In Vietnam: Ecosystems and Livelihoods Adaptation Network - Key Concepts
- 1. Key Concepts - Integrating ecosystem management approaches into people-centered adaptation Carina Bachofen April 28, 2011 Hanoi, Vietnam
- 2. How has climate change affected your work? Does your organization focus on a particular aspect of climate change? What do you think are the major challenges to implementing adaptation policy and practice in Vietnam? Addressing Climate Change in Vietnam
- 3. What does good adaptation look like? Long-term livelihood security A continuous process Results are sustained Resources are efficiently and sustainably used Pro-poor planning is key Old strategies and new knowledge are combined - Addressing changing disaster risks
- 4. Community-based Adaptation A community-led process based on communities’ priorities, needs, knowledge, and capacities, which should empower people to plan for and adapt to the impacts of climate change Hannah Reid, Mozaharul Alam, Rachel Berger, Terry Cannon, Saleemul Huq, and Angela Milligan, Community-based adaptation to climate change: an overview, 2010
- 5. Focus for Today: Integrated Approaches to Adaptation WHAT is the role that ecosystem goods and services play in community-based adaptation? WHY is integrating sound ecosystem management important for adaptation policy and practice that helps people? HOW can we integrate sound ecosystem management practices into policy and practice that helps people adapt?
- 6. Understanding the role of ecosystems in community-based adaptation Why is integrating sound ecosystem management important for adaptation? To improve our diagnosis To avoid maladaptation To reduce costs and increase sustainability
- 7. 2. Avoiding Maladaptation Promoting sound ecosystem management in adaptation can: Avoid one-sided or incoherent, approaches based on NRM Discourage destructive practices (i.e. degradation, deforestation, etc) Improve human health, facilitate human habitation, economic activity, and sustainable livelihood activities
- 8. 3. Reducing costs of adaptation while building community resilience Ecosystem-based solutions are often more effective and less costly than “hard” infrastructure options
- 9. How do we integrate ecosystem management approaches into adaptation planning? Promote approaches that reduce human pressures on ecosystems Emphasize bottom-up approaches that promote community engagement in adaptation Promote and maintain flexibility to adapt to a dynamic climate Work across different social, political and ecological scales
- 10. Integrated Approaches: a new way of thinking about Adaptation No longer an adaptation option perhaps the adaptation option! A work in progress What are your thoughts?
- 11. Thank you! Carina Bachofen bachofen.iucn@gmail.com ELAN Website: www.elanadapt.net
Editor's Notes
- #5: As development practitioners working on climate change, we are familiar with this term. What may be less clear, however, is the crucial role that ecosystem goods and services play in strengthening the adaptive capacity and ensuring the well-being of people. Emphasizing and promoting the role of sound ecosystem management approaches into people-centered adaptation is an important new way of approaching adaptation. We refer to this perspective as an integrated approach to adaptation.
- #6: Throughout the ppt I will give examples of the What.
- #8: For example, if we address the problem of shifting flooding patterns in the Mekong, we know that wetlands may need to adapt to changing levels and duration of flooding. Even subtle changes may push certain species and the services they provide past key thresholds. How do we help to ensure this ecosystem can adapt? At the same time, local communities involved in capture fisheries may actually gain from increases in flood levels and duration of flooding events. How do we ensure their livelihood security over the long-term? How do we reconcile the two and promote effective, efficient and equitable adaptation interventions? An integrated approach to adaptation would consider these multiple challenges related to increasing climate variability and change. Understanding importance of healthy ecosystems for communities can help lead to policies that protect ecosystems and promote human well-being. For example, with the right incentives, based on an integrated approach perspective, community members, governments and even the private sector that may have contributed to deforestation in the past may see value in protecting forests today and in the future.
- #9: For example, constructing dams can be very costly and actually add stress to wetland ecosystems by fragmenting habitats and threatening the well-being of downstream communities. Similarly, sea walls may be built to protect coastal infrastructure but after a storm event, they may actually trap salt water in, or over time need to be maintained and built up. Mangroves may provide a natural, more cost-effective alternative to regulating increasing storm surge and cyclone events.
- #10: This basically is a review of the checklist for good adaptation practice that this presentation begins with. We are essentially talking about grounding our adaptation work in integrated approaches - for enabling enhanced diagnosis of the problem; a sound process; and better policy and instrument design to ensure sustained well-being of vulnerable populations.