Focused Group Discussion with East Kolkata Wetland Community.

At the grassroots level, with East Kolkata Wetlands community, a Focused Group Discussion, participatory SWOT and awareness program was organized by SAFE with Earthwatch Institute on 22nd September 2015.

The activity aimed at sensitizing the fisher community member towards better understanding of the ecosystem and the Ecosystem Services provided by the East Kolkata Wetland. The programme was totally participatory and interactive in nature.

FGD aimed at sensitizing the community members towards better understanding of the ecosystem services provided by the East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) as well as validating and categorizing the present ecosystem services. The FGD also aimed at evaluating the degree of the impact of the drivers which influence the provisioning ecosystem services adversely.

FGD methodology:

FGD aimed at sensitizing the community members towards better understanding of the ecosystem services provided by the East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) as well as validating and categorizing the present ecosystem services. The FGD also aimed at evaluating the degree of the impact of the drivers which influence the provisioning ecosystem services adversely. Following steps were followed to conduct the FGD.

1.At the very beginning the scientific team from SAFE thanked all the community members to allow SAFE and EarthWatch to work at Sukantanagar fishing cooperative and also for presence of the community members at the programme.

2.It was followed by a short introductory address on the importance of ecosystem services and the ecosystem services provided by the EKW.

3.The community members were then asked to share their perception regarding the ecosystem services they enjoy from the surrounding wetlands.

4.On the basis of the response a list of ecosystem services were prepared.

5.Each of the listed ecosystem services were discussed individually and the community members were asked to rank the ecosystem services according to the level of benefits they get from the particular ecosystem service.

6.To get better feedback, an interactive tool was prepared. A five point scale was conceived indicating very high, high, moderate, low and very low benefit from the ecosystem services. Five sheets of papers were taken and each of the scale divisions was written on each of the five papers. The papers were then placed on the ground according to the order. The individual community members were then given single pebbles collected from the surroundings and were requested to place the pebbles on the sheets paper indicating the scale which would convey the rating.

7.As all the participants finished the rating procedure, the pebbles accumulated on each of the sheet of papers were counted which showed the cumulative rating of the particular ecosystem service. The result was conveyed to the community members.

8.The same procedure was followed to evaluate the importance of the ecosystem services as perceived by the community members. 

9.On the basis of the rating given by the community members a priority list of the ecosystem services were prepared.

10.The same procedure was also followed to assess the degree of the impact of the drivers which influence the provisioning ecosystem services adversely.

The FGD revealed a clear idea regarding the community’s perception towards the importance of ecosystem services. Aquaculture, Agriculture, tourism, aesthetic aspiration, and habitat for species are the prominent ecosystem services as perceived by the Sukantanagar fishing community members.

Of the two main provisioning services namely aquaculture and agriculture, aquaculture is of very high to moderate importance as the livelihood of the fishing community depends on it. Whereas agriculture has moderate to very low importance to them as in spite of having scopes to develop kitchen gardens, agriculture is not regularly practiced by the community due to the lack of infrastructure. 

Tourism is of very high to moderate importance as ecotourism is the supplementary livelihood support for the community. The community members were also aware of the aesthetic aspiration of the wetland and they themselves also enjoy the environment where they work. 

Importance of the species  specially the biota of the surrounding wetland were of very high to moderate importance to the community as they are supplementary source for food and medicine.

The focused group discussion with the community reveals that there are two major drivers namely climate variability and constant siltation in the wetland which have their negative influence on aquaculture, the main provisioning service. Of these two drivers, siltation has high to very high impact on the production of the fishes. 

Constant siltation leads to constant reduction in the water depth of the fishing tanks for last five to seven years which has its adverse effects on fish production. The fishing community has adopted various coping strategy to increase the resilience. 

Climatic variability has high to moderate impact on the aquaculture practice. The effect of the climate variability is inconsistent, short-lived, drastic and unpredictable in nature. As a result the community still could not come across any coping strategy to increase the resilience towards climate variability.