Climate change adaptation to escape the poverty trap: role of the private sector

Climate change adaptation and poverty alleviation call for an integrated strategy, because poverty exacerbates the vulnerability to climate change and vice versa. The private sector, which has traditionally been excluded from adaptation planning, may contribute greatly to the development of an integrated strategy. Here, we identify the differences in adaptation trajectories between the private sector and communities by proposing a conceptual framework and report on a case study in a dryland area of China, where the private sector led a successful adaptation and poverty alleviation project. We found that their win–win strategy achieved both climate change adaptation and development, thereby helping a disadvantaged community to escape the poverty trap and achieve sustainable development. The private sector played a dominant role in the response, as this sector can adapt in ways that are not possible for governments or communities. We suggest that participatory governance that includes private-sector stakeholders is more likely to achieve sustainable development

Increasing Shipping in the Arctic and Local Communities’ Engagement : A Case from Longyearbyen on Svalbard

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Perceived stressors of climate vulnerability across scales in the Savannah zone of Ghana: a participatory approach

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with climatic and non-climatic stressors. Research attention has focused on climatic stressors, such as rainfall variability, with few empirical studies exploring non-climatic stressors and how these interact with climatic stressors at multiple scales to affect food security and livelihoods. This focus on climatic factors restricts understanding of the combinations of stressors that exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households and hampers the development of holistic climate change adaptation policies. This study addresses this particular research gap by adopting a multi-scale approach to understand how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary, and interact, across three spatial scales (household, community and district levels) to influence livelihood vulnerability of smallholder farming households in the Savannah zone of northern Ghana. This study across three case study villages utilises a series of participatory tools including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The incidence, importance, severity and overall risk indices for stressors are calculated at the household, community, and district levels. Results show that climatic and non-climatic stressors were perceived differently; yet, there were a number of common stressors including lack of money, high cost of farm inputs, erratic rainfall, cattle destruction of crops, limited access to markets and lack of agricultural equipment that crossed all scales. Results indicate that the gender of respondents influenced the perception and severity assessment of stressors on rural livelihoods at the community level. Findings suggest a mismatch between local and district level priorities that have implications for policy and development of agricultural and related livelihoods in rural communities. Ghana’s climate change adaptation policies need to take a more holistic approach that integrates both climatic and non-climatic factors to ensure policy coherence between national climate adaptation plans and District development plans

Contesting longstanding conceptualisations of urban green space

Ever since the Victorian era saw the creation of “parks for the people,” health and wellbeing benefits have been considered a primary benefit of urban parks and green spaces. Today, public health remains a policy priority, with illnesses and conditions such as diabetes, obesity and depression a mounting concern, notably in increasingly urbanised environments. Urban green space often is portrayed as a nature-based solution for addressing such health concerns. In this chapter, Meredith Whitten investigates how the health and wellbeing benefits these spaces provide are limited by a narrow perspective of urban green space. Whitten explores how our understandings of urban green space remain rooted in Victorian ideals and calls into question how fit for purpose they are in twenty-first-century cities. Calling on empirical evidence collected in three boroughs in London with changing and increasing demographic populations, she challenges the long-held cultural underpinnings that lead to urban green space being portrayed “as a panacea to urban problems, yet treating it as a ‘cosmetic afterthought’” (Whitten, M, Reconceptualising green space: planning for urban green space in the contemporary city. Doctoral thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, U.K. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/. Accessed 12 Jun 2019, 2019b, p 18)

Towards a collaborative research: A case study on linking science to farmers' perceptions and knowledge on Arabica coffee pests and diseases and its management

The scientific community has recognized the importance of integrating farmer's perceptions and knowledge (FPK) for the development of sustainable pest and disease management strategies. However, the knowledge gap between indigenous and scientific knowledge still contributes to misidentification of plant health constraints and poor adoption of management solutions. This is particularly the case in the context of smallholder farming in developing countries. In this paper, we present a case study on coffee production in Uganda, a sector depending mostly on smallholder farming facing a simultaneous and increasing number of socio-ecological pressures. The objectives of this study were (i) to examine and relate FPK on Arabica Coffee Pests and Diseases (CPaD) to altitude and the vegetation structure of the production systems; (ii) to contrast results with perceptions from experts and (iii) to compare results with field observations, in order to identify constraints for improving the information flow between scientists and farmers. Data were acquired by means of interviews and workshops. One hundred and fifty farmer households managing coffee either at sun exposure, under shade trees or inter-cropped with bananas and spread across an altitudinal gradient were selected. Field sampling of the two most important CPaD was conducted on a subset of 34 plots. The study revealed the following findings: (i) Perceptions on CPaD with respect to their distribution across altitudes and perceived impact are partially concordant among farmers, experts and field observations (ii) There are discrepancies among farmers and experts regarding management practices and the development of CPaD issues of the previous years. (iii) Field observations comparing CPaD in different altitudes and production systems indicate ambiguity of the role of shade trees. According to the locality-specific variability in CPaD pressure as well as in FPK, the importance of developing spatially variable and relevant CPaD control practices is proposed. (Résumé d'auteur