This post was written primarily by Peter
McGowran, a PhD candidate at King’s College London who is undertaking extended
fieldwork in Kalimpong over the next 6 months, working with Save the Hills
throughout. Praful Rao of Save the Hills (STH) also had significant input on
this post. The views expressed below are Peter's.
My main focus is landslide risk
management, specifically the development processes which lead to the creation of
landslide risk and the ways in which these processes can be changed — through
governance — so that landslide risk is reduced. I am generally interested in
how different communities can imagine and work towards more sustainable
futures. I am writing my own blog during my time in The Hills, available here.
If you would like more information on my research, you can reach me at peter.mcgowran@kcl.ac.uk.
In this blog, I will cover my activities
with Praful and STH from 5th-7th of June 2019. On
Wednesday I attended the Kalimpong Municipality World Environment Day event on
waste management. On Thursday and Friday I visited a number of old landslide
sites and landslide prone areas around Kalimpong, as well as the Kalimpong
waste dump which has recently been shut down. I will give some general
information on each site and give some of my reflections on the environmental
issues facing Kalimpong.
Wednesday (05Jun2019):
I arrived in Kalimpong at a time when the
problem of solid waste management was the ‘burning issue’ of the day. Only 4 days after
my arrival, there was to be an event held at the town hall where the issue of
plastic waste would be discussed. The event was organised by the Kalimpong Municipality and was part of Kalimpong’s ‘World Environment Day’ (05Jun2019) activities.
The event was useful for me to understand
the problems facing solid waste management in Kalimpong specifically. It is
worth noting that Kalimpong’s geography means it has some specific obstacles to overcome in relation to waste
management:
- Space- Kalimpong does not have vast amounts
of flat areas which might usually be used for landfill and/or other waste
management initiatives
- Drainage - Kalimpong’s urban centre sits
at the top of the hill. Communities downstream often suffer the most from the
solid waste disposed of at the top of t, as it is washed down in jhoras (natural rivulets). This is not only unfair but impacts some of Kalimpong’s
agricultural areas too. Roshan Rai of DLR Prerna discussed the increasing
problem of plastic waste infiltrating our food, water and even our own bodies.
These problems are directly related to the issue of plastic waste polluting
agricultural areas and bodies of water, as happens in Kalimpong.
- Complexity of environmental issues faced in Kalimpong - Managing solid waste management can have other environmental impacts
which are specific to Kalimpong and other communities which have similar
geographies. For example, the old waste dump below the MacFarlane memorial
church contributed to the occurrence of a major landslide in the vicinity of
Kalimpong townin 2007, covered
by STH at the time.
Nonetheless, the issue of solid waste
management is a problem that Kalimpong shares with communities the world over.
Solutions exist, but their implementation will require us to make difficult
decisions about our everyday lives and the status quo of our political and economic
system. The solutions can be broadly placed into two main categories.
The first is changing individual behaviour,
and the second involves systemic change. The two of course are interconnected,
but this categorisation can help us to the issues. For example, changing
individual behaviour in relation to single use plastics would go a long way to
addressing the problem of plastic pollution in Kalimpong. This would be done by
first reducing, refusing, reusing and recycling single-use plastic products;
and second segregating what remains so that the municipality can manage it more
efficiently. People can also work collectively in small groups to hold those in
positions of power to account for not tackling these issues through legislation
and policy-making. This would force big businesses to take action on a problem
which they create, but take no responsibility to address. Civil society needs to make it
clear that their responsibility for the waste does not end at the point of
sale. Without this, we won’t be able to ‘turn off the tap’ and get real about
dealing with this crisis. Collectively, these small-scale solutions can lead to
systemic change. Until these things happen, we will continue to get single-use
plastics in our lunchboxes.
Thursday (06June2019)
Kalimpong’s
Waste Dump:
On Thursday, Praful and his cousin were
showing me around various landslide prone areas of Kalimpong. As part of the
field trip, they drove me to Kalimpong’s recently disused waste dump, situated
in Newar Gaon, Bhalukhop, Kalimpong. The dump was supposed to work in tandem
with the expensive biogas generation plant next to it, which only worked for a
couple of months and is now completely defunct. The dump was shut down after it
caught fire on 12/04/19, causing local villagers to complain about the toxic
fumes. Their claims that the dump and its fumes were harmful to their health were
completely justified. The dump is now constantly burning, with the gases
released perpetuating the flames. The fumes released from this are incredibly
harmful and caused me to choke more than once. You can see the scale of the
problem in the photos below and this
short video.
Pictures
of the dump
Since the closure of the dump, piles of
waste have been accumulating all around Kalimpong. With nowhere for it to go,
the waste gathers where rainwater deposits it or at points which become designated
as local dumpsites. People are also piling waste around their houses. Many of
these piles of waste are being burned. I really can’t stress enough that burning this waste is not a solution and probably
makes things worse. Numerous studies have shown how incredibly harmful the
burning of plastics is on human health. The below excerpt from a
review of current research suggests that burning plastic waste can:
‘Increase
the risk of heart disease, aggravate respiratory ailments such as asthma and
emphysema, and cause rashes, nausea, or headaches, damages in the nervous
system, kidney or liver, in the reproductive and development system. The
burning of polystyrene polymers - such as foam cups, meat trays, egg
containers, yogurt and deli containers - releases styrene. Styrene gas can
readily be absorbed through the skin and lungs’
Walking around Kalimpong, I have seen the
smoke from burning plastic filling people’s homes and lungs. This is causing
immense harm to people’s health, particularly children. The issue of health
should be at the forefront of the campaign for government and industry to stop
creating single use plastics. These issues appear to be worse in The Hills, perhaps
due to the specific problems outlined above. A recent
government study found that annual air pollution has recently decreased in
all parts of West Bengal apart from Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts.
Burning plastic is not only a health issue.
Plastic releases a large amount of greenhouse-gas emissions which contribute to
climate change. The impacts of which are unclear but are almost certain to
affect Kalimpong in future. This will be through unsettling established
rainfall patterns, increasing heavy rainfall events and melting Himalayan icecaps;
which will impact the already-stressed water supplies of places like Kalimpong.
What can be done about the plastic waste
currently piling up on the streets and blocking the jhoras of Kalimpong? First, it is important to note that the solution to the plastic waste crisis as
a whole is to stop producing plastic — especially single-use. However, it is important to
think about how we can deal with the single use plastic we have already created
— through methods other than burning/incineration. On a personal level, I
believe the schemes which look to re-purpose and reuse plastics are the most sustainable
options. This often centres around re-purposing plastic for construction
materials, like in this project
funded by the UK Department for International Development and numerous
other examples which can be found by a google search. This is an idea which is
being developed the world over, and maybe a solution which could be pursued in
Kalimpong. In order for this to happen, there will need to be engagement from
high levels of government and funds made available for research and
implementation.
Landslides:
For the rest of Thursday, Praful showed me
some of the most landslide prone areas of Kalimpong’s Western face. To get a
good view of the overall situation — and after a good lunch — we crossed the
Teesta into Darjeeling district and climbed the opposite hill to get a good
vantage point of the hill which Kalimpong sits on. From here, it was possible
to see landslide scars all the way up the Chibo-Pashyor jhora.
Our route involved climbing back up the
hill and stopping at various points along the jhora to look at landslide prone areas and understand the processes
which lead to landslides happening.
A
very quick explanation of some processes which lead to landslide occurrence:
As one would expect, the jhora widens as it
descends down the hill. This is a natural process and reflects the basics of
geology and hydrology. As the channel widens, the land around falls into the
jhoras, unsettling the land in a wider radius. This happens in the monsoon,
when the jhoras overflow with run-off water. Kalimpong is particularly
susceptible to this due to its geology, which has lead to extremely soft and
silty rocks. You can see this in this
video where I am able to simply run my hand over the bank of the jhora and
remove a chunk of rock which then crumbles in my hand. These natural processes
have been amplified by the frenetic urban development at the crest of the hill
in Kalimpong town. These activities include: urbanisation, laying concrete down
for roads and buildings, artificially pumping water into the town, blocking
drains with solid waste, and deforestation. As a result, the jhoras have
become more eroded and increased the amount of land which is at risk of
slipping. This combined with the creeping downhill urbanisation of Kalimpong
Town and surrounding villages means that the risk of landslides occuring which will have
negative impacts on human lives is constantly increasing (Rumbach and
Folligstad 2018, Rumbach and Nemeth 2018). Below I will work through our journey
back up the hill along the jhora:
The
Jhora near the bottom of the hill – near Pashyor village:
Here the jhora is very wide. There is
evidence of land and rocks falling into the channel from the land around, and
also signs that this will continue throughout the coming monsoon. There is also
a wooden bridge over the channel, which Praful expects to disappear during the
first week of the monsoon.
Our
penultimate stop – some more ‘concrete’ engineering work:
This was the first place where we saw some
management of the jhora. The engineering consisted of concrete
river training and a concrete bridge over the top. It remains to be seen
whether this bridge will survive the monsoon rains. The river training below
might help the bridge’s chances, but this concretisation is also a concern for
increasing the run-off further downstream. Concrete — here and all over — prevents
water from absorbing into the ground which would decreas run-off and in so-doing
replenish Kalimpong’s water supply.
Reaching
the top of the hill – Chibo-Bustee:
After a short drive we reached Chibo-Bustee, where we saw the most obvious evidence of land-slippage.
The land around the jhora is not only directly affected by the jhora, but also by subsidence
further downstream. The pictures below show some signs of land-slippage and erosion. It is
difficult to predict whether landslides will happen here over the monsoon,
though it could be said that landslides will continue to occur here in the
long run.
Friday (07June2019):
The plan for Friday was similar to Thursday,
only this time we would be looking at Kalimpong’s Eastern slope. Before setting
off, Praful showed me one of the sites of the Oct 1968 Landslide Disaster where around 15 people had perished, just a few minutes’ walk
from his house. The area is now completely built over. The aim of disaster risk
management must be to ensure that such events never happen again.
We then headed towards the northern fringes of Kalimpong (in the Dalapchand area) and stopped at two jhora/road crossings. Landslides had occurred at both
sites in the past, and the second site particularly was showing signs of erosion — shown in an old picture below (the cracks are still there).
In the case of the latter, a road construction over the jhora and a stone
quarry some way further downstream had unsettled the land. This site is a
concern for the water management office as there are a number of vital supply
pipes directly above this site.
At a road bridge crossing over a different jhora
further down the hill, we saw some landslide mitigation and river-training work.
In the case of river training at a road crossing, the work is done by the Public Works Department (PWD) and the river (jhora) training only covers around 5-10 metres
up and downstream of the road crossing in order to protect the road — meaning that the run-off is controlled
and then is allowed to strengthen again after passing over the engineered channel. The mitigation works have worked for now, but were showing that over the years they
had been seriously damaged by slippage and erosion. The jhora also reflects most
other jhoras in Kalimpong, in that they serve as convenient waste disposal receptacles.
After a lunch of momos and noodles, we took
a steep and rough road to Sindebung village. We walked through the village and
some farmland and then reached a site of an old landslide in the bowels of Kalimpong town, which continues to
subside. An elderly villager came out to meet us and explained where his land was before 1968, when the infamous rainfall event had triggered slippage which has continued to eat away at his land since. He also explained that as a result, himself and other villagers — previously landowners who could sell their own produce — had been forced to work as daily wage labourers/coolies. He also explained that the land
next to his house continued to slip and was creating cracks all over his home.
The edge of the hill was so close now that they would have to move their house
further back and away from the slope. We then walked a little further down the hill to the jhora where some years back STH had secured funding from the MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for some river training work to be done — shown in the photo below. It
has been largely successful in this small area so far, but the continued
subsidence of the nearby land — described above — shows that it is not enough to prevent slippage
from occurring.
Overall
reflections – this is a problem bigger than Kalimpong:
Many of the processes described above are natural. The
geology combined with the climate of this region means that the land is moulded
and shaped by the water which falls heavily during the monsoon. Anthropogenic
processes mean that the rate of this land-change has been amplified, and the impacts
of these changes — or landslides — are viewed as ‘disasters’ by society. Kalimpong
cannot rely on engineering alone to ensure that the impact of these landslides
is reduced. A more sustainable approach is to not treat nature as something we need to
fight against through engineering — especially when it is considered that in
this ‘fight’ we are actively helping our so-called opponent by amplifying what it
is capable of through our own obsession with concrete, single-use plastic and endless economic
growth. Instead, we should re-engage with the natural processes and work with
them to understand how we can work with them to reduce the impact of landslides, rather than
exacerbate them.
For Kalimpong and the world, an important part of this will be
to stop taking naturally occurring materials and turning them into man-made
products. Large companies take oil — made out of organic materials which have
decomposed over millenia — out of the ground turn it into petrol and single-use plastic
which people use then bury or burn. People
in Kalimpong and the rest of the world take rock out of mountains and turn it into
concrete, which then puts pressure on the very same slopes it was removed from
— causing landslides. These products are harmful to our health, our environment
and our future. There are other options available and we must start to prioritize
them over concrete, plastic and petrol. If we don’t, the impact of landslides
will continue to grow; established weather patterns will become more erratic; and plastic will continue to build up in our food supply, water supply and bodies. We will descend into a catastrophe that will arrive slowly, and gradually
degrade our quality of life to the extent that we are unable to reverse the
damage we have brought upon ourselves.
Peter McGowran - King's College London
___________________________________________
My thanks to Peter for his interest in this region and for the above post.
Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya
