Scaling Success: Lessons from Adaptation Pilots in the Rainfed Regions of India

"Scaling Success" examines how agricultural communities are adapting to the challenges posed by climate change through the lens of India's rainfed agriculture regions. Rainfed agriculture currently occupies 58 percent of India's cultivated land and accounts for up to 40 percent of its total food production. However, these regions face potential production losses of more than $200 billion USD in rice, wheat, and maize by 2050 due to the effects of climate change. Unless action is taken soon at a large scale, farmers will see sharp decreases in revenue and yields.Rainfed regions across the globe have been an important focus for the first generation of adaptation projects, but to date, few have achieved a scale that can be truly transformational. Drawing on lessons learnt from 21 case studies of rainfed agriculture interventions, the report provides guidance on how to design, fund and support adaptation projects that can achieve scale

Participatory scenarios as a tool to link science and policy on food security under climate change in East Africa

How effective are multi-stakeholder scenarios building processes to bring diverse actors together and create a policy-making tool to support sustainable development and promote food security in the developing world under climate change? The effectiveness of a participatory scenario development process highlights the importance of ‘boundary work’ that links actors and organizations involved in generating knowledge on the one hand, and practitioners and policymakers who take actions based on that knowledge on the other. This study reports on the application of criteria for effective boundary work to a multi-stakeholder scenarios process in East Africa that brought together a range of regional agriculture and food systems actors. This analysis has enabled us to evaluate the extent to which these scenarios were seen by the different actors as credible, legitimate and salient, and thus more likely to be useful. The analysis has shown gaps and opportunities for improvement on these criteria, such as the quantification of scenarios, attention to translating and communicating the results through various channels and new approaches to enable a more inclusive and diverse group of participants. We conclude that applying boundary work criteria to multi-stakeholder scenarios processes can do much to increase the likelihood of developing sustainable development and food security policies that are more appropriate

Community-Based Approaches to Reducing Health Inequities and Fostering Environmental Justice through Global Youth-Engaged Citizen Science

Growing socioeconomic and structural disparities within and between nations have created unprecedented health inequities that have been felt most keenly among the world’s youth. While policy approaches can help to mitigate such inequities, they are often challenging to enact in under-resourced and marginalized communities. Community-engaged participatory action research provides an alternative or complementary means for addressing the physical and social environmental contexts that can impact health inequities. The purpose of this article is to describe the application of a particular form of technology-enabled participatory action research, called the Our Voice citizen science research model, with youth. An overview of 20 Our Voice studies occurring across five continents indicates that youth and young adults from varied backgrounds and with interests in diverse issues affecting their communities can participate successfully in multiple contributory research processes, including those representing the full scientific endeavor. These activities can, in turn, lead to changes in physical and social environments of relevance to health, wellbeing, and, at times, climate stabilization. The article ends with future directions for the advancement of this type of community-engaged citizen science among young people across the socioeconomic spectrum

A process of change

Master of ScienceNatural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/101571/1/39015043005290.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/101571/2/39015043005290.pd

Conservation, development and participation : the rhetoric and reality of medicinal plant policy in Nepal

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Do Forests Help Rural Households Adapt to Climate Variability? Evidence from Southern Malawi

Summary Data from rural Malawi are used to assess the role of forests in rural household adaptation to climate variability, and to examine implications for adaptation to future climate change. Although forests do not currently play a role in anticipatory adaptation by rural households, they do appear important for reactive coping: providing food during shortages, and a source of cash for coping with weather-related crop failure. We find households most reliant on forests have low income per person, are located close to forest, and are headed by individuals who are older, more risk averse, and less educated than their cohorts.climate variability climate change adaptation forests poverty Malawi

Public open spaces, children’s independent mobility

The health benefits of children engaging in at least 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) daily are well documented, including improved musculoskeletal health, cardiovascular risk profiles, and aerobic fitness and better psychological well-being. Many Western countries have indicated a decline in physical activity over recent decades. Emerging research shows that children who engage in outdoor activities and travel to destinations using active modes (i.e., walking, cycling) accumulate higher levels of physical activity than those that do not. Over recent decades, research interest has focused on children’s independent outdoor play and active travel to destinations within their neighborhood, including journeys to and from school without adult accompaniment. Engaging in independent mobility has two important benefits for children. Firstly, engaging in non-formalized activity practices helps children attain daily physical activity recommendations, which in turn, generates significant health benefits. Secondly, independent mobility has an important role in fostering children’s physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and spatial development; this carries into adult life. A growing body of evidence suggests that the use of public open spaces, including parks and green spaces, is associated with many health and well-being benefits of urban dwellers. Public open spaces are also recognized as important settings to promote physical activity and children’s independent mobility, not only because of purpose-built infrastructure (e.g., playgrounds) but also as easily accessible destinations for unstructured activities such as walking, cycling, and informal outdoor play. This chapter first provides an overview of children’s independent mobility and thereafter synthesizes the literature related to public open spaces within the context of children’s activity and independent mobility