People’s Perception-Based Identification of Climate Change Risks Faced by the Smallholder Community of the Western Indian Himalayan Region

Combining agriculture, animal rearing, and forest product gathering is the traditional rural livelihood system of the Himalayan regions. This interlinked livelihood system is so intense and complex, that any minor disturbance in any one of these practices affects the whole system. A number of phenomena, i.e., erratic weather conditions, low crop productions, emerging cash needs, lack of interest, etc., are depressing this system. The present study discusses the weakening causes of traditional livelihood in light of the causes and impacts of modified rural livelihood. The study aims to sketch strategies to adapt these changes with available resources in such undulating and remote terrain. For this, the perceptions of a total number of 4265 households from the villages of Uttarakhand were investigated in this study. The larger sample size was maintained to acquire regional level perspectives on changing lifestyles. To frame the adaptation measures for the whole mid and higher Himalayan regions. The collected responses were about changing weather conditions (rainfall, snowfall, etc.) and its effects on the natural resources and traditional livelihood system in the region. These perceptions were filtered with the available published researches. Then the filtered results were discussed with different groups of society, i.e., scientists, officers of line departments, farmers, and social workers, with different brainstorming workshops at the Rural Technology Center of the institute. After a thorough discussion, the experts felt that since the natural causes cannot be controlled, there is a need for technical interventions for rural livelihood enhancement. They further recommended that the participation of local communities is prominent to achieve sustainability in the interventions to adapt to the socio-climatic changes in the Himalayan region.