27th April 2022
Recognizing, climate change and the resulting habitat and biodiversity loss as a twin planetary crisis, the need for tackling these two challenges as a two-way process has become the critical need of the hour. Climate change is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss which further results in the ecosystem’s inability to regulate GHG emissions, thus accelerating our vulnerability to climate change and decreasing our capacity to adapt. This clearly explains why these two crises must be tackled together with holistic approaches that seek to address both issues simultaneously and not in silos.
Taking these crises into consideration, the Department of Forests and Park Services and the National Center for Hydrology and Meteorology today signed an MoU to collaborate on long-term climate monitoring and efforts to reverse biodiversity loss in the state reserved forests of Bhutan. This is expected to bring in better coordination, collaboration, and consolidation of approaches and efforts for positive impactful results.
With the following objectives of the MoU:
- Jointly establish, operate and collect data on long-term climate monitoring stations in the State Reserved Forests;
- Enhance institutional capacity through training and joint field works;
- Facilitate the exchange of hydro-met data between NCHM and DoFPS and
- Conduct joint research on the impact of climate change on Protected Area Offices or Divisional Forest Offices,
The two agencies plan to work and collaborate in the following areas:
- Establish a long-term climate monitoring station network within the State Reserved Forests
- Jointly operate and maintain climate monitoring network for data collection;
- Facilitate the exchange of hydro-met data and environment data;
- Conduct joint study and research related to climate change and its impacts on water, wildlife, and related areas;
- Strengthen institutional capacity in climate data collection and generation of weather, climate, and hydrological information and its applications;
- Promote mutual access to scientific facilities for the purposes of research and related applications;
- Encourage collaboration and cooperation of projects involving the exchange of experts between the Parties through the development of joint project proposals and implementation; and
During the signing ceremony convened at the Department of Forests and Park Services, the Director of NCHM expressed his appreciation for the fund support provided by Bhutan for Life (BFL) Program for the installation of automatic weather stations spread across the protected area network and for climate modeling studies through the BFL- Program Coordination Unit of the Department of Forests and Park Services and asked for the continuous support of forestry personnel in generating accurate climate data.
The Director of the Department of Forests and Park Services mentioned that this is one good beginning for the collaborative work for a generation of climate data that is necessary not just for biodiversity conservation but for all spheres of work undertaken for economic progress mainly in the agriculture sector. Department of Forests and Park Services with its presence even in the remotest of the place has the advantage of collecting and maintaining data as well as taking care of weather stations that he welcomed to be built close to forest offices.
Through this MoU, NCHM is expected to train forest personnel in maintaining weather stations, and collect and send climate data to the repository, while NCHM is expected to analyze and share climate data for planning adaptations for preventing biodiversity loss and sustainably managing our forest resources.
