Avijit Mistri - Environmental Change, Livelihood Issues and Migration: Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, India

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With the climate change, climate-induced migration is a growing concern, especially in the low-lying coastal areas and islands in the developing countries. India is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change due to high exposure on multiple fronts along with low adaptive capacity. The Himalayas with its vast glaciers in the north and north-east, around 70 million hectares of forest areas with rich natural endowments, and 7,000-km-long coastline with 14.2% (171 million) of Indian population and 13 metro cities expose India to be more vulnerable than any other places. This book deals with empirical data of Indian Sundarban, which is a coastal location, an island setup, and contains magnificent biodiversity which demands out-standing universal values in the front of climate change. Drawing on the field investigation, this book Environmental Change, Livelihood Issues and Migration: Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, India argues that environmental change in Sundarban affects the livelihood of the islanders and their perceived risk; lack of job opportunities, development deficits, livelihood conflict with environmental legislation, and strategy of migration are widely discussed with empirical rigour. This book is organised into nine chapters and seeks to contribute to the study of climate change and migration nexus which is very challenging due to data limitation and methodology abstruseness. The study reflects the development potential through cyclic migration a policy intervention to facilitate it on one hand and conservation of biosphere reserve on the other hand. In general, it is a good research work blending both the quantitative and qualitative approach.

I hope that this publication will add to the knowledge of potential scholars, researchers and policymakers regarding the emerging sub-branch of migration study that is environmental migration. I congratulate both the authors, Dr. Mistri and Dr. Das, for carrying on the mammoth task and hope many more works in the future.