic concept. It does not pertain to a handful of disasters. The list of disasters is endless. Some occur where nature is responsible, while human beings are responsible to for the rest. In a way, disasters always have an adverse effect on the environment. It is quiet clear that disaster management and environmental management are complimentary to each other. India focuses on building a surplus by the process of globalization, industrialization etc.

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Natural Resources and Environmental Degradation and its Management through Education among the People of Garhwal Himalayas

Pandey I. P.

Over-exploitation of natural resources by growing population resulted in various severe problems such as landslides, floods, drought, earthq-uakes that resulted unbalanced ecosystems. A recent example is the result of severe landslide at Uttar-kashi. Balanced ecosystem is an urgent need in Himalayans. If the ecosystem is not improved, the living beings cannot exist in these areas. The Garhwal Himalayas is the main resource of water, streams and reservoirs. The over-increasing population, developmental activities and technol-ogical modernization have over-exploited available resources without taking into consideration the damages and consequences for coming generations. Vegetation plays an important role in protecting land and water. These resources are being used up at an alarming rate due to cause of human beings intervention. An urgent need exists to educate people for development of the positive attitudes towards the natural resources and environmental managements.

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Recognition of seismic precursory activities using Self-Organizing Feature Maps (SOFM) Neural Networks

AllamehZadeh M. and Abbassi M. R

Recent developments of the neural classifiers indicate that they are useful in solving many difficult problems in seismology such as discrimination analysis, seismic pattern classification, seismic phase identification and Earthquake Statistics. The clustering seismicity such as Swarms and aftershocks distribution pattern can also be identified. In this paper, Self-Organizing Feature Maps (SOFM) are used for recognition of pairing earthquakes and doughnut patterns. The present experiments using SOFM confirmed that the algorithm could be applied for forecasting seismic precursory phenomena. Their main advantages are learning capability for generalization and finding new solutions to problems that are not too well defined.

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Myths of Hurricane Katrina

Kelman Ilan

When Hurricane Katrina struck the USA’s Gulf Coast in 2005, many myths emerged. The myths of Katrina encompass the “new” insights into disaster risk reduction, incorporating emergency management, which were ostensibly “learned” from the event, even though they were lessons which were re-learnt or, in fact, re-identified without necessarily being learnt and applied. This paper selects six such lessons, giving an overview of the pre-Katrina knowledge which was available and which should have been used in order to avoid these concerns recurring due to Katrina: • Community-based disaster risk reduction. • Disaster diplomacy. • Disaster shelter. • Evacuees with special needs. • Reliance on structural defences. • Swiftwater rescue.

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Mercury, Climate and The Food Web

Ferguson Robert

Writing in Environmental Health Perspectives (2005), Booth and Zeller [hereafter BZ05] embark on the highly ambitious task of applying ecosystem modeling to the difficult problem of tracing the flow of methylmercury (MeHg) - the biologically active, potentially toxic form of mercury - in the Faroe Island marine ecosystem as changing functions of both fish mortality (commercial catch rates) and climate. The paper further attempts to estimate weekly MeHg intake by the Faroese from consumption of mainly pilot whale meat and cod fish - two key sources of MeHg exposures in Faroese diets. BZ05 displays the risk inherent in favoring computer modeling results over real world data. Such an exercise, increasingly common and problematic in climate science, often produces tenuous outcomes. More specifically, Booth and Zeller, with their minimal “what if” modeling efforts, cobble together a grab-bag of speculative assertions, problematic statements, harm attributions and over-reaching conclusions.

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