A large group of Indian scientists and ecologists pressing the alarm bell on "Super" El Niño and cautioning the country to brace for devastating ecological impact from November to the first few months of 2027 is a wake-up call for the ecologically fragile Northeast region. The approaching Super El Niño is likely to bring exceptional climatic conditions to marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems in India, they warned in "A Call to Ecologists" issued by them. This warning implies that mitigation measures cannot be restricted to copybook or playbook routines- they will require specific planning adaptive to specific landscapes, risks, species behaviour and ground realities. The appeal signed by 188 scientists and ecologists has warned that "effects of extreme climate are likely to be seen across all levels of ecological systems, potentially amplifying existing stressors." They further explained: The El Niño is a periodic (every 2-7 years) climatic event that is triggered by changed ocean circulation and warming in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and while its consequences vary in different parts of the world, in India, El Niño events are typically associated with higher temperatures and a delayed/reduced monsoon. With 87% of Assam's net sown area being rainfed, the agricultural production system will be under severe stress if the monsoon is delayed and rainfall is reduced. This calls for expeditious implementation of all irrigation projects to increase water availability for seasonal crops to shield rainfed farmers from crop loss or crop failure due to extreme weather. The ecologists have warned that although the last El Niño was only two years ago in 2024, all signs they have observed point towards another El Niño event this year much larger in magnitude. They found that since May 2026, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific have exceeded the threshold for declaring an El Niño event, and those temperatures have been rising steadily, reaching 2.60°C above normal in August 2026. "Projections report possible anomalies of up to +4°C, which is higher than at any time in the past 1,000 years, based on reconstructions from coral cores," the appeal added, explaining why normal mitigation measures will not be effective and emphasising that the developing situation requires extraordinary precautions and preparedness. A specific prediction made by ecologists that has direct relevance to Assam and other states in the region is the deepening of human-wildlife conflicts. They have expressed the apprehension that extreme climate is expected to affect a number of interactions in ecological systems, which are closely associated with the human societies that live within and alongside them, such as resource extraction and human-wildlife interactions. Another impact of the Super El Niño projected by ecologists, which may adversely affect the ecosystem in the region, is the curtailing of workable days for fishers and agro-pastoralists due to extreme heat and shifting productive regimes. The unstable wider production matrix, in turn, can lead to over-extraction from natural ecosystems, with the pressures for food and livelihood spilling over to forests, wetlands and riverine ecosystems to compensate for loss of household income from cropland and associated activities. Over-extraction from natural ecosystems will only lead to further degradation of these ecosystems, resulting in loss of food and shelter for wildlife species in these ecosystems, and this degradation, in turn, will deepen negative human-wildlife interactions. Agriculture and allied activities in the villages in the forest fringe are heavily dependent on ecosystem services of these forest areas, and loss of these services will only push the farmers in these areas to depend more on the forest for livelihood if alternative livelihood avenues are not available to them. Strengthening crop insurance cover under the flagship crop insurance scheme - Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and the Restructured Weather-based Crop Insurance Scheme - is critical to mitigating the crop loss due to reduced rainfall or delayed monsoon. Making the enrolment and claim processes easier for farmers covered by these insurance schemes remains crucial to achieving the stated objectives and intent of these government schemes. The region being highly dependent on supplies of food grain from the rest of India to cater to rising food demand is exposed to supply shocks in other regions due to Super El Niño. This situation calls for state governments in the region to prioritise storing buffer stocks of essential food products to moderate inflationary pressure that may deepen on account of crop failure or crop loss in the source areas due to extreme weather. The ecologists have noted in their appeal that Indian Meteorological Department bulletins project El Niño effects until at least March 2027 (when their projections end), and the effects are likely to continue well beyond then. This demands that the preparedness for Super El Niño impact must be for a much longer period. The warning sounded by ecologists-that time is short, and adequate response demands urgency-must not go unheeded if we are to protect both ecosystems and communities.