Climate change affecting livelihood options in Assam

The impact of the climate change is most pronounced among marginalised women, but it has also pushed people from prosperous families into taking up work of domestic assistance and daily wage labour, the study revealed.

In many cases, young women of less developed and remote areas have even been pushed into flesh trade after natural disasters wiped out their options of making an honest livelihood.

The study was conducted by the Centre for Environment, Social and Policy Research (CESPR) in collaboration with the Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change.

It has been observed that during the last few years there has been a significant change in the livelihood options of people due to climate distortions, CESPR spokesperson Sabita Devi says.

The study was undertaken in the six severely disaster-affected districts of Lakhimpur, Majuli in Jorhat, Morigaon, Sonitpur, Baksa and Dibrugarh.

Devi said many people, who were earlier dependent on agriculture, had been forced to take up other avenues of employment due to change in climatic pattern.

"Climate change is generally perceived by the people interviewed during the course of the study as the presence of more diseases, more rainfall, change in climatic conditions and loss of agricultural output," she said.

It was also an acute necessity that forced people to uproot themselves from their original homes and workplaces to seek livelihood somewhere, Devi said.

Devi pointed out that senior environmental scientists, who have worked extensively on environment and climate change in the Northeast, had noted rapid climatic change in Assam. (MORE)