With an early departure of migratory birds from the Pong Dam and untimely blooming of rhododendron flowers in February acting as alarm signals, scientists and environmentalists today stressed the need for incorporating climate impact and vulnerability into forestry programmes without any further delay.

“Seeing the accelerated impact of climate change, there is an urgent need to identify the most vulnerable areas and start dedicated pilot projects to arrest the adverse impact,” said Dr NH Ravindranath from the Centre for Sustainable Technologies and for Ecological Sciences, Bangalore.

He said the adverse impact of climate change would become much more pronounced in the coming years in the form of shorter monsoons but intense rainfall, leading to flash floods and great devastation.

“Almost half of the plant species, that are currently classified as ‘critically endangered’, could become extinct and in context of the Western Himalayan region, pine will the first casualty,” he warned.

He said due to the species movement from lower to higher altitude, Himachal should switch over from undertaking pine plantation to saal trees. “Himachal should take the lead in looking for forestry solutions to combat ill-effects of climate change which cannot be reversed,” he said.

He said the temperature in North India was likely to go up by almost four to six degrees during the next 50 years due to climate change. “The impact of climate change on bio-diversity is irreversible and as such we cannot afford to wait for scientific evidence. Hence, strategies to combat it must be enforced without further loss of time,” he said.

While admitting that hydro power generation was causing a lot of environmental damage, he said cement industry was the biggest culprit.

Dr Steven Hamburg, chief scientist, Environmental Defence Fund, International Work Programme, Massachusetts, USA, said forestry was a very powerful resource, which could address the issue of climate change effectively.