Community forestry-based climate change adaptation...identifying, analysing, and evaluating...

Training manual for c l imate vulnerabi l i ty assessments with local communit ies

Community forestry-based climate change adaptation


Reproduction of this publication for educational or other non-commercial purposes isauthorized without prior written permission from the copyright holders provided the source isfully acknowledged. Reproduction of this publication for resale or other commercial purposesis prohibited without written permission of the copyright holder.

Published by The Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC)Copyright @ RECOFTC December 2019Bangkok, ThailandISBN: 978-616-8089-18-7

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflectthe views of RECOFTC.

Suggested citation:RECOFTC. 2019. Community forestry-based climate change adaptation (CF-CCA)Bangkok, The Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC)

The Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC)

Training manual for c l imate vulnerabi l i ty assessments with local communit ies


AcknowledgementsThis training manual has been developed over a period of several years that have coincided with the field development of RECOFTC’s Community Forestry-based Climate Change Adaptation approach. Numerous individuals and organizations have generously contributed at various points of its development. Funding support for the piloting of the CF-CCA approach in Nepal was provided through the USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific program. RECOFTC is appreciative of the support that contributed to the fruition of this manual.

The manual development team was composed of RECOFTC programmatic staff: William Conroy, Tomi Haryadi, Rejani Kunjappan, Regan Suzuki Pairojmahakij and Ronnakorn Triraganon. The team expresses thanks to Tint Lwin Thaung, Jim Stephenson and Shyam Paudel for their input to the manual. Project consultants, Robert Solar and Shambhu Dangal worked on initial drafts of the manual. The manual also benefitted from the expert advice of Robert Dobias, senior advisor of USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific, who reviewed the technical content of the manual and provided suggestions for longterm sustainability in using the manual. Thanks also go to Chris Dickson for the editing, Imawan Atmosudirjo for the illustrations and Rattep Autra for the layout of the manual. Thanks also go to the Strategic Communication team of RECOFTC for driving the production of the manual.

Finally, we acknowledge the support and contributions of the experts and those institutions that directly and indirectly helped provide all the necessary information and data. Without their contribution, the development of the training manual would not have been possible.

RECOFTCDecember 2019

3

ContentsAcknowledgements 3

Contents 4

Figures 5

Tables 5

Acronyms 6

Introduction 7

Why do we need this manual? 7

Who is this manual for? 8

Objectives of the manual 8

Learning objectives of the training 9

How is this manual organized? 9

What is the learning process? 11

How to use this manual 13

CF-CCA training course scenarios 14

Learning Block 1: Fundamentals of climate change adaptation 15

Session 1: Welcome and introduction 16

Session 2: Introduction to climate change and climate change adaptation 18

Session 3: Community-based adaptation 30

Session 4: Ecosystem-based adaptation and forests 48

Learning Block 2: Community Forestry-based Climate Change Adaptation

(CF-CCA) approach 59

Session 5: What is a sustainable livelihood? 60

Session 6: Gender, social difference and equity in climate change vulnerability 70

Session 7: Role of community forestry in climate change adaptation 80

Learning Block 3: Community Forestry-based Cimate Change Adaption applied 89

Session 8: Assessing vulnerability and adaptive capacity 90

Session 9: The CF-CCA vulnerability assessment 102

Session10:Sustainablefinancingensuressustainableadaptationinterventions 112

Learning Block 4: Reflections on experiences, lessons learned and field visit 119

Session11:Preparingforthefieldexercise 120

Session12:Fieldvisitandoveralltrainingreflection 124

References 127

4

Figures Figure1:Thelearningflowconnectingthefourblocks 11

Figure 2: Observed changes in temperature, sea level change,

greenhouse gas concentrations, and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions 24

Figure 3: Projected changes in average surface temperature

and global mean sea level rise 25

Figure 4: Sources of greenhouse gas emissions 26

Figure 5: Map of land use in Da Loc Commune 34

Figure 6: DFID’s sustainable livelihoods framework 66

Figure 7: Components of climate change vulnerability 97

Figure 8: The CF-CCA framework 106

Figure 9: Pathways for channelling international

and national adaptation funding to local levels 118

Figure10:SampleplanofafieldvisitforCF-CCAtraining 122

Tables

Table 1: Six-day training course 14

Table 2: Nine-day training course 24

Table 3: Examples of parameters to assess exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity 99

Table 4: Climate change vulnerability and related assessments relevant to CF-CCA 105

Table 5: VA data-collection methodologies (sample) 108

Table 6: The vulnerability assessment matrices 109

5

Acronyms

CAP community adaptation planCBA community-based adaptationCCA climate change adaptationCCVA climate change vulnerability assessmentCC climate changeC CelsiusCF–CCA Community Forestry-based Climate Change AdaptationCFUG community forestry user groupCO2 carbon dioxideCOP conference of partiesCSO civil society organizationCVCA climate vulnerability capacity assessmentDFO District Forestry Office (Nepal)DFID Department for International Development (UK)DRR disaster risk reductionDSCO District Soil Conservation OfficeFGD focus group discussionsGHG greenhouse gasesFECOFUN Federation of Community Forest Users Nepal ICEM International Centre for Environmental ManagementICIMOD International Centre for Integrated Mountain DevelopmentIPCC Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate ChangeLAPA Local Adaptation Plan of ActionM&E monitoring and evaluation MOFSC Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (Nepal)NAP National Adaptation PlanNAPA National Adaptation Programme of ActionNGO non-governmental organizationNRM natural resource managementOP operational plan (for community forestry)OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentRECOFTC The Center for People and ForestsREDD+ Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest DegradationUNFCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate ChangeUSAID United States Agency for International DevelopmentVA vulnerability assessmentVDC village development committeee

6

Introduction Why do we need this manual?

Forestry has long been viewed as the domain of mitigation efforts. Without a doubt, the world will be hard-pressed to meet the targets of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius without including the carbon-sink role played by forests. However, viewing forests as just carbon sinks misses further vital contributions they can play in supporting adaptation. As the search begins for frameworks and models where adaptation and mitigation are jointly addressed, the contributions of approaches such as community forestry are being seen with fresh eyes. While community forestry has proven a compelling model for sustainable forest management in the region for several decades now, its potential to bridge ecological and social dimensions in responding to climate change provides it with a new appeal.

There are immense opportunities for community forestry to strengthen national resilience to climate change through supporting livelihoods and income, increasing food security and production, leveraging social capital and knowledge, reducing disaster risks, and regulating microclimates.

The importance of forests and local forest management is not only determined by where people reside within rural landscapes. In many ways it is also affected by changing socio-economic and environmental conditions and policies that may restrict access to forests, or on the other hand encourage sustainable forest management. Rural people have always adapted to opportunities and constraints by adjusting their livelihood strategies. The impact of climate change may not unfold exactly as predicted. In fact, our knowledge regarding the magnitude and the direction of change is still limited. Yet it is certain that changes will occur, and are already under way. In light of this, there is an urgent need for planned and anticipatory adaptation, especially in least developed and developing countries. To achieve this, there is a pressing need to learn more about the relationship between forest landscapes and adaptation, and synergies with efforts to mitigate climate change.

This training manual is designed to provide a simple and structured methodology that can assist trainers to design and deliver trainings that can promote integrated local level adaptation – specifically in the context of community forestry. The manual is developed based on RECOFTC’s extensive experience with community forestry and community forestry-based adaptation in Asia and the Pacific. It aims to assist trainers to build the capacities of government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs) and other service providers with a view to supporting a more integrated, comprehensive approach to building resilience in rural landscapes.

7

Who is this manual for?

This manual can be a useful guiding document for trainers engaged with a range of practitioners including:

• Climate change field practitioners, based in forestry and in other natural resource management (NRM) sectors

• Managers managing field projects and initiatives on NRM • Field facilitators who facilitate community-based NRM activities on the ground • Project managers working with natural disaster and risk issues • Media who are reporting on NRM issues • Officials from government line agencies at national and sub-national levels • Community leaders or member involved in adaptation strategies at the village,

commune and sub-district level

At the global level, this manual directly addresses the objectives of Article 11 of the 2015 Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It contributes indirectly to most of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda, and to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) outlined by multiple countries in the Paris Agreement. Within the Asia-Pacific region, the forestry sector has played an important role in the National Adaptation Plans (NAP) submitted by several countries to the UNFCC. This manual is expected to contribute to the implementation of national adaptation goals related to forests and the land-use sector.

It is important that trainers who use this manual develop an understanding of the entire training programme prior to a training event. They should understand and be familiar with the training objectives, expected outputs, methods and tools, session process and content of the modules.

The CF-CCA framework has three components: the vulnerability assessment (VA), the feasibility assessment and implementation, which includes a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) phase. This training manual, however, fully discusses only the VA. Training manuals for the other two phases will be developed in the future.

Objectives of the manual

Overall objective of the manualThe objective of this trainers’ manual is to provide a simple and structured methodology that helps trainers design capacity-building activities to promote community-based adaptation in the context of community forestry. The manual can assist trainers in facilitating a learning process that focuses on the development of knowledge and skills to support climate change adaptation in a community forestry landscape. The training of community leaders and community members is important as it can help build capacity at village level, and assist in the uptake to other leaders in other communities. As a long-term impact, the manual is intended to support the scaling up of the CF-CCA approach and lead to greater ecological and social resilience to climate change.

8

Learning objectives of the trainingIt is expected that by the end of the course, participants will be familiar with basic tools for identifying, analysing, and evaluating vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and risks so that they can assist local communities in developing effective responses and appropriate adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to: • Explain key concepts related to climate change, community-based adaptation

and their links • Link the community-based adaptation approach to the sustainable livelihood and

community forest management framework • Use the VA framework to understand the value of assessing vulnerability and

adaptive capacity of communities before any adaptation actions • Describe the components of the CF-CCA framework and approach and its

advantages for local-level adaptation interventions • Identify opportunities for sustainable climate change interventions at the local

level

How is this manual organized?

There are four learning blocks. The first two address the concepts underpinning the CF-CCA approach, and are accompanied by an exploration of the links between community forestry and climate change adaptation. The third learning block focuses on the application of the VA, which is the first stage of the CF-CCA framework. The final block emphasizes the importance of an effective reflection process, and of feeding that in to future action planning for the trainees.

Each learning block comprises several sessions. Each session includes the following: • Learning objectives • Materials needed • Estimated time • Sequence of steps of the session • Notes to the trainer for additional guidance • Exercise sheets • Handouts

LEARNING BLOCK 1: Fundamentals of climate change and adaptation

This learning block presents the basic knowledge around climate change and responses to it.The block first introduces the science around climate change and its anticipated impacts in the Asia-Pacific region, in line with the latest information from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Session 2). The next part is a presentation of two approaches to addressing climate change: mitigation, which seeks to limit the

9

extent of climate change, and adaptation, which tries to deal with the existing and impending impacts of climate change. Adaptation is then further unpacked, and several key approaches presented and assessed, including community, ecosystem and forest-based adaptation (Session 3 and 4). This is important groundwork, as the CF-CCA approach presented later in the manual draws strongly on these approaches. Participants will also need to consider relevant national-level climate change policies, regulations and strategies in their own countries.

• Session 1: Welcome and introduction to the training • Session 2: Introduction to climate change and climate change adaptation • Session 3: Community-based adaptation • Session 4: Ecosystem- and forest-based adaptation

LEARNING BLOCK 2: The CF-CCA approach

This learning block builds on the foundation of the preceding one. It adds a further step in incorporating resilience by presenting the central framework for CF-CCA: the sustainable livelihoods approach. By understanding the various dimensions of a sustainable livelihood (natural, social, physical, financial, human), participants will gain the basic tools for assessing the adaptive capacity of existing systems and their vulnerability to climatic and other shocks. Vulnerabilities do not exist in the isolated context of external or physical impacts, but are rather an outcome of political and social processes. Therefore, gender considerations and other forms of social equity are critical to assessing how vulnerable a community and its members are to climate change impacts (Session 6). Session 7 unpacks the relationship between community forests and climate change: both the impacts on community forests as well as the important ecological and social contributions that community forests can make.

• Session 5: What is a sustainable livelihood? • Session 6: Gender, social difference, and equity in climate change vulnerability • Session 7: Role of community forestry in climate change adaptation

LEARNING BLOCK 3: Applying the CF-CCA framework

This learning block builds upon the theories discussed in the previous sessions to outline the application of VA frameworks. This block starts with a session that outlines a number of existing VA methodologies and their respective benefits and shortcomings in the context of community forestry (Session 8). Consolidating the best practices, the following session provides a background on the CF-CCA framework and describes the application of a VA (Session 9). Finally, a critical component in considering community-level engagement on adaptation is the sustainability of actions. The next session explores the different dimensions of sustainability in community forestry-based adaptation, in particular strategies to ensure financial sustainability (Session 10).

• Session 8: Assessing vulnerability and adaptive capacity

10

• Session 9: The CF-CCA approach and framework • Session 10: Ensuring sustainable adaptation: integrating interventions and

securing financial support

LEARNING BLOCK 4: Reflection on experiences, lessons learned and field visit

This last learning block is intended to provide a platform for participants to discuss and explore their respective experiences working with communities in the land-use sector, in particular their reflections and lessons learned on vulnerability and adaptation. Best practice in climate change adaptation is not a static set of procedures, and this manual reflects the area’s evolving, iterative processes based on previous experiences. An important part of ongoing adaptation is building upon best practices and models that are working. This learning block and its objective can contribute significantly to the practical ideas and improvement of existing practices related to adaptation. Sufficient time, discussion and activities should be devoted to exploring best practices and first-hand experiences. In addition to the prior knowledge and experiences of participants in the training, it is recommended that a field-based component be included, not with the expectation of conducting a full and meaningful VA , which would take several weeks, but rather to explore some of the issues, climate impacts and social dynamics that are at play in a real-life context. In the event resources are available, it would be very good to consider identifying a field site and doing a VA prior to undertaking any training courses. This might be more feasible where multiple training groups can plan to visit the same field site over a number of months or years.

• Session 11: Field exercise • Session 12: Field site and overall training reflection

Figure 1: The learning flow connecting the four blocks

11

What is the learning process?

This manual is intended to guide a learning process that draws ideas from adult, experiential learning (Kolb, 1984; Kolb et al., 2000) and social learning theory (e.g. Buck et al., 2001; Cundill et al., 2014). The training approach used in this manual is therefore based on the following main premises:

• Participants in individual training are the richest sources of information, and their background of experiences offer a wealthy resource for problem-solving and learning. They should be actively engaged in the process of their own learning.

• Learning is activated by motivating the training participants to seek new knowledge, skills, and behaviour, and to apply this new knowledge and skills in their work and personal environments. Facilitation of such learning occurs by fully involving participants in new experiences, and having them observe, reflect and draw upon these experiences for new learning.

• Facilitated learning encourages participants to analyse and integrate observations andt can help them make decisions or solve problems.

• Learning thrives in a sphere of collaboration and exchange of ideas and perspectives. People learn by modelling, and by observing and imitating others. Creating learning conditions for participants to work and learn together is crucial

In line with the training approach and the aim of the learning objectives, training sessions have been organized around the following:

1. An activity that helps participants understand concepts by means of facilitated and structured experiences, both indirect (such as observation or case study) and direct (such as role play) exposure.

2. An analysis to examine and reflect on the activity.3. Integration to bring together ideas and perspectives, resulting into a new

convergent synthesis.4. Application to help participants apply developed knowledge and learned skills to

real life and realwork issues and problems, carried out by means of assignments or action plans. This fourth element also helps both the trainers and participants evaluate learning achievements in relation to expected results.

12

How to use this manual?

This manual can guide a one-off training event, as well as a capacity development programme for implementation in an extended timeframe. In the latter case, the manual is flexible and modules could be used separately to guide events that stand on their own. For example, Session 5 on Sustainable Livelihoods could constitute a stand-alone event. Trainers and organizations undertaking capacity building on climate change adaptation can consider the possibility of providing mentoring after the participants go home. This can be done via electronic platforms such as email, Skype, online instruction models, or group chats such as Facebook, Line or WhatsApp. In combination with M&E systems this can be one way to ensure sustainability of the capacity-development initiative, being more than a one-off training.

The learning flow of the manual incorporates the four blocks in sequence. While community forestry serves as the entry point for this manual, the approach can be applied to any efforts around landscape-based climate change adaptation.

The suggested approach to the handouts is to provide them at the close of each respective session, although this is left to the discretion of the trainer. This is to avoid participants focusing on the handouts at the expense of the interaction that the learning process requires.

13

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14

Learning Block 1 Fundamentals of climate change adaptation

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Day

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Day

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16 LEARNING BLOCK 1

Session 1: Welcome and introduction

Objectives

At the end of this session the participants will be able to: • Know each other • Reflect upon how climate change has impacted themselves and their colleagues

Materials None

Time

• 1.0 hours

Steps

1. Participants should be seated in groups of five or six. 2. Ask participants to raise their right hand if they already knew the person to their

right before arriving at the workshop. While keeping their right hands raised, ask participants to raise their left hand if they already knew the person to their left before arriving at the workshop.

17LEARNING BLOCK 1

3. Ask all participants with both hands raised to move to another table where they see at least one person they do not already know.

4. Once participants are seated, give them a few minutes to think of a response to the following question: “How has climate change or extreme weather affected your life or the lives of people you know? You may draw upon experiences in either your personal or professional lives or both.”

5. After a few minutes, ask participants to introduce themselves to others at their respective tables and briefly tell their colleagues the answer to the above question. Allow about 15-20 minutes for this.

6. Stop the discussion and ask each table to select one response to tell all participants in the workshop. Participants may tell their own stories or another group member’s story. Give each table about 1-2 minutes. Each group may also want to talk about more than one experience.

Conclude with observations on what was said, and note that climate change, including increasing climate variability and extreme weather, has become an important part of our lives.

Notes to the trainer

When selecting seats at a workshop, participants often sit with people they already know. In this exercise trainers should ask participants to meet and learn about those they do not know. To ensure the objectives of the exercise are achieved, ask participants to move to different tables.

MY EXPECTATIONS

OFTHE TRAINING

AGENDA FOR THIS TRAINING

INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

DISCUSSION ON ISSUES

COMMUNITY BASED ADAPTATION

WORKPLAN

18 LEARNING BLOCK 1

Objectives

At the end of this session, the participants will be able to: • Explain the basic concepts related to climate change • Describe climate change impacts in their own local or national contexts • Differentiate adaptation and mitigation

Materials

• Flip chart and markers • PowerPoint presentation (see notes to the trainer) • Background information handout • Cut-outs on climate change terminology • Short video on climate change (optional, see notes to the trainer)

Steps

1. Explain that this first session will touch on some of the basic concepts and discourse on climate change and climate change adaptation.

2. Give 30-minute presentation on current and anticipated climate change impacts for the Asia-Pacific region. After presentation, link the content of the presentation to the experiences shared by participants in Session 1 through the following questions:

Session 2: Introduction to climate change and climate change adaptation

VULNERABILITY EXPOSURE SENSITIVITY

ADAPTIVE CAPACITYHAZARD

RESILIENCE

19LEARNING BLOCK 1

• What were your thoughts about the presentations? • What are some of the impacts seen in the presentation? Have you

experienced or encountered any of the impacts? Are there different impacts that you have encountered? What are they? Are they different from that in the presentation?

• What are some of the actions taken to respond to climate impacts?

3. Depending on the time available, either divide participants into small groups or work in a plenary format. To understand the differences between adaptation and mitigation participants will do the exercise called “Which intervention is adaptation? Which is mitigation? Which are both?”

4. Distribute the envelope with the cut-out squares of paper with climate change terms (e.g. resilience, vulnerability, or mitigation) and corresponding examples (e.g. a community that has stabilized riverbanks with bamboo in response to flash floods) to each group. There are 12 climate change terminology squares and 12 specific examples. Give the groups 10 minutes to match key terms with examples. At the end, the trainer should review the answers and clarify any confusion.

5. Present the IPCC definitions below. Answer any questions that participants might have.

Key adaptation definitions (adapted from IPCC 2007 and IPCC 2014 – please see Notes to the trainers for more information and examples):

• Vulnerability: The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity and susceptibility to harm, and lack of capacity to cope and adapt.

• Exposure: The presence in places and settings that could be adversely affected of: people; livelihoods; species or ecosystems; environmental functions, services or resources; infrastructure; or economic, social or cultural assets.

• Sensitivity: The degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate-related stimuli.

• Adaptive capacity: The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes), to moderate the potential damage from it, to take advantage of its opportunities, or to cope with its consequences.

6. Ask each group to visually depict the evidence and impacts of climate change in their geographical contexts. Give them 20 minutes to do so. Each group needs to show as many impacts as possible. These may include: water scarcity; floods, landslides, forest fires, droughts, weather uncertainty, increased disease prevalence, sudden storms and health hazards.

20 LEARNING BLOCK 1

7. After the allocated time is over, ask each group to present their results. Connect participants’ presentations with the climate change presentation or video by asking the following questions:

• Was it easy or difficult to identify climate change impacts in your own contexts? Why was it easy or difficult?

• What might be some of the causes of climate change? • Were there similarities and differences between the impacts described by

each group? What might be the reasons for similarities or differences? • Are some impacts more important than others? Which are more important?

Why? • What are some of the ways that climate change is being addressed in

different countries?

8. Close the session by summarizing the following key learning points: • The impacts of climate change are many, and they range in severity

depending on a number of factors. • Climate change impacts relate to a range of sectors and aspects of life

including forests, agriculture, biodiversity, disease, human settlement, social equity, food security, water quality and quantity, and political and economic relations.

When we discuss adaptation there are a number of concepts that are important: vulnerability, adaptive capacity, resilience, hazard, exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. We will be discussing this further in the course.


1. The 30-minute PowerPoint on the impacts of climate change should cover • The state and impact of the climate now and in the future, including

global warming, extremes of rainfall, and sea level rise• The challenge posed by climate change and how adaptation can deal

with it• Definitions of climate change adaptation, vulnerability, adaptive

capacity, resilience, hazard, exposure and sensitivity• V (vulnerability) = E (exposure) + S (sensitivity) + AC (adaptive capacity)

As supplementary resource material supporting the presentation, a video may be shown to illustrate climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. Options include a video produced by The Economist magazine1 and another by the IPCC2. After showing the video, the trainer can ask participants to pick out key climate change-related terms and put them

1 youtube.com/watch?v=xWG_uzLmuug2 youtube.com/watch?v=jMIFBJYpSgM

21LEARNING BLOCK 1

up on a flip chart. These might include: poverty, access to resources, vulnerability, mitigation, adaptation, sensitivity, hazards, equality, managing uncertainties, exposure, resilience and land use management.

2. For Step 4, to aid in the discussion, the trainer can reference some of the following impacts of climate change: water scarcity, floods, landslide, forest fires, droughts, weather uncertainty, increased disease prevalence, sudden storms, and health hazards.

3. It is important to note that the points raised during the exercises and discussions will be used in later sessions. Especially relevant are comments on the impacts of climate change and how communities are adapting in their specific contexts.

4. The climate change-related definitions and terminology used by this manual are drawn from the IPCC. The IPCC releases technical assessments and reports approximately every five years, which provide the basis of the science informing the UNFCCC. For more comprehensive terminology resources please see the IPCC glossary3.

Please note as well that the definitions are critical throughout this manual and that significant time should be devoted to ensuring the terms are correctly understood. Providing examples is an important part of this. Please refer to the handout for the information.

5. Keep all descriptions of climate change evidence as a reference. The trainer will use these again in Session 5.

3 archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srex/SREX-Annex_Glossary.pdf

22 LEARNING BLOCK 1 Exercise

Which intervention is adaptation? Which mitigation? Which both?Please discuss in small groups: ‘Which is adaptation? Which is mitigation? Which is both?’

1. Constructing culverts in ditches to increase water drainage during rainy season.2. Building seawalls or relocating buildings to higher ground to protect against sea

level rise and increased flooding.3. Planting trees that absorb carbon dioxide from the air and store it4. Policies and strategies around water management in response to scarcity5. Changing national factory smokestack regulations6. National sector planning targets for emissions (Nationally Determined

Contributions 7. Adopting new approaches and technologies in land-use planning and

infrastructure design8. Improving crop and grazing land management9. Restoring cultivated peaty soils and degraded lands.10. Imposing taxes on aviation or marine transport related to carbon.11. Using improved rice-cultivation techniques to reduce methane gas emissions

Dedicating energy crops to replace fossil fuel use

Apply ing a Rights-based Approach (RBA) in Forest Governance

23LEARNING BLOCK 1Exercise

Climate change terminology cut-outs

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Disaster Risk Reduction Climate Change Adaptation

Resilience Vulnerability Climate Change Mitigation

Adaptive Capacity Sensitivity Exposure

Climate Change Impact Climate Weather

Despite being hit by heavy flooding this year, children in the community have been able to continue their schooling with little disruption.

As our rice fields are adjacent to coastal areas, they are badly affected when typhoons hit.

The periodic rains that used to come every cold season in my grandparents’ time don’t come any more.

We need to build awareness in our community and make sure they are prepared for the dry season and whatever it brings.

The wild fruits in our community forest are ripening too late and in some cases are rotten when they finally do ripen.

Last week a bad thunderstorm led to clogged drainage systems.

We have used bamboo to bioengineer riverbank stabilization as prevention against flash flooding.

Our upland vanilla crops will not grow unless there is a long enough and cool enough winter season.

Our village is not as close to a water source as some of the low lying villages. Ground water levels have been getting lower every year.

Our local companies are beginning to install filters on their smoke stacks to prevent particulates from entering the atmosphere.

A chemical compound that is the primary greenhouse gas and driver of climate change.

We used to farm upland rice, but as rainfall becomes less predictable we have switched to maize.

24 LEARNING BLOCK 1 Handout

Climate change: an overviewClimate change refers to the change in global or regional climate patterns, including temperature, wind and precipitation, that has been apparent since the mid-late 20th century. This change is largely attributed by scientists to the increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

The IPCC graphs in Figure 2 show atmospheric-temperature increase and greenhouse-gas concentrations since 1950, and sea-level change since 1900. The change in climatic temperature is broadly attributed by the scientific community to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

Figure 2: Observed changes in temperature, sea level change, greenhouse gas concentrations, and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions

25LEARNING BLOCK 1Handout

Climate change has already had and will continue to have wide-ranging effects on the environment, as well as on socio-economic sectors including: natural resources, agriculture and food security, human health, terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity and coastal zones. Changes in rainfall patterns are likely to lead to more extreme water cycles with water shortages as well as flash flooding. The melting of glaciers will cause flooding and soil erosion. Increasing and decreasing temperatures will cause shifts in crop-growing seasons, which will affect food security and change the distribution of various pathogens, putting more people at risk from diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. Furthermore, temperature increases due to climate change will dramatically accelerate rates of extinction for many species, and increasing sea levels will increase the risk of destructive storm surges, salinization of cropland, inundation and wave damage to coastlines, particularly for small islands and countries with low-lying delta areas The correlation between temperature change and sea level rise is presented in Figure 2

As noted above, climate change is caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Figure 3: Projected changes in average surface temperature and global mean sea level rise


The major cause of the current period of climate change is an increase in greenhouse gases emitted by human activity such as manufacturing, energy production, transport and land-use change. See Figure 4 for a breakdown by sector of emission sources. In fact, the IPCC has stated with high confidence that about half of all anthropogenic, or manmade, carbon dioxide emissions from 1750-2011 were emitted in the last 40 years.

Figure 4: Sources of greenhouse gas emissions

Impacts of climate change

The impacts of climate change are many, and they range in severity depending on a number of factors. Below is a list of some of the most relevant impacts for the Asia-Pacific region.

• Forests: Due to rising temperatures, some species will seek higher altitudes and/or latitudes. In the past few decades scientists in the northern hemisphere have observed that various tree, scrub and herb species have migrated by an average of 6 km every 10 years (UNEP, 2009). Moreover, though increased carbon can mean increased regeneration of forests, the impact of increased temperature on the environment could lead to huge forest destruction and extinction of species. An increase in forest fires is likely in some regions and climate variability may cause plant productivity to drop. Increased tree mortality and the associated forest dieback is projected for many regions in the 21st century due to increases in temperature and drought. Forest dieback poses risks for forest carbon storage, biodiversity, wood production, water quality, and other sectors.

• Agriculture: Asia is predominantly agrarian, with 58% of its population living in rural areas and 81% of those people dependent on agriculture for their

(IPCC 2014) AFOLU: Agriculture, forestry and other land use


livelihoods (IPCC, 2014). Climate change in the region will affect food staples such as rice and cause a general increase in food prices and cost of living. Climate change will also likely increase irrigation needs, reducing the availability of water from rivers and groundwater resources.

• Biodiversity: The impacts of climate change on biodiversity are already being felt. Increasing carbon dioxide concentrations are changing the basic components and dynamics of life on earth (IPCC, 2014). The geographic ranges of species are shifting, seasonality and the timing of natural events has changed, including flowering and reproductive events, and evidence suggests that climate change is disrupting species interaction. It is likely that as climate change grows, extinction risks will also increase.

• Natural disasters: Climate change will significantly increase the risk of a range of natural disasters such as floods, drought, windstorms and typhoons. Asia-Pacific is already the most disaster-prone region of the world with nearly 2 million people killed by disasters, including climate-related disasters, between 1970 and 2011 in this region. This represents 75% of global disaster fatalities over this period (UNISDR and UNESCAP, 2012).

• Water quality and quantity: Climate change may either reduce or significantly increase the water available in different areas for critical purposes such as household consumption, livestock and irrigation. In climate-sensitive regions, the combination of food and water insecurity would have a significant impact on households.

• Food security: Projections of the impact of climate change on food security expect that some regions will benefit from increased agricultural productivity while others will suffer significant negative impacts. On a global level, however, climate change is expected to negatively affect food security. Examples include redistribution and biodiversity loss in fisheries, and negative impacts on wheat, rice, and maize production in tropical and temperate regions. These impacts can be expected to be experienced most acutely at local levels, particularly in rural areas.

• Heat waves and milder winters: Heat stress is a direct result of exposure to high temperatures. Stressful hot weather events (heat waves) can cause high mortality in humans and livestock, primarily among the elderly, the very young, or those required to work outdoors. Already, there is evidence that indicates that warming has increased heat-related deaths. We know that the ceiling temperature for human bodies to endure over extended periods is 40 degrees Celsius.

• Social dislocation: Large-scale climate-related migration is likely to increase in response to climate-induced natural disasters such as flooding, drought and


fires. Interlinked dynamics of ecological disturbances and human population displacement can be expected to have major political and humanitarian implications. Climate-related displacement is taking place now and can be expected to increase, with especially detrimental effects on low-income populations and those in ecologically vulnerable locations (IPCC, 2014).

• Infectious diseases: Some key vector-borne diseases are transmitted by insects (e.g. mosquitoes) that are sensitive to temperature, humidity and rainfall. The occurrence of vector-borne diseases ranges from the tropics and subtropics to the temperate climate zones, but is virtually absent at higher altitudes and latitudes (IPCC 2014). Climate change will change and probably expand the distribution of important vector species and associated diseases. The distribution of many diseases that are transmitted by mosquitoes (dengue, yellow fever), sandflies (leishmaniasis), and ticks (Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis) may also increase or decrease due to climate change (IPCC, 2014).

Adaptation and mitigation

Given the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change, there is global concern and growing commitment to finding appropriate responses to combating it. There are two main response types:

• Mitigation: human interventions to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases (IPCC, 2001).

• Adaptation: adjustments of natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities (IPCC, 2001).

It is important to note that these two approaches are not mutually exclusive. There are a number of options for finding synergies and minimizing trade-offs between the two. Since 2014, the UNFCCC has given increasing attention to joint mitigation and adaptation responses, enshrined as an alternative policy approach within the 2015 Paris Agreement Further information on this is provided as an optional session at the end of the manual. Some of the promising models look at land use patterns, and in particular that which involve forests. These strategies include the afforestation or expansion of mangroves, agroforestry, or community forestry. Forests offer multiple benefits due to their carbon sequestration role in addition to their function in supporting ecosystem and social resilience.


Key adaptation concepts and terminology

Rural communities in developing countries are facing the impacts of climate change every day. To support communities in developing appropriate strategies for responding to climate-related vulnerabilities, it is important to understand some of the basic concepts and components of adapting to climate change.

Key adaptation definitions (adapted from IPCC 2001, 2007 and 2014):

• Vulnerability: The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt. An example of this is when a local community is living in upland areas that are being affected by longer and heavier rainy seasons. This is leading to fungus in maize crops. However, the community has few income opportunities outside agriculture or maize as a cash crop. They are vulnerable to climate and economic shocks.

• Exposure: The presence in places and settings that could be adversely affected of: people; livelihoods; species or ecosystems; environmental functions, services or resources; infrastructure; or economic, social or cultural assets. This can be seen when we consider a community that is located in a coastal area that is being increasingly hit by typhoons. They and their property are highly exposed to climate impacts.

• Sensitivity: The degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate-related stimuli. For example, non-irrigated rice is very sensitive to the onset and duration of rains. If the rains arrive too late (or too early) the entire crop can be destroyed.

• Adaptive capacity: The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes), to moderate the potential damage from it, to take advantage of its opportunities, or to cope with its consequences. When a local government has invested in the infrastructure of the district as well as supporting education and income diversification, we can consider this as adaptive capacity.

• Hazard: The potential occurrence of a natural or human-induced physical event or trend that may cause loss of life, injury, or other health impacts, or damage or loss of property, infrastructure, livelihoods, service provision, ecosystems and environmental resources. In this manual, the term hazard usually refers to climate-related physical events or trends or their physical impacts.

• Resilience: The ability of a system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of a hazardous event in a timely and efficient manner, including through ensuring the preservation, restoration, or improvement of its essential basic structures and functions. One example of resilience is when an area is hit by flash floods communities were able to bounce back and continue life as normal very quickly due in part to strong social networks.

30 LEARNING BLOCK 1

Session 3: Community-based adaptation

Objectives

At the end of this session the participants will be able to: • Describe the principles and areas of concern related to community-based

adaptation (CBA) • Explain key ideas related to the social dimensions of vulnerability and community

engagement in responding to climate change • List the basic differences and similarities between adaptation and business-as-

usual development, including how they relate to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

Materials

• Flip-chart paper • PowerPoint presentation (sample presentations available on accompanying CD) • Handouts • Case-study exercise sheets: Daloc Commune, Viet Nam and Sarlahi District,

Nepal

31LEARNING BLOCK 1

Time

• 2.5 hours

Steps

1. In this session the participants will explore community based adaptation (CBA) in more depth.

2. Ask participants the following question: “How many of you have worked in community-based NRM?” Encourage those who have been involved in community-based NRM to briefly share their experience; what they did, why they did it, how they did it, and the results of their work.

3. Divide participants into four groups. Distribute the Daloc case study to two groups and the Sarlahi case study to two groups (see the exercise sheets below). Assign each group the following questions, which are written on a flipchart:

• How has climate change affected the communities in each of the case studies?

• How did climate change impact different groups in the community? What aspects of their lives did it impact? (e.g. food security, gender relations)

• How did the different groups in the community become involved in climate change adaptation?

• What would have been the implications of not involving communities in adaptation design and implementation?

4. After 30 minutes, invite each group to share key results that have not already been shared by other groups.

5. Give a short presentation on CBA based on these main points: What is CBA and what makes it different; the CARE CBA flower diagram; what CBA focuses on.

6. Keeping participants in the same groups, ask them to identify development projects, ideally with adaptation components, that they have encountered. The trainer can list one or two examples on the flip chart to start the participants thinking. In their small groups ask them to list what factors could be considered to make these projects adaptation and which could be considered specifically to contribute to development. What differences? What similarities? Share briefly in a plenary session the observations of the small groups on the relationship between adaptation and development. At this stage it is important for the trainer to emphasise that even experts may not agree on which is which as there may not be clear dividing lines between adaptation initiatives. This means that sometimes a broad definition of adaptation may be used.

7. Share briefly in a plenary session the background to and context of the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Circulate exercise handout of SDGs. Which of the SDGs should CBA contribute to? Spend 10-15 minutes discussing in a plenary session. Encourage questions from participants.

32 LEARNING BLOCK 1

8. End the session by reiterating the following key learning points: • Rural, natural resource-dependent communities are vulnerable to climate

change for a number of reasons. • CBA is a community-led process, based on communities’ priorities, needs,

knowledge and capacities that should empower people to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change. In this sense, vulnerability can help build social alliances and shape institutions.

• Adaptation and development are closely linked. However, development measures that also explicitly promote climate change adaptation go beyond business-as-usual development strategies to reduce the exposure to climate change risks and impacts.

• CBA faces a number of challenges related to local data collection, participation, and recognizing community diversity. To reduce some of these challenges, strong participatory tools aimed at strengthening the voices of most marginalized populations are useful.


• It would be better for the trainer to give the case study to participants the day before so that they can read and prepare, as the cases are rather long. This is important for participants who may take a longer time for comprehension of the case study.

• The trainer should note that even experts occasionally disagree over this definition of adaptation and development projects. As there is no real clear dividing line when we consider an adaptation initiative and a development project, it is better to use a broad definition of adaptation for this exercise.

• The 30-minute PowerPoint on community-based adaptation should cover the following information:

• What is CBA and the CBA flower diagram by CARE(2014)• What makes CBA different from a rural development approach?• Linkage between local knowledge and scientific approach in CBA• Focus and emphasis of CBA and gender

33LEARNING BLOCK 1Case study

Adapting to natural disasters and contributing to mitigation: mangrove community forestry, Viet Nam

Timeline

1982 The government begins to construct a sea dyke in Da Loc commune.1989 The Japanese Red Cross and partners launch a mangrove afforestation project on 350 hectares (ha) of land.By 2005 Only 15% to 20% of the mangroves from the Red Cross project survive.2005 Typhoon Damrey strikes, causing widespread destruction to the commune and damaging the sea dyke. The few areas shielded by mangroves suffered less damage than the surrounding areas.2006 Together, the government, CARE International, and Da Loc citizens establish the Community-Based Mangrove Management Board (CBMMB).2007-2008 CARE leads community mangrove planting with Kandelia candel and Sonneratia, earlier tested as suitable species in the Red Cross initiative.2007 CARE and the CBMMB successfully establish a mangrove nursery of 15,000 Sonneratia seedlings, spanning approximately 50 ha.2008 CARE and CBMMB reach a total of 32,000 mangroves planted, both seedlings and by seed, over approximately 70 ha.2009 The Vietnamese government signs a five-year agreement for community- based forest management in the commune.2010 This model is replicated in Nga Thuy Commune with an additional 37 ha of mangroves planted, resulting in a combined total of 295 ha.

Case Study 1 – Viet Nam

34 LEARNING BLOCK 1 Case study

Figure 5: Map of land use in Da Loc Commune

Background

Da Loc is a coastal commune located in Thanh Hoa province, north-central Viet Nam, and covers 11,116.3 km2. The East Sea and the Len River support much of the agriculture and aquaculture relied upon by the commune’s 10 villages for subsistence and income generation.

Da Loc and the surrounding area experience an average of five to six typhoons annually, in addition to continuous sea encroachment and flooding. To mitigate damage from typhoons, in 1982 the government constructed a sea dyke spanning 5 km around the commune. However, despite significant investment, the dyke has suffered ongoing damage from extreme coastal weather events.

In 2005, Typhoon Damrey inflicted serious damage to Da Loc commune. The sea dyke largely failed to protect the commune except where stands of mangroves remained as buffers. In these sheltered areas agricultural lands experienced less seawater incursion, whereas other saw salt water sweep several kilometres inland, destroying settlements, livestock and human life.

The demonstration of the mangroves’ buffering capability inspired humanitarian agency CARE International to take an active role in the regeneration and further expansion of mangrove forests within Da Loc. CARE facilitated a community-based mangrove reforestation approach, which empowered local communities as stewards and beneficiaries of the mangroves.


A range of stakeholders were engaged in the mangrove reforestation project. More than 700 people from three villages took part in establishing nurseries, planting and maintaining mangroves, and forming protection groups. State agencies such as the Viet Nam Border Defence Force and the commune police collaborated on protection aspects, and district and provincial authorities played important roles in land-use planning and establishing of community rights over the mangroves.

Climate change impacts

All members of the community say they have been negatively impacted by climate change, pointing to declining agricultural productivity due to erratic seasons and rainfall, saltwater incursion, and effects from natural disasters.

Similar to seasonal shifts experienced in other parts of the country, Da Loc villagers report that since the late 1990s the dry season has lengthened considerably, beginning a month earlier and extending a month later. Cold spells have also changed in both duration and intensity, with villagers reporting unprecedented lows of 7oC.

Freshwater is simultaneously becoming scarce. Groundwater tables are falling, partly due to human activities such as land-use management and agricultural practices, and the incursion of salinized water has advanced as far as 10 km inland.

The Da Loc villagers estimate that since Damrey struck, household income from agriculture and animal husbandry has dropped on average by 20%. This is closer to 50% for villages near to the coastline. This is attributed at least in part to the lasting impacts of salt water swept in during typhoons as well as rising sea levels.4

Da Loc is now facing a critical freshwater shortage. Due to extended dry seasons, as well as increasing salinization from sea level rise, the Len River has become contaminated by saltwater year round. This is forcing communities to explore other water-access options, including purchasing water for household needs, filtering water, developing rainwater harvesting tanks and requesting water donations from other communities.

Irregular weather patterns are linked by villagers and district authorities to a number of new and intensifying human, crop and animal diseases. Villagers report an increased onset of diseases such as rice seedling blight (Pyricularia oryzae, also known as rice blast fungus or rice rotten neck), rice leaf folder (Cnaphalocrocis medinalis), and what appear to be foot-and-mouth disease among cattle and pigs and avian influenza in poultry. These diseases have emerged in a very short period and have presented serious management challenges for the community.

Marginalized households, and women in particular, face growing health risks due to the lack of clean water as salinization of wells and river accelerates.

4 According to MONRE-Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment (2008), average sea-level rise along the shoreline of Viet Nam during 1993-2008.


The growing brackish water habitats around the commune have also led to new opportunities through aquaculture and capture fisheries. The reforestation of the mangroves has led to an expansion of sandy mudflats to 1,300 ha. These coastal wetlands provide an ideal habitat for valuable brackish aquatic species such as molluscs, oysters, crabs, coy fish and shrimp.

The participatory rural appraisal (PRA) exercises reveal the growing economic importance of aquaculture and in particular molluscs for the community. Prior to the community-based mangrove reforestation project, daily harvests of molluscs averaged 2 kg per day per person (selling at US$1.20 per kg). Today, as a result of enhanced habitat and strict harvest regulations, the yield is five to 10 times as much. In addition to aquatic species, the areas around the mangroves support livelihood activities such as duck rearing and bee keeping.

However, there are questions emerging about equity in the distribution of the new community resources. In 2010, approximately 46% of the mudflat area was allocated to individual households for aquaculture production at set rent levels. Since 2010, rental of the mudflats has changed, away from this system of allocations and fixed rents. Those able to pay the high rent fees have been the primary beneficiaries. Conflicts are already emerging within the community over mudflat access rights and the opportunity costs of strict mangrove conservation.

Adaptive capacities

Livelihood assets of the Da Loc community were identified and analysed to consider their adaptive capacity.

Valued community assets in Da Loc commune Type Livelihood assets Effects on adaptive capacity

Natural assets Terrestrial land available: 1,350 ha, including 450 ha of agricultural landMangrove forests: approx. 500 haShoreline mud flats: 1,300 haLen River and tributaries

Land to support subsistence agriculture (primarily rice) Benefits from mangroves including disaster risk reduction and income potential from aquaculture and carbon sequestration

Physical assets Sea dykes: 5 km Road infrastructure Accessible public transportation Accessible preschool, primary and secondary schools Health care station

Protection from natural disasters and extreme weather eventsAccess to services, markets, etc.Economic mobility through educationSupport for medical complaints

Financial assets Official credit systems through national banks Unofficial credit system: private and farmer-group saving initiatives

Investment opportunities in diversified income generating activities

Social assets Associations for women, farmers, and youth, along with a “Green Team” which raises awareness about environmental issuesHardworking, collective work ethic

Channels for information dissemination and awareness raisingOpportunity to respond to changes with collaborative activities and actions

Source: Key informant interviews, 20115

5 52 villagers from the Da Loc Commune participated in 2 focus group discussions (FGDs). In-depth interviews with individual households, commune and district leaders, and CARE staff were also conducted, a workshop was also held in Da Loc Commune in order to supplement and validate data.


Responses to changes in environment and development needs

Da Loc commune is responding to climate change, environmental and broader socio-economic changes with coping, adaptive, and in some cases, maladaptive strategies, which are strategies that cause more harm to community and undermine their ability to adapt to climate change in the present and future. Some of the most common adaptive responses include:

• Maintaining mangroves for their protective function • Changing areas of land use, crops and cropping patterns to respond to seasonal

weather changes (Pereznieto et al., 2011) • Increasing use of crop species resistant to drought and saline water • Intensifying agricultural techniques, such as use of fertilizer and pesticides, to

respond to declining crop productivity and diminished land resources • Investing in irrigation systems in response to growing water scarcity (Pereznieto

et al., 2011) • Transitioning from rice farming for subsistence to cash-based aquaculture • Reducing in livestock rearing due to high costs and diminished natural resources • Digging of water ponds around fields for freshwater capture • Migrating to cities for employment (Thanh et al., 2010)

Many of these strategies represent planned adaptation, but not all are based on long-term forecasting and full information. Coping measures, such as the increased use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, are reducing financial resources and food security, potentially leading to health impacts. Other measures, such as a shift in livelihoods from subsistence rice farming to cash-based aquaculture, have appeared to increase available resources, at least in the short term.

Da Loc has also developed its social capital in response to the changes it is experiencing. The community’s Flood Committees have been instrumental in supporting disaster management, and the youth-based Green Teams have actively raised awareness of climate change and environmental management.

Exercise

Based on the case study, answer the following questions: • How has climate change affected the communities in each of the case studies? • How did climate change impact different groups in the community? What

aspects of their lives did it impact? (food security, gender relations) • What was the involvement of the different groups in climate change adaptation,

if any? • What would have been the implications of not involving communities in

adaptation design and implementation?


Community forestry: well placed to address climate change challenges in the Terai, Nepal

Case study 2 – Nepal

Background

The forestry context in the Terai, the southern region of Nepal bordering India, differs greatly from the rest of the country. In most of the country, deforestation is decreasing, while in the Terai it is on the rise (Joshi, 2009). There are several reasons for this: The Terai contains significant amounts of high-value timber, in particular Sal (Shorea robusta), and road construction has increased accessibility both for migrants from other parts of the country as well as to nearby Indian markets. Given the high value of forest products in the Terai, there are powerful incentives for elite capture. This is when resources are exploited by certain classes of society such as those who are rich or have political power. Corruption at the local and national levels is also another reason why the Terai is of interest. The complex social dynamics in the Terai further challenge efforts for equitable and transparent governance. As a result, the national government has prioritized the more centralized collaborative forest management (CFM) model for the Terai rather than community forestry approaches, leaving villagers with less direct involvement in forest management than they have secured in other parts of the country. The three villages targeted in this study, however, Sibeswor, Bishnupur and Balganga, employ the community forestry model and have established Community Forestry User Groups (CFUGs).


In the past, Sarlahi District was known for the collective forest management practiced by its many indigenous communities. However, following the 1957 nationalization of Nepal’s forests, all communal forests came under central government control. Overnight, traditional subsistence uses of forest land and products became prohibited.

The lowland forests of the Terai and the forests of the Churia, hilly areas adjacent to the Terai, began to come under threat during multiple waves of migration in the decades following nationalization. By the 1990s, they were highly degraded. This has contributed to the area’s vulnerability to flooding and soil erosion. In 1993, a large flood in the district resulted in significant damage and loss of human lives. This led to a range of local-level responses, most notably reforestation near rivers and, ultimately, the formation of several community forests including Sibeswor.

Community forestry approaches in the area have tended towards stricter conservation measures than other parts of the country. These include operational management plans that limit collection of forest products, and allow the free grazing of livestock as well as other subsistence activities. In an effort to support local-level resilience, a number of development service providers, including the District Livestock Support Office, CARE International and the Federation of Community Forest User Groups Nepal (FECOFUN), have been working intensively with several CFUGs in the area, including in Bishnupur and Sibeswor.


Climate change impacts

Since the mid-1970s, average air temperature in Nepal has risen by 1 degree Celsius. At the local level in Sarlahi, communities feel acutely aware of this change. Local communities report atypical heat stresses during summer and severe cold during winter over the past decade. Days and nights are reported as becoming warmer, while cool days and nights are becoming less frequent. Increasing temperatures are reported to have reduced the productive capacity of agricultural workers. People used to farm throughout the day, but are now often unable to work between 10 am and 2 pm, with a negative impact on income and food security.

The most severe impacts in the area reported by the communities have been from droughts and water scarcity. They report shifts over the past decade in rainy-season patterns, with erratic rains of shorter duration but greater intensity. This is supported by national trends of irregular monsoon patterns resulting in droughts and floods. The eastern parts of the Terai in particular experienced a reduction in rain between 2005 and 2006 leading to a decline of 12.5% of national crop production as compared to the previous year. The western Terai, however, over the same period faced heavy rains, flooding and cloudbursts, reducing annual production by 30%. These changes in weather patterns are affecting the growth, ripening and storage of rice and the cultivation of other traditional crops.

Community members have observed that erratic rainfall has coincided with changes in soil composition, with apparent declines in soil moisture content. The villagers associate this with the diminishing presence of frogs, earthworms, insects and other biota needed to create humus and control pests. They note that infestations of pest species, such as white grubs and locusts, pose increasing hazards for farmers. Insect-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, diarrhoea and ringworm, which had previously been eradicated in the area, but have re-emerged. The villagers link shifts in seasons and temperature variability to changes in fruit and seed production, as well as the availability of important medicinal plants. Finally, the ranges of a number of endemic tree species, particularly high water-consumption species, have retreated to high-altitude and hilly areas, or appear to have disappeared from the region altogether.

Adaptive capacity and resilience

In addition to NRM and livelihood support, the two CARE projects operating in Sarlahi have assisted Bishnupur and Sibeswor CFUGs in developing community adaptation plans of action (CAPAs). These involve the mapping of climate change hazards and hotspots, and capacity building to facilitate processes of community-based adaptation.

As a result, awareness of climate change and its impacts has grown within these CFUGs, compared with the Balganga CFUGs, which have not had this targeted intervention. However, there is still considerable work to be done in Bishnupur and Sibeswor, particularly with regards to ensuring equity and inclusion. Current adaptation plans do not explicitly consider most vulnerable groups, and participation of these marginalized groups in


capacity-development efforts remains nominal.

The community forests were seen to provide an important buffer to changes observed in the surrounding environment. Productive land closer to forests had greater soil moisture content and water-retention capacity, thereby being better able to withstand the effects of low rainfall. The three communities were also aware of the benefits of a biodiverse forest and have focused forest-management efforts on enhancing biodiversity through planting a range of native species.

CFUGs are uniquely positioned within Nepal to manage and respond to various ecological changes through different segments of society. Because the committees are mandated to include members from all socio-economic categories, they are often able to disseminate information more broadly than other institutions. In addition, CFUGs provide entry points for development service providers, and are also an important provider of low-interest credit.Traditional caste- and gender-based dynamics are changing with the influences of globalization and domestic political trends, with the taboo around even touching certain castes diminishing in recent years. However, there are now ground-breaking gender representation requirements, mandating that 50% of key CFUG committee positions be held by women. While not always perfect in application, this has contributed to the establishment of norms in the context of community forestry and beyond. Women chaired two of the three CFUG executive committees involved in this study. However, the degree to which this demonstrates genuine gender representation is unclear. The Terai remains generally quite conservative on issues of gender relations and caste. In at least one of the CFUGs studied, the chair was the only female in attendance and the committee had established a special all-male advisory sub-committee to the female chair on decisions. The reason for this was most likely that there was little confidence in her ability to understand the issues and perform her tasks.

Vulnerabilities

For most forest-based communities in the Terai, the biggest barrier to adaptation is access to, and control over, livelihood assets. People who have tenure security over land and forests tend to have more adaptive capacity than those who do not. Landholders have the capacity to absorb risks associated with experimental agricultural practices and crops. They tend to be wealthier individuals whose diverse assets and greater range of options put them in a better position to respond to climate change impacts.

Historically, people who are viewed as low caste were prevented from living in more populated areas, and were forced to settle in marginal and more hazard-prone locations. Bishnapur and Sibeswor villagers are generally from lower-caste and indigenous groups and live near rivers, making them more vulnerable to flooding. A similar trend is seen with respect to employment and livelihoods. Poor agricultural labourers and women are particularly vulnerable to drought, floods and extremes of heat and cold.

Typical of CFUGs in the Terai, the three studied here have restrictions on free grazing


of livestock in forest areas, green-timber extraction, and the collection of fuelwood and non-timber forest products (NTFPs), including traditional medicinal plants. The restricted access makes it difficult for poorer households to meet subsistence needs, let alone secure income through sale of fuel wood, production of furniture and other traditional industries.

The forest-use restrictions place a disproportionate burden on the most vulnerable members of society. In addition to their greater reliance on NTFPs as a source of income, community members suffer restrictions on the harvest of medicinal NTFPs that has forced them to seek medical attention from hospitals, with associated high costs. Women bear a particularly heavy burden. As both household energy security and livestock feeding are the responsibility of women, these have been affected adversely by restrictions on fuelwood and fodder collection. There has been a decline in livestock numbers by approximately 50% due to the perception of how difficult stall-rearing cattle is. Dairy is also one of the few sources of revenue controlled directly by women and the decline in livestock has led to diminished earning potential and status for women in the community.

Decision-making is not always equitable in the CFUGs. Officially, it is participatory and consensus-based but in practice it is dominated by community elite, generally men from higher castes.

Based on the case study, answer the following questions: • How has climate change affected the community? • How has climate change impacted different groups in the community? What

aspects of their lives? (food security, gender relations) • What was the involvement of the different groups in climate change adaptation,

if any? • What would have been the implications of not involving communities in

adaptation design and implementation?



Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Which of the SDGs can community-based adaptation (CBA) contribute to?


Session 3: Community-based adaptation

In general, rural communities are more vulnerable to climate change for two key reasons:

1. They tend to be heavily dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods.

Rural communities tend to rely on farming for subsistence and income generation. However, agriculture is becoming more difficult due to climate change. Greater unpredictability in the timing of rainy seasons and irregular rainfall patterns within seasons makes it especially challenging to decide when to cultivate, sow and harvest. These challenges are compounded by the growing need for additional labour, fertilizer and pesticide inputs to compensate for declining soil fertility, rising temperatures and the growing number of pests. In short, climate change has impacts on land, soil and water resources leading to landscape-level change, which is particularly important for communities that rely heavily on natural resources.

2. Rural, and particularly poor and marginalized communities, are often located in geographic areas that are vulnerable to climatic and other natural disasters.

COMMUNITY BASED ADAPTATION


Geographic location often reflects social mapping, with wealthier, more empowered groups able to settle in less disaster-prone, more productive or commercially attractive areas. Poor and marginalized groups tend to be pushed to less desirable areas including uphill, forested, and disease or disaster-prone areas. Thus, in addition to the existing capacity and resource gaps between groups in society, vulnerabilities are increased based on location in a given landscape.

What is community-based adaptation?

Community-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change is a community-led process, based on communities’ priorities, needs, knowledge and capacities. The process is aimed at empowering people to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change (CARE CBA Toolkit 2010). The entry point can be an identification of communities that are most vulnerable to climate change, or in many cases, it may be a continuation of targeted development or disaster management work with affected communities.

Rural communities face many natural, social, political and economic problems, and climatic factors are only one of these. As such, limiting analysis to only climate-related risks will be unlikely to reflect the full range of a community’s livelihood priorities. Therefore, a guiding principal in CBA is to start with communities’ own needs, perceptions and knowledge, and to include poverty reduction and livelihood benefits in addition to examining climate-based vulnerabilities (IIED, 2009).

One of the defining characteristics of CBA is that, in addition to looking holistically at the needs and priorities of communities, it attempts to factor in the potential impact of climate change on livelihoods and vulnerability. It does so through a two-pronged approach of using local and scientific knowledge of climate change and its likely effects:

• Scientific information, including long-term predictions from climate change models, ideally both national and downscaled models, seasonal forecasts, and meteorological information on local level trends.

• Local knowledge and perceptions about climatic trends and changes being experienced by communities, as well as strategies these communities have used in the past and/or are currently using to respond (IIED, 2009).

Combined analysis of these two key sources can contribute to a more balanced understanding of risk. Reliance on a single information source, whether it be local knowledge, recent meteorological data or climate-modelling scenarios, can lead to misinterpretations and misguided assumptions about climatic events. CBA also aims to build ideas of risk and uncertainty into activities, with the aim of building communities’ resilience to both current climate variability and future climate change.


CARE’s CBA framework is based upon four key elements: • Promotion of climate-resilient livelihoods strategies • Disaster risk reduction strategies to reduce the impact of hazards • Capacity development for local civil society and governmental institutions • Advocacy, social mobilization and empowerment to address the underlying

causes of vulnerability (CARE, 2010)

Community-based adaptation and development: how are they different from each other?

Climate change adaptation and good development can be difficult to separate. Typically, the more developed a country is, the greater its ability to adapt to shocks, and thus the lower its level of vulnerability. However, climate change adaptation is more than just good development (World Bank, 2013).

The term adaptation encompasses a continuum of approaches; some of these address drivers of vulnerability, some address impact. Addressing drivers of vulnerability often looks like traditional development practice. Such measures reduce overall vulnerability including to climate change. By promoting development objectives such as poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods, drivers of climate-related vulnerability are reduced. Activities at this end of the spectrum can include livelihood diversification, support for improved health conditions, and gender empowerment. Such interventions if undertaken without a climate lens risk increasing vulnerability to climate change. Responses to climate change tend to be extreme and costly such as relocation of communities in response to coastal rise, because they need to be directly deployed in the case of weather related disasters. They often tend to be highly technical and require strong state intervention (World Bank, 2013).

In practice, CBA projects may look very much like development as usual and it can be difficult to distinguish the additional adaptation components. For example, in a drought year, we cannot divide water-storage measures undertaken by local communities into those initiated as a response to normal climate variability, and those initiated as a response to climate change. CBA, like most adaptation measures, falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum while still retaining a strong focus on development priorities that benefit local communities.

According to CARE, there are a number of factors associated with CBA that make it different from development as usual. Namely, it helps people develop adaptation measures that:

• Are based on a holistic analysis of people’s vulnerability to climate change, examining both current and projected climate risks

• Have the explicit goal of reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change • Use scientific climate information as well as local or traditional climate

knowledge for planning • Integrate disaster risk management as a fundamental part of the approach


• Adopt a long-term vision by planning and implementing interventions that enhance resilience to current climate variability, while preparing for anticipated longer-term climatic changes

• Use climate-risk screening to ensure project activities are resilient to climate impacts

• Recognize that context, needs and priorities are dynamic, and therefore incorporates flexibility to manage this (CARE, 2010)

Sustainable Development Goals

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by world leaders at the 2015 UN Summit, officially came into force in January 2016. For the following fifteen years, these universal goals will call on all countries to scale up efforts to end all forms of poverty and inequality and tackle climate change. The SDGs build upon the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but go further, in particular more strongly advocating and addressing issues of climate change and environmental protection. The SDGs are unique in that they call for action by all poor, rich and middle-income countries to improve action on key sustainability indicators.

While the SDGs are not legally binding, governments are expected to take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of the 17 Goals. Countries are responsible for reviewing progress and making this available at international levels.

Given the close linkages between adaptation and good development practices, if the global community is successful in meeting the SDGs, then drivers of climate vulnerabilities will be considerably reduced. If Goal 13 on tackling climate change is effectively achieved, then the risks associated with climate change and the need for adaptation will be significantly reduced. A case can be made for the adaptation benefits of almost every SDG.(Adapted from the UN Sustainable Development Goals.)6

6 un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/

48 LEARNING BLOCK 1

Session 4: Ecosystem-based adaptation and forests

Objectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • Identify what ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is and how it differs from CBA • Describe the importance of forest ecosystems in climate change adaptation • Recognize specific forest-based adaptation interventions

Materials

• Flip chart and markers • Video titled Natural Flood Control in Thailand (see Exercise and Notes to the

trainer) • Glossy magazines and white boxes or boxes that have been covered in white

paper • Exercise on forest-based adaptation • Handout on EbA and forests

Time

• 3.0 hours (time allocated based on session)

49LEARNING BLOCK 1

Steps

1. Explain that in this session, participants will consider the importance of forest in climate change adaptation for humans, and the role of adaptation in maintaining the integrity of forests and its relevant systems.

2. Inform participants that they will watch a video on EbA. Ask them to consider some of the differences and similarities with CBA as they watch the video.

3. After participants have watched the video, ask them to form small groups, each with a flip chart, and over the next 20 minutes to discuss and document responses to the following questions:

• What made this form of adaptation ecosystem-based? What advantages and disadvantages did it have versus traditional infrastructure-based interventions?

• How was the community involved in the interventions? • What differences can you see between CBA and EbA? What similarities? • Can you think of specific examples of EbA from your own work or national

contexts?4. Ask the groups to share the results of their group discussions. Each group will

have five minutes. 5. Keeping to the same groups, inform participants that the focus will now shift

to the role of forests in climate change adaptation. In the respective groups, brainstorm how forest ecosystems contribute to climate change adaptation. Ask them to jot down key ideas on a flip chart. Give them 10 minutes to do so.

6. Once this is done, provide each group with a white box and glossy magazine and ask them to develop a two-minute sales pitch to “sell” the audience on the role of forests in adaptation. Inform the groups they should use the results of the brainstorm earlier. Allow each group about 20 minutes to do this. Make sure that they use their box to “sell” their ideas, and that the boxes are not just decorated.

7. Once all of the presentations are done, identify key points related to forests and climate change adaptation. The main reflection at this stage is that forest ecosystems, including models such as community forestry, can play a role in climate change adaptation.

8. Split participants into small groups and distribute the handout exercise titled Forest-based Adaptation: YES, NO, IT DEPENDS. Ask them to reflect on each of the scenarios listed and decide after discussion on whether it is true (i.e. it IS forest-based adaptation), false (i.e. it is NOT forest-based adaptation), or depends on the context. Note that there are no absolute correct answers. The exercise is intended to stimulate discussion and clarify what forest-based adaptation might look like.

50 LEARNING BLOCK 1

9. Summarize the key lessons identified throughout the session, drawing on both what was presented and what participants provided. The key learning points include:

• Forests play multiple roles when it comes to climate change adaptation. • We need to consider the impacts of adaptation on forest ecosystems,

especially in promoting sustainable forest management. • There are a number of community-based adaptation interventions that can

bring about positive impacts to communities and forests.

Exercise

The main exercise involves the use of a white box and glossy magazine photos to prepare a two-minute sales pitch by participants on the role of forests in adaptation. The exercise is aimed at encouraging participants to think creatively and consolidate ideas into clear and compelling rationales. This will serve as the basis for later discussions on forests and climate change adaptation.


The video titled Natural Flood Control in Thailand7

Both CBA and EbA approaches are presented in this manual to provide practitioners of climate change adaptation with a better understanding of the toolkit of approaches currently being used to respond to climate change, and the rationale for each under different circumstances. Community forestry, the focus of this manual, combines both social and ecological elements. Therefore it is useful to critically assess the benefits of both community-based and ecosystem-based approaches in determining the optimal framework to apply. In fact, CBA and EbA both offer a range of advantages and share a number of similarities. For example, they are both ultimately for the benefit of society. In order to make informed decisions about what aspects of a framework are important, this

7 international-climate-initiative.com/en/media-centre/videos/film/show_video/show/natural_flood_control_in_thailand/

51LEARNING BLOCK 1

session also presents how EbA is different from CBA. The video, while showing certain community benefits, is clearly focused on the role of ecological measures in responding to climatic impacts. In reality and in a community-forestry context, it is often considerably less simple to determine what is CBA and what is EbA. It may be useful for trainers to think through and provide as many examples as possible, including extremes to give clear examples of CBA and EbA.

While giving your presentation on EbA and forests, make sure to draw upon and refer to examples provided by participants in the previous sessions.

In the exercise to sell the role of forests in climate change adaptation, some of the key points that should be highlighted:

• The multiple roles of forests in adaptation:• Supporting livelihoods and income generation• Increasing food security and production• Leveraging social capital and knowledge• Reducing disaster risks• Regulating microclimates

• The impacts of adaptation on forest ecosystems, especially in promoting sustainable forest management:

• Monitoring and maintaining forest health, vitality and diversity• Implementing integrated forest fire management• Enhancing landscape connectivity and reducing forest fragmentation• Monitoring and removing invasive species and addressing pest and

disease threats• Undertaking forest restoration and rehabilitation, particularly on slopes• Implementing reduced-impact logging• Selecting appropriate species for use in planted forests

• Different forest-based approaches for adaptation:• Livelihoods

- Using climate-resilient agroforestry practices- Creating multi-use community forests (for timber, resin, medicine,

fibre, nuts and fruit)- Developing cooperatives for high-value NTFP/agroforestry product

markets• Protecting multi-use community forests

- Restoring and conserving forests- Establishing firebreaks- Collecting and distributing drought-resilient seed stocks- Managing forest landscapes to enhance hydrological functions and

improve soil quality• Training in participatory research methodologies

- Monitoring climate and ecological changes- Tracking tree species composition and morphological change


Forest-based Adaptation: YES, NO or IT DEPENDSDiscuss in small groups and respond to these conditions, saying whether each action is part of forest-based adaptation, is not part of forest-based adaptation, or can sometimes be part of it depending on context. Provide an explanation for each choice of YES, NO or IT DEPENDS.

1. Constructing culverts in ditches to increase water drainage during rainy season2. Increasing forest cover by afforesting degraded land.3. Retaining locally adapted rice varieties in a seed bank4. Establishing a revolving fund for women in a CFUG5. Developing fire breaks and related early warning systems6. Setting up agroforestry initiatives around forest areas7. Monitoring carbon-biomass of forest area8. Conducting market research on what types of forest mushrooms have highest

demand9. Digging water-retention ponds in forest areas10. Migrating into urban areas for work11. Beekeeping in and around forest areas12. Encouraging re-growth of indigenous tree species in forest areas13. Increasing amount of forest under Protected Forest status14. Setting up community forestry-based funds allocated for extremely poor

households15. Introducing clear-cutting silvi-cultural practices16. Using reforestation for riverbank stabilization17. Digging new wells on the outskirts of community18. Prohibiting free grazing of livestock in forest areas19. Converting former subsistence cropland next to forest into single species cash

crops20. Conserving forest habitat for increasingly rare wildlife species


Session 4: Ecosystem-based adaptation and forests

Currently two main approaches to adaptation receive the greatest attention, namely community-based adaptation (CBA) and ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA). The first is focused on empowering local communities to reduce their vulnerabilities. The second focuses on on leveraging ecosystems as a means to provide goods and services in the face of climate change (Girot et al, 2012).

Ecosystem-based adaptation

Ecosystems are a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and microorganism communities and the non-living environment, interacting as a functional unit (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) Humans are not only part of ecosystems, but are dependent on them in a number of ways. To use economic terms, humans obtain benefits from ecosystems in the form of ecosystem services. This includes obvious services such as water and foods, as well as less obvious services, like waste treatment and pollination.


Healthy ecosystems also provide services vital to natural resilience in the context of climate change. These ecosystem services can make adverse climatic impacts less severe and reduce vulnerabilities.

In addition to the negative impacts climate change will have on livelihood assets, it will also threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services for food, water and shelter. These impacts on natural resources, species and ecosystems will reduce options for development and economic growth, and increase the pressure on the remaining landscapes and ecosystems. Losses in land fertility and landscape-level productivity are expected as a result of erosion, salinization and lowering water tables and will affect rural communities’ livelihoods (Girot et al, 2012). This will compromise options for poverty reduction, in particular for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.

Ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation have been a direct response to this. Such an approach harnesses the power of biodiversity and ecosystem services to support climate change adaptation at local, national and regional levels. This is done by applying various NRM strategies, such as conservation and ecosystem restoration activities. Specific interventions vary depending on local context, but general examples include:

• Using of coastal habitats such as mangroves to limit the impacts of storm surges and coastal erosion

• Managing shrub lands and forests to limit and control forest fires • Diversifying of agricultural systems to enhance food security and limit risks

posed by agricultural pests and irregular rainfall • Establishing protected areas to protect continued delivery of ecosystem

services. (Adapted from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, 2016)

EbA can be characterized by its approach of using natural resources to limit climate change vulnerability, and can represent a useful, low-cost approach to adaptation for communities dependent on those resources.

Finally, EbA can contribute to community cohesion and social capital as the approach is often in accordance with existing indigenous or local-level resource-management practices.

However, there remain challenges to the implementation of EbA. Generally, governments manage resources by sector, with certain agencies being responsible for forests, others for water, and still others for agriculture. This lack of communication and integration can lead to maladaptation efforts that do not succeed in reducing vulnerability but actually increase it instead and to policy contradiction. Additionally, decisions about NRM and EbA can be top-down without the full involvement of relevant stakeholders. Local communities must be involved in all stages of the intervention process, including planning, implementation, and M&E. This demands rigorous, iterative, and varied forms of engagement. It also supports further consideration of how CBA and EbA can be better integrated.


Forests for people and people for forests

When considering forests and adaptation, people might be confused as to what the relationship is, particularly given the obvious association of forests with climate change mitigation. We consider that the relationship is two-fold. First, there is ‘forests for adaptation’ (of human communities) and second, there is ‘adaptation for forests’ (of forest


Ecosystem services provided by forests • Regulating services:

regulation of air quality, climate change, floods, soil erosion, water purification, waste treatment, pollination, and the biological control of pests and diseases

• Provisioning services: provision of food, fuelwood, fibre, natural medicines, pharmaceuticals, genetic resources, and fresh water

• Cultural services: non-material benefits including cultural diversity and identity, spiritual and religious values, knowledge systems, educational values, inspiration, aesthetic values, social relations, sense of place, cultural heritage, recreation and communal and symbolic values

• Supporting services: provision of services such as soil formation and retention, nutrient cycling and primary production

(From Secretariat for the CBD and GIZ, 2011.)

ecosystems). For the purposes of this manual, we consider and address both aspects of forests and climate change adaptation. In order for forests to contribute to meaningful human adaptation, sustainable management of forests and landscapes must be achieved (Locatelli, 2011).

Relationship between forests and human adaptation

Forests are well recognized as ecosystems that are vital to providing a range of services necessary in the context of climate change.

Despite their very important role in supporting climate change adaptation, forests are likely to be affected by an unprecedented combination of climate change-related disturbances. These include fires, flooding, drought, invasive species, pests, changing seasonality, forest composition and other drivers of disturbance. Other factors threatening the integrity of forest ecosystems include expansion of agriculture and other land-use changes, demographic changes, roads and other infrastructure development, and exploitation of ground and other water sources. (Adapted from the Secretariat for the CBD and GIZ, 2011.)


While the Paris Agreement aspires to halt or limit global temperature increase at 1.5oC by end of the century, even this challenging goal will still mean significant effects on the growth and regeneration of tree species, leading to changes in the composition and function of forests. Forests are highly dependent on changes in water availability, a variable which is expected to be subject to more extreme conditions as a result of climate change, leading to forest decline. Finally, while net productivity may increase in some locations, particularly of tropical and sub-tropical forest types, the overall standing biomass of forests may not, as a result of increasing forest fires, pests and pathogens (IPCC 2007).

Strategies for increasing forest ecosystem resilience

Given that climate change will inevitably affect forests, strategies are being developed to better incorporate resilience within forest management planning. Some of these threats and responding strategies, adapted from the work of Locatelli et al, 2008, are included below:

Fires and other disturbances: There are measures for increasing forest resilience in the face of growing climate-related disturbances, such fires, invasive species, insects and diseases. On some level, it is important that natural disturbance regimes, such as fires, are maintained in order to preserve ecosystem functions that are often dependent on disturbances and species composition. This requires maintaining a delicate balance between suppressing fire, controlled burning of natural fires, and using prescribed burning for reducing the risk of high-intensity fires. The need becomes even higher in the case of vulnerable rural communities in developing countries with limited livelihood assets to draw upon.

Changing seasonality: Changes in seasonality are mainly experienced as alterations in rainfall patterns and temperature. Both of these factors are likely to impact the blooming, fruiting and growth of species. For areas experiencing changes in fruiting and growth patterns, assisted deliberate changes in species composition may be required. Drought-resistant and indigenous species can be selectively planted in response to limited water availability. It is also important that management of forest ecosystems be undertaken to the degree possible at landscape levels. This will provide for more effective water management but also the provision of connectivity (see next point).

Landscape and ecosystem fragmentation: As the climate changes along with other factors such as seasonality, the range and types of species that make up forest ecosystems will also change. One measure to increase the adaptive capacity of forest ecosystems is to enhance landscape connectivity and find ways to reduce fragmentation. Increasing connectivity between habitats allows species to migrate to cooler or otherwise more

suitable altitudes and latitudes. Corridors established in the direction of the climate gradient could thus help species adapt to climate change. Another possible strategy is to conserve a variety of forest ecosystems in the form of protected or community-based protected areas (Noss 2001).

Learning Block 2

The Community Forestry-based Climate Change Adaptation (CF-CCA) approach

60 LEARNING BLOCK 2

Session 5: What is a sustainable livelihood?

Objectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • Explain what is meant by the term ‘livelihood’ • Present the different dimensions of the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA)

framework • Identify key elements of their own livelihoods and how these relate to resilience

against shocks

Materials

• Index cards in four different colours • Flip charts • Poster (or hand-drawn flip chart) with the SLA framework • Exercise sheet • Handout

Time

• 2.0 hours

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Steps

1. Explain to participants that climate change has directly and indirectly affected people. Further explain that in order to understand how significantly climate change affects our lives, we need to understand the concept of livelihoods and the different elements of our own livelihoods.

2. Run a short brainstorming session in a plenary session on participants’ understandings of the word livelihood. The trainer should take down key words on flip chart. Then show a poster or flip chart of how DFID (2000) defines livelihood (see Notes to the trainer).

3. Share examples of elements from your (the trainer’s) own livelihood. This could include training, research, family, work and social activities. Please see example exercise in handouts.

4. Ask participants to work in pairs or groups of four. Post the following questions: • What are your livelihoods? • What are the resources or activities that help you carry out your livelihood

activities? • What influences help or hinder the way in which we carry out our livelihood

activities? • Which influences can we control and which are out of our control? • What do we expect from our own lives? How do we know if we are

successful? • How do we use the resources in our lives to respond to challenges and to

achieve our future aspirations?5. After 30 minutes, ask each team to share their answers with the other groups in

a plenary session. 6. After the sharing, reflect on the process with the following questions:

• How do people feel discussing their livelihoods in public? • What kind of information do you receive when you ask about someone’s

livelihoods? • Is it difficult to describe your own personal livelihood information? Which

examples are easy to discuss? Which are difficult? • How might community members that you work with react to questions

about their livelihoods? Would the reactions be different in different communities? Why would it be so? When we go into communities and say we are there to study community members’ livelihoods, what message are we sending? Why is it important to consider the message we are sending to the communities?

7. In a plenary session, referring back to the presentation done by the groups, ask participants for some of the resources used to successfully carry out their livelihood activities. Ask them to consider things they can and cannot control. Ideally participants will be able to identify some relevant examples such as financial, equipment, family support, and social relations in the community. Note these down on a flip chart.

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8. Explain that you will introduce a framework that can help participants to better understand livelihoods and the factors that influence them. Some of them may already be aware of the SLA approach and use it in their work. Please see Note to the trainer

9. Step by step, present the SLA framework and the ways in which climate change relates to the framework. Try to match the results from the group work/discussions to the different aspects described in the SLA framework: activities, assets, influences, aspirations or outcomes, strategies and vulnerabilities.

10. After the presentation of the SLA framework, ask the following questions and note responses on the flip chart:

• How would climate change affect your livelihoods? • How would it affect communities that are already poor and marginalized? • What are some of the ways to reduce impacts and to allow communities to

adapt better? • What are the policies, institutions and processes that might impact the

participants’ livelihoods or the livelihoods in the communities in which you work? How important are these when it comes to climate change? Refer to examples that participants have shared in previous sessions.

11. Summarize the following key learning points: • When thinking about climate change adaptation, we must consider people’s

livelihood systems so that interventions can reduce vulnerabilities and build on existing assets.

• Livelihoods, and each individual livelihood asset, can be severely impacted due to climate change.

• Well-developed and sustainable adaptation strategies, developed with the participation of all stakeholders, can enhance the livelihood assets within communities.

• Communal action can be a powerful strategy response to the negative effects of climate impacts, especially with government support.


1. DFID (2000) definition of livelihood to be either on a poster or hand-drawn on a flip chart: “A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living.”

How much time is devoted to this session depends in part on the levels of expertise of the participants. Given that the SLA framework is quite well established, if the participant group is experienced they may be quite familiar with the SLA framework and less time may be needed.

2. The trainer may use the following example or tailor it to be more personal.



Example: Using a trainer’s own livelihood to lead discussionWhat is my livelihood?

• Working at RECOFTC – a profession that involves a lot of organizing and thinking

• Analysing and collating information to develop and deliver training and capacity building events

• Travelling across the regionBUT my livelihood also involves my family:

• Friends and colleagues • Social functions, holidays and time to relax with my children • Day-to-day business of getting to work and helping organize family activities

Resources • Wage • Education • Work and life experiences • Contacts, networks, friends • Savings and credit cards • Health insurance • House and car • English language skills • Confidence in myself

Vulnerabilities • Potential for loss of work • Sickness • Rise in interest rates • Family problems • Changing international donor focus • Possible political conflict in home country

Influences – positive • Long term contract • Exciting opportunities at work involving travel • Good social network for my family • Support from family

Influences – negative • Too much work • Too much travel • Payments, insurance and interest on loans


Session 5: Understanding livelihood and the SLA framework

Sustainable livelihoods: definition and assets

Defining “livelihood” (Adapted from DFID 2000)

“A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base.”

How is a livelihood sustainable? (Adapted from DFID 2000)

A sustainable livelihood is one that can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks. It is able to maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future. We consider livelihoods to be sustainable when they:

• Are resilient in the face of external shocks and stresses • Are not dependent upon external support unless the source of support is

economically and institutionally sustainable. • Maintain and enhance the long-term productivity of natural resources • Do not undermine the livelihoods of others


Livelihood assets

Livelihood assets are the means, or building blocks, available to support livelihood activities. These assets are the foundation upon which livelihoods are built.The more assets and the greater their diversity, the more sustainable the livelihoods. There are, generally speaking, five livelihood asset types:

• Natural assets: the natural resource stock from which livelihoods are derived. Natural resources may include land, water, forests, pastures, mining resources, and biodiversity. Availability of and access to natural resources are important in responding to climate change. In some cases, there may be plenty of resources available but an individual or community may not have access to use them.

• Social assets: the set of social relationships upon which people can draw in pursuit of their livelihood goals. Also known as social capital, it is built from a range of factors including friendships, networks, trusting relationships, group and organizational memberships, and access to wider societal institutions. Social assets are also influenced by one’s access to markets, credit, government services, social standing and a range of other factors.

• Human assets: the human-based skills, knowledge, ability and health needed to pursue livelihood activities. At the household level, this includes both the quantity of human resources (number of productive individuals) and their quality (what these individuals know and how hard they are willing and able to work). Human assets covers knowledge and skills learned both from formal education and experiential learning.

• Physical assets: the basic infrastructure related to transport, shelter, water management, energy, and communications as well as the tools that would allow people to maintain their livelihoods. Physical assets include both things that people own and things that they have access to, such as roads, irrigation systems, telephone networks.

• Financial assets: available resources consisting of money, or convertible to money, such as savings, credit, remittances and pensions, social security payments and insurance, and which provide different livelihood options. This includes resources for investment in new assets, for input into production, and for responding to different vulnerabilities.

Taken together, these assets determine the sustainability of livelihoods for individuals as well as communities. They also form the basis for how people will respond to climate-related vulnerabilities. While all assets are important, for rural communities in developing countries natural resources are of particular significance.

The SLA framework (Figure 6 below) is one way we can show linkages between livelihood assets, policies, institutions and processes, and a larger vulnerability context. The reinforcing nature of these interactions suggests that well developed and sustainable


livelihood strategies, supported by an enabling policy environment and developed with equitable community participation, can enhance multiple community livelihood assets simultaneously. This in turn can help communities reduce their vulnerability to climate change impacts.

Figure 6: DFID’s sustainable livelihoods framework

Impacts of climate change on livelihood assets

Livelihoods, in general, depend on the interactions of the livelihood assets with the various dynamics presented above. Climate change can impact livelihood assets positively and/or negatively, and at different levels. Though some positive climate impacts have been observed, they are usually overshadowed by negative impacts. In this context, there is a need to examine the current and potential impacts of climate change on the various livelihood assets.

Climate changeLivelihoods


Human assets

A basic component of human assets or resources is health. Climate change directly and indirectly impacts human health, via disaster-related injuries, infectious diseases and malnutrition (IPCC 2007). Some of the current and potential impacts of climate change on human health are:

• Injuries, illness and death as a result of climate-induced hazards such as floods, storms, and both hot and cold temperature extremes. Examples include dizziness, fatigue and nausea during hot periods, and pneumonia and asthma during cold waves.

• Increased incidence of communicable diseases, including vector-borne diseases transmitted by bites from infected mosquitoes and other insects, such as malaria and Japanese encephalitis due to rising global temperatures.

• An increase in food-borne infectious diseases. Higher ambient temperatures increase replication cycles of food-borne pathogens.

• Waterborne diseases and contamination of water supplies if flood waters enter water and sewage system separations.

• Respiratory problems due to worsening pollution, nutritional impacts related to agricultural disruption, and other forms of poor health due to social dislocation and migration (Case et al, 2007).

The strength of human assets or resources is also closely linked to natural and financial capital. For example, human health will be impacted by decreases in agricultural production and contaminated water. Further, responding to crises of human assets requires spending financial resources, and diverts financial flows from knowledge and skill development.

Natural assets

Natural assets such as water, forests and agriculture will continue to decrease as a result of climate change. In many cases, those dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods are more vulnerable to climate change than other communities.

• Water availability and accessibility will be critically reduced by climate change. Mountain snowpack and glaciers are crucial for freshwater availability, and will be impacted in a warmer world. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns and regularity also lead the changes in surface runoff, which can result in floods (IPCC, 2007).

• Changes in the distribution patterns and ranges of species, changes in productivity, the loss of endemic species and extinction are among the potential impacts of climate change. And, in addition to the climatic impacts that cause ecosystem changes, other anthropogenic pressures such as land-use change, pollution and over-exploitation play a crucial role in shaping local ecosystems.


• Agriculture serves as a primary livelihood source in developing countries and will continue to be hugely impacted by climate change. Change in crop yield, and increasing food insecurity, has occurred in these countries, in part due to climate change. This can contribute to malnutrition, conflict, and a reduction in financial resources for education, health and other services.

• Forests are another sector that will be significantly impacted by climate change. Invasive species are spreading more rapidly than they have in the past. Prolonged periods of drought have impacted forest ecosystems as well. And forest-dependent livelihoods have been highly impacted due to changes in forest composition and yield.

Physical assets

Flooding, fires and storms are among the various climate-related threats to infrastructure and physical assets. Some specific examples include:

• Numerous rivers and their tributaries have changed their course in recent years, expanding floodplains and putting nearby infrastructure increasingly at risk, especially where river-channelling measures and flood controls are insufficient.

• Increased riverine and coastal flooding has caused large-scale damage to settlements.

• Extreme weather events have led to the breakdown of critical infrastructure networks and services such as energy, water supply, and telecommunications (IPCC 2014).

The examples listed above represent only a sample of the ways in which climate change can impact physical assets. The livelihood implications of these impacts are severe, as they not only impact immediate assets and needs but affect future adaptive capacity as well.

Financial assets

The financial assets and resources that are available to people, including savings, credit, regular remittances and pensions, and social security payments or insurance, will also be impacted by climate change. Climatic stress pushes people to draw on and liquidate financial resources to cope with impacts.

The financial assets that can be used by individuals to enhance adaptive capacity need to be invested to minimize climate-related stresses such as diseases, flood and landslide control, and food security. Therefore, a lack of financial capital will increase the vulnerability of a community by limiting the resources they have available to combat climate change.


Social assets

Social assets or capital have strong linkages and connections with the other livelihood assets. Some expected social impacts of climate change include:

• Climate change limits resource availability, which can foster social conflict over scarce resources. This can further affect social norms and values.

• As people are forced to invest more of their time dealing with the implications of climate change, it is likely that social and communal relations will be impacted.

• To adapt to climate change, poor and dispossessed people may be forced to engage in more exploitative work, due to their increasing vulnerability.

In general, livelihoods, and each individual livelihood asset, may be severely impacted as a result of climate change. Strong community-level organization and action can prove an important strategy in identifying and addressing climate-related vulnerabilities.

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Session 6: Gender, social difference and equity in climate change vulnerability

Objectives

At the end of the session, participants will be able to: • Explain how climate change and climate change vulnerability is experienced

differently by different groups in society • Describe gender concepts, such as equity/ equality and differentiated

vulnerability • State the roles that women and other marginalized groups can play as agents of

change in climate change adaptation

Materials

• Flip charts and markers • Post-it notes • Handout • Meta cards • Exercise handout sheets

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Time

• 3.0 hours (1. 5 hrs x 2 sessions)

Steps

1. Explain that in this session we will explore further the impact of climate change on already marginalized or disempowered stakeholders.

2. Divide participants into small groups, ideally in the same groups as they were when they discussed the impacts of climate change in Session 2.

3. Ask participants to brainstorm as a group and then write on meta cards different groups that can be categorized within (typical rural) communities. For example, elderly, disabled, youth, widows/widowers, women, men, poor, middle-class, wealthy, or membership-based groups such as dairy collectives, political parties and user-group members.

4. Once these are listed, ask groups to consider and write down what livelihood assets these groups have and how these different groups within a society could be differently impacted by climate change. Provide an example to help participants get started: “When climate change poses additional burdens on agricultural production and other subsistence activities such as water collection, it may burden families enough to remove children from school. Flooding, drought, and desertification can extend the burdens of women and girls to collect water and fuel wood, forcing more girls in more communities to forego education.” Ask participants to refer to their flip chart in session 2 and write down some of these impacts. They should take about 20 minutes to complete this task.

5. Once the participants have finished, organize a carousel sharing session: Each group will rotate clockwise to see what the other groups have come up with. Make sure that one person from each group stays at the flip chart to answer any questions. Give the groups about five minutes at each station. Ask the groups to stick a Post-it Note on any idea that they liked and a Post-it with a question mark on points they would like more clarification on.

6. Once each group has had a chance to visit all other stations, the trainer should facilitate a plenary discussion focusing on each station. Key questions the trainer might ask include:

• How many different stakeholder groups appear in each example? • How are each of these affected differently by climate impacts? • What assets might each group possess? • What are the relationships between these groups? • How significant is the difference between social hierarchy and structure in

each example when it comes to climate vulnerability?

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7. Inform participants that the session will now look at the specific dimensions of gender as one form of how people may differentiate one another in society. Prepare flip charts with the following five statements written on each and place them on the wall:

• Women’s knowledge of resource management provides them with unique skills to design community-based adaptation solutions.

• Women can play specific roles at different points during an adaptive effort such as: mobilizing community members during the risk management cycle; noting environmental hazards in numerous forms; and identifying members in the community who are at high risk to disasters.

• Strengthening women’s voices at all levels of decision making and in planning processes is crucial in developing climate change adaptation efforts that really address the overall community needs.

• Adaptation initiatives that are not explicitly gender-conscious may unintentionally reinforce gender inequality.

• Women are important agents of change. Their knowledge is key to ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of adaptation response to climate change. their full and effective participation and contributions are essential.

8. Ask participants to walk around and choose which statement they like the most. Ask participants who choose the same statement to consider and discuss among them how they will defend their choice based on justifications of their choice. Allow five to 10 minutes for each to prepare and share with others. Invite each group to share why they chose that particular statement, one statement at a time. Facilitate the discussion and make the links with the questions in Step 7.

9. To close this session and integrate key concepts discussed and the statement exercise, facilitate a plenary discussion with the following reflection questions:

• What are some examples in which women have initiated or contributed significantly to adaptive efforts in your work area?

• What are some of the results of these interventions in terms of adaptive capacity?

• What do you think needs to be done to ensure women’s participation in adaptation strategies and projects? How does this differ at national, provincial and local levels?

• What are some challenges to mainstreaming gender and social equity in climate change adaptation, especially in the context of forest management?

• How does gender discrimination overlap with other forms of marginalization in the context of climate change?

10. Conclude with the following key learning points: • Climate change, gender and social differences and inequality are deeply

related. • Climate change tends to exacerbate existing inequalities, making

marginalized communities, including women, even more vulnerable. • Gender inequalities specifically lead women to face more negative impacts

from climate change.

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• Climate change adaptation can be transformative in addressing unequal power relations.

11. OPTIONAL: Depending on time availability and training emphasis, trainers can include the positional power game (see exercise sheet) with a view to emphasizing the role of different power dynamics in the quality of interaction and participation that can influence vulnerabilities at community level. Allow at least 30 minutes for the exercise and discussion of the exercise.


1. This is a lengthy and possibly complicated session, with various key concepts regarding gender, social differentiation and equity. Trainers may wish to provide more or less time to this session and specific topics within this session. The positional power game is provided as an option should trainers wish to engage with concepts of equity and social differentiation in greater depth. Trainers may also consider further research in these fields to familiarize themselves prior to running the training. The trainer should also consider specific examples and cases, if possible drawing from the participants’ work contexts.

2. Trainers may also consider showing visual examples such as the video series Sisters on the Planet produced by Oxfam8, which highlights some of the differentiated impacts of climate change on women. This video also shows some of the initiatives under way in various countries that depict women adapting to climate change impacts and their roles as agents of change. Some relevant discussion questions include:

• What is the central theme and take-away of the video? • Does climate change have gender-differentiated impacts? What are they? • What other forms of inequality might be exacerbated due to climate

change? • How does what you saw in the video relate to your own contexts?

8 youtube.com/watch?v=WqYgDGy8Z4M


Positional power game9 (optional)This game is designed to illustrate how power relations affect social differentiation, with implications for how climate vulnerabilities play out at community level. The trainer needs to prepare in advance with enough meta cards or cut-outs with “personal power” assignments for all participants.

1. Ask the participants to divide themselves into two teams of equal numbers. Give each participant a “personal power” card from the first column of the matrix on following page that describes a characteristic of a member of society. Ask the teams to line up based on the individual description they were given. Ask the teams to discuss where each person should stand in terms of who is the most powerful. Be sure to state which end is the most powerful and which end is the least powerful. Give the groups about five minutes to order themselves.

2. After they have formed the line, ask each person why he or she is standing where they are and relate their position to the other people in the line. If you are surprised by the position that a person has taken, ask the group or the other group to question them on why they chose that position.

3. After you have discussed their ordering (the reasons why they placed themselves where they did), give them cards from the second column – the “social power” cards. Try to give people a card that changes their previous power status, all the time observing where they are standing in the line. Again, give them five minutes to discuss and rearrange themselves. Explore with them their reasons for taking the place they took or for the group deciding their position.

4. Finally, provide each participant with a social power card from the third column. Following another five minutes to rearrange themselves, ask the group the following reflection questions:

• How did you feel doing this exercise?• What happened in each step of the exercise and why?• Who had very different ranks of power between the start and the finish

of the exercise and why?• Who had a similar power ranking through all three rounds and stayed in

the same place throughout the exercise?• How did you personally decide your power status?• How did others make you change your position?• What do you think were the different dimensions of power that was on

the three rounds of cards?• Which do you think was the card that influenced your position the most

and why?• How does this exercise relate to the expressions of power that were

discussed earlier (power over, power to, power within and power with)?• How does this exercise relate to engagement and improving equity?

9 Adapted from the RECOFTC training manual (2014) Improving grassroots equity in forests and climate change context: a training manual.


75LEARNING BLOCK 2 Cut-outs

Positional power cards

Short man Local teacher Local politician

Beautiful women Widow Adviser to provincial governor

Wise old women Religious leader Leader of women’s movement

Lazy young girl Illiterate person Leader of farmers’ association

Hardworking boy Married with many children

Director of NGO

Outspoken elderly man Forest guard Traditional chief

Muscular man Retired police officer Elected member

Shy young woman Has a PhD Environmental lawyer

Fill in your own Fill in your own Fill in your own


Session 6: Gender, social difference and equity in climate change vulnerability

Overview

Climate change and social inequality are deeply related. Climate change tends to exacerbate existing inequalities, while inequalities lead marginalized groups, such as women, to face larger negative impacts from climate change.

Climate change will affect every country in the world. However, its impacts will not be equally shared. They will be distributed differently between the regions, generations, age groups, income groups, occupational groups and genders. Poor people, the majority of whom are women living in developing countries, will be affected the most (Aguilar, 2009). Vulnerability to climate change is a result of the intersection of different inequalities and of uneven power structures. Vulnerability reflects social differentiation. Vulnerability tends to be highest among indigenous peoples, women, children, the elderly, and disabled


people who experience a number of barriers to managing daily risks and shocks. If social differentiation is not taken into account, the inequalities that already place disproportionate burden on certain groups may lead to maladaptation to climate change impacts (Barnett and O’Neill, 2010). Others go as far as to argue that poverty and inequality are the main conditions that shape climate-related vulnerability (Ribot, 2010). These social inequalities affect livelihood assets, placing them in a situation where resources are limited in times of shock or crisis (Mearns and Norton, 2010). People living in poverty or are marginalized have the least buffers and capacity to recover from shocks.

Even though there is clear evidence in favour of putting power and inequalities at the centre of climate change adaptation, often this is not the case and adaptation measures are accused of being gender blind, especially infrastructure-oriented initiatives (Aguilar, 2009). Because climate change affects women and men differently, a gender-equality perspective is essential when discussing policy development, decision-making, and strategies for adaptation. It is important to keep in mind, however, that women and other marginalized groups may be disadvantaged, but they are not just victims – they are also powerful agents of change. It is often the most marginalized groups in society that can be most helpful in developing strategies related to agriculture, deforestation, population, economic growth, science and technology, policy making and other strategies.

Given that women represent at least 50% of the population, gender is a critical category of social differentiation to address. Gender-based vulnerability and most other types come from patterns of marginalization often reaching far back in history. They are impacted by social values, culture, customs, politics and economics. In order to understand gender-related vulnerability, one has to consider all of these factors and how they affect men and women in specific, and potentially different, ways. In addition, the intersection of gender vulnerability with caste, racial and other forms of marginalization creates hazardous social conditions that affect different groups of women differently (Enarson and Morrow 1998). Women tend to have less or limited access to physical, financial, human, social and natural capital assets (Moser and Satterthwaite, 2008).

As established, one’s adaptive capacity is strongly related to the extent and quality of sustainable livelihood assets that one has access to. The access of women and other marginalized groups to assets tends to be significantly more limited, including to resources and land, knowledge, technology, power, decision-making potential, education, healthcare and food. Through both direct and indirect risks, climate change can reduce livelihood opportunities, the time available to people on a daily basis, and overall life expectancy. In addition to worsening existing risks and inequalities, climate change can reveal new risks and vulnerabilities associated with one’s position in society. The sustainable livelihood assets of groups such as women largely determine how they will be affected by and respond to the impacts of climate change. Therefore, actions should be taken to build up the asset base of these groups as a fundamental principle in adaptation strategies.


Incorporating equity in adaptation efforts

Climate change can lead to a vicious cycle of worsening inequalities and impacts. Therefore, it is important to mainstream gender and other forms of initiatives that improve social equity within adaptation efforts, including making sure that the perspectives of all stakeholders are included in relevant policies and activities. Mainstreaming social equity can be a goal in itself, but in the case of climate change adaptation it is also an essential step towards adaptive capacity and developing resilience. The following points should be considered when incorporating social equity in adaptation efforts:

• Adaptation measures reveal the human dimension of climate change. • All stakeholders are affected by climate change but existing inequalities

determine who is most impacted. • Different stakeholders have different needs and interests in adaptation efforts. • Marginalized groups such as women can be important agents of change: Their

unique knowledge is essential for adaptation actions and policies. • Full and effective participation of all stakeholders is essential in order to make

best use of their knowledge and experience. (Adapted from UNDP, 2013)

Women and marginalized groups as agents of change

Women and other marginalized groups have particular socially determined vulnerabilities and capacities that have been developed in cultures over time. They are also capable of bettering themselves, becoming empowered and adapting as necessary. They are not passive, in that they are not only recipients of help – they are active agents with different capacities to respond to climatic and other challenges. Therefore, their participation and leadership in adaptation initiatives is critical.

Paddy Field


In the context of community forestry, women in a number of countries in Asia are key forest managers. They possess unique knowledge of forest biodiversity and dynamics that may be important to both ecosystem adaptation and social adaptation. In general, women in the Asia-Pacific region prefer multiple-purpose species of tree that fulfil various roles including contributing to household fuel, fodder and food security. Rather than focusing exclusively on timber, they value bushy trees with plenty of branches and varieties that can serve as windbreaks. Given their limited involvement in the sale and processing of timber, women will select trees such as neem and tamarind, medicinal herbs, and varieties that produce non-timber forest products (NTFPs) like fruits, nuts, gum, wax, and honey that the women themselves can process or market. Men in the region, however, tend to prefer high-value timber species such as sal, eucalyptus, pine, teak, acacia and gmelia. On the basis of caste or occupational group, for example, traditional blacksmiths in Nepal may prefer hardwoods suitable for coal making, religious castes may value species of religious significance, and local healers may seek out medicinal plants. Without a highly participatory and inclusive process, the needs of any given group can be left out, with implications for that group’s response to climate change impacts (REDD-net, 2011).

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Session 7: Role of community forestry in climate change adaptation

Objectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • Identify how community forestry can contribute to climate change adaptation in

forest landscapes • Recognize the specific aspects of community forestry that can increase the

adaptive capacity of rural communities to climate change impacts • List some of the community forest management interventions that can

contribute to adaptive capacity

Materials

• Flip chart and markers • Meta cards • Tape • Handouts

Time

• 2 0 hours

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Steps

1. Introduce the session by reviewing the following question with participants: “What is your definition of community forestry (CF)?” Facilitate a quick plenary discussion to check understanding. Please see Notes to Trainer for more details on this. Remind participants that community forestry is defined broadly for different purposes.

2. Ask participants to brainstorm and each write what they think are some of the benefits of community forestry, not necessarily specific to climate change. They are to write these on a meta card.

3. Place the meta cards on the flip chart, and ask participants to explain their responses.

4. Ask participants to think about the evidence of climate change in their work areas from the discussion in previous sessions.

5. Ask participants what role, if any, the forest landscapes play in responding to climate change impacts. Do local communities play any role? Could they? Should they?

6. Introduce participants to the concept of a “fishbowl” described in Notes to the trainer. Ask for 8-10 volunteers to sit in chairs placed in a circle in the centre of the room. Participants are asked to discuss two points: 1) the role of community forestry in climate change adaptation and 2) the pros and cons of community forestry as an approach to adaptation. After the first question is asked, allow the participants in the fishbowl to discuss for about 20 minutes. This is followed by the second question, which is also given time for discussion in the fishbowl. The trainer can consider asking for another set of volunteers to sit in the circle to replace the first group.

7. Drawing from the points made in the fishbowl, explain specific linkages between community forestry and climate change adaptation. This can focus on the ways in which forests support human adaptation, as well as on the role humans can play in supporting forest ecosystem adaptation. For community forestry to be successful, nine key principles are requisite (See Notes to the trainer and handout). Stimulate the discussion and try to incorporate examples that may have been raised in previous sessions about the role of forests in adaptation.

8. Conclude the session by reiterating the following key learning points: • There are multiple ways in which community forests and forested

landscapes can contribute to the adaptive capacity of local communities. • Community forestry is premised on key principles including:

accommodating multiple stakeholder interests; adaptive management and learning; availability of resources; capacity of the community and other key stakeholders; clear rights and tenure among resource users; effective participation and governance; effective policy and regulatory support; and meeting local needs. All these principles in one way or another can help a community’s adaptive capacity.

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• A number of tools and interventions may be employed. However, the important point is not the interventions themselves, but the fact that participants are responding appropriately to identified vulnerabilities in the community.

Note to the trainer

1. The trainer should be aware that there are different understandings and interpretations of ‘community forestry’. This can range from formal collective management titles to a broader definition that includes all forms of local engagement in sustainable forest management including community protected area management and small holder arrangements. RECOFTC understands community forestry as follows:

“The definition of community forestry has evolved from a narrowly defined technical field to a broader concept that includes all aspects, initiatives, sciences, policies, institutions and processes that are intended to increase the role of local people in governing and managing forest resources. It consists of informal, customary and indigenous and formal or government-led initiatives. Community forestry covers social, economic and conservation dimensions in a range of activities, including indigenous management of sacred sites of cultural importance, small-scale forest-based enterprises, forestry out-grower schemes, company-community partnerships, and decentralized and devolved forest management (RECOFTC, 2008).”

2. The “fishbowl” is a training method that allows participants to practice being both contributors and listeners in a discussion. Participants ask questions, present opinions, and share information when they sit in the fishbowl circle. Students on the outside of the circle listen carefully to the ideas presented and pay attention to process. Then the roles are reversed with the participants outside coming into the bowl to provide their own contributions to the discussion. This method is useful for raising questions or ideas that can later be explored more deeply. It is also an effective method to give participants a chance to express their views and ideas as well as defend them in the safe environment of the training room.


Session 7: Role of community forestry in climate change adaptation

What is community forestry?

The definition of community forestry has evolved from a narrowly defined technical field to a broader concept that includes all aspects, initiatives, sciences, policies, institutions and processes that are intended to increase the role of local people in governing and managing forest resources. It consists of informal, customary and indigenous and formal or government-led initiatives. Community forestry covers social, economic and conservation dimensions in a range of activities including indigenous management of sacred sites of cultural importance, small-scale forest-based enterprises, forestry out-grower schemes, company-community partnerships, and decentralized and devolved forest management (RECOFTC, 2008).

Nine key principles underlying community forestry (adapted from Greijmans, M. et al, 2015)

To strengthen potential for successful adaptation efforts in forested landscapes, and particularly in community forests, there are a set of community-forestry principles that are useful to consider. These principles are the building blocks of successful community forests, including the commercialization of forest products by community enterprises.

9 Principles of Community

Forestry


Accommodating multiple stakeholder interests The sustainable use and management of forest resources requires collaboration among various stakeholders. Collaboration does not develop merely through people agreeing with one another. There are often considerable differences in power, interests and values among those who use or deal with natural resources. This aspect of participatory resource management is often poorly managed by government departments, local institutions and development agencies, due in part to a lack of tools to assess stakeholders’ roles and a lack of capacity to manage changing roles.

Adaptive management and learning Participatory resource management is a social process that involves various actors. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to participatory resource management. Much depends on who manages the resource, for what purpose, and on what basis. Participatory resource management allows stakeholders to identify common interests and problems, design what they want to do with their resources, identify what management is required, and take collective action to achieve their aims.

Availability of natural resources Natural resources are defined as natural assets or raw materials, whether mineral, energy, soil, water or biological. Sufficient high-quality natural resources are essential to support effective community forest enterprises.

Capacity of the community and other key stakeholders Since local people will be the resource managers, they need sufficient capacity to meet the requirements of these tasks. One of the basic principles of participatory resource management is that resource managers’ knowledge, confidence and skills are developed through a range of learning interventions. This ensures that local people have adequate skills to develop and implement their resource management plans effectively and in a participatory manner, including M&E.

Clear rights and tenure among resource users All resource stakeholders should have their rights to land and natural resources recognized. Statutory and customary laws create rights that provide the foundation for forest institutions and processes. These establish basic principles for how people interact with each other and with their resources. This includes rights to access, manage and include or exclude other users, and the ability to pass these rights on to future generations. These rights also define how various stakeholders, particularly the community, interact with their resources.

Effective participation and governance Effective participation is needed to ensure community involvement, especially on the part of marginalized groups, including women and indigenous peoples. Participation must also be a continuous process. Effective participation is an important characteristic of effective governance, and involves identifying multiple stakeholders and incorporating them in decision-making processes. Once that is achieved, stakeholders can start interacting with


each other through the formal and informal rules, institutions and processes through which a society makes and implements decisions pertinent to NRM.

Effective policy and regulatory support Community members need an enabling regulatory context in order to manage their resources. This allows them to support their livelihoods, increase environmental stability, and on a larger scale, increase the economic development of the country.

Meeting local needs Local needs should be considered as a driving force or incentive for communities to actively participate in sustainable resource management. A framework needs to be in place to ensure that differing and sometimes conflicting resource needs are identified, considered and targeted in an equitable and sustainable manner.

The intersection of community forests and climate change adaptation

Globally, rural households receive one-fifth to one-quarter of their income from forest and tree resources (Angelsen, 2011), making them highly vulnerable to climate change impacts on forests. By improving the management of forests and guaranteeing forest rights for local communities, the adaptive capacity of these communities will increase. Ways to increase the flow of benefits from forests and improve local adaptive capacity include:

• Clarifying and strengthening forestland ownership and use rights • Reducing and simplifying resource access procedures

COMMUNITY FORESTRY CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION


• Maintaining a stable policy and regulatory environment • Strengthening sustainable production of forest-based products, and access to

markets for them • Applying best practices in forest-law enforcement and reducing opportunities for

corruption

Community forestry, in particular, can strengthen the adaptive capacity of communities to climate change in a number of ways. These include the following:

Supporting livelihoods and income generationCommunity forestry provides an important means of livelihood development and income diversification for communities, from the collection, consumption, processing and trade of timber and NTFPs, to the provision of services such as eco-tourism.

Increasing food security and productionCommunity forestry can also increase food security for communities and provide an important safety net in times of agricultural crop failure. When households have access and extraction rights over a forest, they can consume a broader range of species, which provides a broader intake of vital nutrients. For example, wild nuts and berries may provide critical vitamin groups not present in household staples. In Lao PDR, for instance, the National Biodiversity Strategy (2004) estimates that NTFPs contribute between 61-79% of non-rice food consumption by weight based on the national average, and provide an average of 4% of energy intake, 40% of calcium, 25% of iron and 40% of vitamins A & C.

Leveraging social capital and knowledgeCommunity forestry often calls for the establishment of local management institutions, such as community forestry user groups (CFUGs) or community forestry committees (CFCs). These groups can coordinate community responses to climate change, and facilitate participatory decision-making processes. They also provide a platform through which communities can voice concerns to external stakeholders such as governments, NGOs, civil society and the private sector.

Some user groups are already utilizing micro-savings and insurance schemes, which are of potential use for adaptation. In Nepal, community-forestry user groups have been improving livelihoods and building climate resilience for several decades. User-group micro-credit initiatives, savings programmes and insurance schemes make communities more resilient to seasonal decreases in income due to crop failure.

Reducing disaster risksCommunity forestry also plays an important role in disaster risk reduction (DRR). Community monitoring helps to prevent forest fires and disease outbreaks .Maintenance of local vegetation cover helps to prevent landslides in mountainous areas, while sustainable management of mangrove forests helps to protect coastal areas from storm surges. In


the future, community mangrove forests, for example, will play a key role in nations such as Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, 22% of the population lives in the Mekong delta area where nearly half of the country’s agricultural products are produced. Community-based mangrove restoration may serve as a powerful tool in reducing vulnerability to typhoons, coastal flooding and erosion (ICEM, 2009).

Regulating microclimatesForest cover has an influence on local microclimates, providing shade, increasing atmospheric humidity, cooling the air, and dispersing localized wind patterns. Forest cover may also ease the effects of drought on agricultural crops and provide shelter for livestock. Well-managed community forests can provide these same microclimate benefits to crop and livestock production, especially where forest areas are interspersed throughout the agricultural landscape.

Community Forestry-based Climate Change Adaptation (CF-CCA) interventions

Community forestry has proven to be an effective approach for both reducing forest loss and degradation and for sustainably managing forests for multiple benefits. It can be a powerful approach for improving the rights, governance and fairer access to benefits of local communities and small holders; all of which supports the adaptive capacity of the community and the resilience of the ecosystem on which they rely. There is increasing policy support for this approach in Asia and the Pacific and greater interest in how community forestry can support climate change mitigation and adaptation goals.There are growing efforts to identify approaches to assess climate change vulnerabilities and initiate resilience building interventions through frameworks rooted in community forestry and a sustainable livelihoods approach. Such approaches place the physical dimensions of the recognized community forest at the centre of an integrated landscape including agriculture, human settlement, infrastructure and a range of social and policy-oriented institutions and dynamics.

As such, community forestry-based responses to climate change adaptation may address a range of vulnerabilities even if occurring in sectors outside of the community forest, but primarily by seeking to build upon adaptive capacities which exist in relation to or as a result of community forestry resources, plans or institutions (RECOFTC, 2016). Within this broad framework of community forestry-based adaptation, a number of tools and interventions may be employed. However, a critical point is not the interventions themselves, but that they are responding appropriately to identified vulnerabilities. Some examples are included below:

Supporting livelihoods (contributing directly to financial, social and natural capital assets) • Using climate resilient agroforestry practices • Creating multi-use community forests for timber, resin, medicine, fibre, nuts and

fruit


• Facilitating access to microfinance • Developing business plans for high-value NTFP/agroforestry product markets

Protecting multi-use community forests (contributing directly to natural, physical and social capital assets)

• Restoring and conserving forests • Strengthening systems for patrolling illegal harvesting • Establishing firebreaks • Collecting and distributing drought-resilient seed stocks • Establishing forest landscape management practices that enhance hydrological

functions and improves soil quality

Training in participatory research methodologies (contributing directly to human and natural capital assets)

• Monitoring climate and ecological changes • Tracking tree species composition and morphological change • Conducting a wildlife Inventory

Learning Block 3

Community forestry-based climate change adaption (CF-CCA) applied

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Session 8: Assessing vulnerability and adaptive capacity

Objectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • Explain the basic components of climate vulnerability • Provide examples of ‘exposure’ and ‘sensitivity’ from their own experiences • Evaluate the benefits of having a VA as part of adaptation intervention design

and implementation

Materials

• Handouts • Exercise sheet • Four decks of playing cards (optional) • Index cards and markers

Time

• 2.0 hours

91LEARNING BLOCK 3

Steps

1. Begin the session with a recap of key lessons learned during previous sessions. After that introduce the learning objectives of this session, explaining in particular that several of the concepts around vulnerability, namely exposure and sensitivity (see Note to the trainer), are complex but important. It is worth taking time to understand these concepts.

2. Review the meaning of vulnerability, sensitivity and exposure. Ask participants to provide examples for each of the concepts, not necessarily climate-related.

3. Divide the participants into two groups. Look at the points in the Exercise sheet titled Sensitivity or exposure? Write each of the situation on a meta cards, and give half of them to one group and the other half to the other group.

4. Ask each group to label two flip charts with sensitivity and exposure. Allow 15-20 minutes for each group to assign meta cards to either flip chart.

5. Remind the groups that they are also tasked with coming up with at least three additional examples of exposure or sensitivity, following the definitions discussed at the beginning of session but not necessarily related to climate change.

6. Re-introduce the concept of adaptive capacity and show either as a flip chart diagram or as a PowerPoint slide. The slide can illustrate the Vulnerability Framework of Anshory-Yusuf and Francisco (2009), which depicts vulnerability as a result of climatic exposure and sensitivity against adaptive capacity (see Note to the trainer). Drawing from previous sessions, ask for examples in the context of their personal lives and their work. Note these examples down on the flip chart as they will be referenced later in the session.

7. Provide the following basic definition of adaptive capacity:the ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences. (IPCC 2007). Check that participants have a better understanding of the concepts and elements presented in the definition.

EXPOSURESENSITIVITY VULNERABILITY

ASSESSMENT

92 LEARNING BLOCK 3

8. If there is extra time after the 2 hours allocated for this session,the trainer can choose to do the reinforcement activity on the handout.

9. Present the reasons why community-based VAs are important, using concrete examples from Box 1 to illustrate the point.

10. Facilitate a discussion on the costs and benefits of conducting a VA with participants by asking questions such as the following:

• Based on your own experience have you conducted VAs? What was your experience? What time and resources were required?

• In your opinion what would be a reasonable investment of time and percentage of resources to conduct a VA?

• Can you think of the possible consequences of not conducting a VA at the initial stage of the project?

11. Conclude the session by reiterating the following key learning points: • Climate vulnerability is defined as the exposure to climate impacts,

sensitivity to these impacts, and the adaptive capacity to respond to them. • Adaptive capacity is the ability or potential of a system to respond

successfully to climate variability and change. It is important to bear in mind that we are considering the community as a system when we talk about adaptive capacity.

• Community-based VAs are important as they can accurately assess climate impacts and existing capacities to respond, as well as opportunity for dialogue within communities, between communities and with other stakeholders.


The trainer should note that the discussion in the session is guided by IPCC 2007 definitions of exposure and sensitivity:

• The presence of people, livelihoods, species or ecosystems, environmental services and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets in places that could be adversely affected

• Sensitivity: The degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate-related stimuli

Exposure and sensitivity can be challenging and abstract concepts. The trainer may want to frame most of the discussion throughout the session in a shorthand form of the Anshory-Yusuf and Francisco model, where exposure multiplied by sensitivity can be understood as impact, and adaptive capacity minus impacts yields vulnerability:

93LEARNING BLOCK 3

Participants will understand these concepts better if the trainer provides practical, everyday examples of sensitivity and exposure.

IMPACT

=VULNERABILITY

ADAPTIVE CAPACITY

EXPOSURE SENSITIVITY

X =IMPACT


Sensitivity or exposure? 1. This variety of rice requires submersion of its roots for approximately 3 weeks starting from November.

2. The salinity levels of the soil are higher where the paddy fields are due to repeated storm surges.

3. The child has a case of chronic asthma requiring medication when playing actively outdoors.

4. The air quality index in Beijing has risen to above 300.

5. Our house is made out of bamboo with no insulation, so we feel the cold more than neighbouring villages with cement houses.

6. Cold snaps during the winter season are becoming increasingly severe, going below zero degrees Celsius at times.

7. My shoes are made of expensive Italian leather and would be easily ruined by water.

8. Unfortunately, while I am wearing my Italian leather shoes, there has been a storm and the water is several inches all around our office.

9. There is an economic recession right now and stock prices have plummeted.

Answer KeyAnswer 1. This rice variety is highly sensitive to even small changes in rainfall and/or seasonality.

Answer 2. Rice production and paddy farmland are being exposed to higher levels of salinity.

Answer 3. The child is especially sensitive to environmental and other factors exacerbated by asthma

Answer 4. The exposure level to particulates in the atmosphere has increased for all individuals. A reading higher than 300 puts the quality in the hazardous band.

Answer 5. People living in the bamboo houses may feel the cold more strongly (and thus be more sensitive) than comparable communities with different housing types.

Answer 6. All populations, human, animal and ecosystem are similarly exposed to the same temperature conditions.

Answer 7. These shoes are much more sensitive to environmental factors than a pair of plastic boots!

Answer 8. The shoe wearer and others in her office are exposed to a sudden condition of local flooding.

Answer 9. The financial markets are exposed to the impacts of economic recession



House of cards (Optional session)1. Inform participants that their assignment is to work in a small group of 4 5

people to make a house of cards. 2. The trainer will provide the groups with minimum guidance. Read out the

following instructions to the groups: 1. The team needs to work together to build the house.2. Everyone on the team must participate.3. The team is tasked with building a house from the floor. The teams must try

to construct the tallest and most stable structure.4. No other materials are to be used except the given materials.5. Each team has 15 minutes to build their house.

3. Give each group a deck of playing cards and explain that their task is to build their dream house as a group. Explain that this exercise is intended as a review of the concepts related to vulnerability and adaptive capacity, which were introduced earlier in the training.

4. At the end of the 15 minutes, training groups should circulate from group to group and, using their hands or a fan, create strong airflow that may cause the houses to collapse. Other disturbances can be created as appropriate such as the shaking of floor mats, tables, etc., with a view to exposing the houses to external forces.

5. After the 15 minutes, assemble participants in a plenary session and ask each group to reflect on their experience by asking the following questions:

• What happened when you tried to build the house? • What was your strategy in building the house? • What would you consider to be the vulnerabilities in this context? For

example, the cards would not stand vertically, the cards were too light, the texture of the cards too slippery, the cards would not hold weight, difficult to build higher than two floors.

• What were the causes of vulnerability in the cards? For example, the floor, wind, our hands, shape of the cards, the structure of the card.

• What would you consider were the cards’ assets? Were the cards thick, flexible or bendable?

• Did you use the assets of the cards to compensate for or overcome their vulnerabilities? If so, how? For example, Folding? Rolling? Tearing?

• Did anyone start thinking differently about vulnerability and adaptive capacity to address these issues? What new ideas emerged while building the house?

• How did the group react to these new ideas?


• What are the key lessons in this exercise? • How does this exercise link to community vulnerability in the context of

climate change? • How did the participatory approach work in this exercise?

6. Show participants the matrix below. Ask them to share any examples from their lives or work of low or high resilience and low or high vulnerability. Link this to the House of Cards game.

High Adaptive CapacityLow Vulnerability• When the cards are folded and the

house is located where there are no strong air currents

High Adaptive CapacityHigh Vulnerability• When the cards are folded and the

house is built where there are strong air currents

• When the cards are folded and the house is built where the floor is not stable

Low Adaptive CapacityLow Vulnerability• When you use the original cards

(unfolded) stacked onto each other• When you use the original cards

(unfolded) and build only one floor

Low Adaptive CapacityHigh Vulnerability• When you use the original cards

(unfolded) to build more than one floor• When you use the original cards

(unfolded) and build on an unstable or slanted foundation


Session 8: Community-based vulnerability assessments: an overviewLocal people are facing the impacts of climate change every day and are seeking to cope and adapt to these impacts. It is important that the components and factors affecting how these impacts are experienced are fully understood in order to respond effectively. While there are a number of approaches to understanding vulnerability and the significance of vulnerability in adaptation, a widely accepted interpretation of how climate change vulnerability can be understood is the framework produced by Anshory-Yusuf and Francisco (2009). This framework presents climate change vulnerability as a function of exposure to climate impacts, sensitivity to these impacts, and the adaptive capacity to respond to them (see Figure 7 below).

Figure 7: Components of climate change vulnerability

It is important to understand the basic assessment components of climate change vulnerability and why livelihood assets are necessary for overall resilience to climate change impacts. As climate change vulnerability is the function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, these three factors can be examined separately, resulting in a combined vulnerability index. While the quantification of these factors, and of vulnerability, involves much guesswork and estimation, it nevertheless provides rough guidance on gaps, capacity and opportunities for intervention.

While presented in Session 2, some of the definitions and practical meaning of key vulnerability terms are further reviewed and unpacked in depth in this session. The definitions from the IPCC 2007 are repeated below.

Climate Change Vulnerbility

Exposure to climate related hazards

Sensitivity to climate hazards

Adaptive capacity to deal with climate hazards


Climate change vulnerability: The degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate change and variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity.

Exposure: The presence of people, livelihoods, species or ecosystems, environmental services and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets in places that could be adversely affected.

Sensitivity: The degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate variability or change.

Adaptive capacity: The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes), to moderate the potential damage from it, to take advantage of its opportunities, or to cope with its consequences.

Given the role of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity as critical factors in determining vulnerability, Table 3 below provides examples of parameters that can be used to gauge each factor.

Table 3: Examples of parameters to assess exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity

Exposure

Percent of households (HHs) reporting land degradation as a result of climatic factors

Number of metres that hand pumps need to be deepened to reach water

Average number of floods, droughts and avalanches during last 30 years

Daily average maximum temperature by month

Daily precipitation by month

Percent of HHs reporting death of a family member due to climate-related disaster

Percent of HHs that do not have regular water supply for domestic use

Average time to nearest health centre

Percent of HHs where family member had to miss work due to illness in past month

Sensitivity

Average food-insufficient months per year

Percent of HHs using only forest-based biomass for cooking purposes

Average time to fetch firewood for HH needs

Percent of HHs that collect water directly from rivers, streams or ponds

Percent of female-headed HHs

Percent of HHs that have debts needing repayment


Adaptive capacity

Crops diversification index

Education levels

Percent of HHs that have TVs or radios at home

Percent of HHs where a family member has taken vocational training

Percent of HHs using improved cooking stoves

Percent of HHs with rainwater storage facilities

Percent of HHs where a family member is affiliated with any organization

Average land holding

Income levels

Community-based vulnerability assessments (Adapted from CARE 2009)

Community-based VAs include a range of tools and approaches that support the transformative power of secure rights and livelihoods in the context of climate change. Such approaches recognize the role of local, sub-national and national institutions, as well as public policies, in the shaping of people’s adaptive capacity.

VAs ideally combine both local knowledge and scientific data to accurately assess what climate impacts are and existing capacities to respond. Approaches that actively involve community members create an opportunity for dialogue within communities, as well as between communities and other stakeholders. This builds a solid foundation for the identification of practical strategies to facilitate community-based adaptation that responds accurately to impacts while minimizing negative consequences or potential for maladaptation.

Why bother assessing vulnerability?

It is understandable that when dealing with urgent impacts from climate change and limited resources, there is a preference to act directly. One often believes that the impacts and the causes of the vulnerability are obvious and straightforward, therefore why waste further time and resources with a formal VA? There are a number of reasons that this approach should be reconsidered and a VA, even a simplified version, should be conducted. The box below provides an anecdote of what may happen if a VA is not undertaken.


With this in mind, key reasons for taking the time to conduct a VA include the following:

1. Analyse climate vulnerability at community level.A VA allows for information to be systematically collected and analysed. Particularly community-based approaches facilitate the gathering and organizing of information along with communities and at units of scale including community, household and individual. Importantly, VA approaches provide a toolkit and structure to the analysis.

2. Combine community knowledge and scientific/meteorological data to better understand the local impacts of climate change.As described in Box 1, without several data sets and types of information, there is a risk that the real vulnerabilities are misdiagnosed and interventions potentially ineffective.

3. Provide a framework for assessing and prioritizing intervention areas or topics which otherwise are difficult to separate given the inter-linked, complex nature of vulnerability. In order to design the most effective approaches to adaptation, it is important to be able to break down impacts and vulnerabilities into discrete bite-sized pieces so that monitoring can take place and results be assessed.

Box 1 – Case study: the need for both community-based and empirical dataAn international organization came to work on supporting climate change adaptation with a community. Throughout the period of data collection (mainly during the dry season), water shortage was a major issue. The hand pumps were either dried up or running low, the river was dried up and surrounding vegetation was dry and brown. The community insisted that their district was being repeatedly affected by drought – by longer dry seasons and less rainfall. The strategies to respond to drought were being considered.

At the same time, empirical data on precipitation was received from the local meteorological station. In fact, according to the records, recent years were receiving higher than average amounts of rainfall. This appeared substantiated by national-level modelling that anticipated increased rainfall for this region. It was a puzzle as to why there were conflicting accounts and trends being presented by the local community and by the empirical data.

On closer examination of the meteorological data, it became apparent that while total amounts of precipitation annually were higher, the number of days of rainfall were less. This implied that there were more extreme rainfall events leading to flash flooding with less of the water being captured or saturating the soil. The strategies to respond to this particular problem were different and involved re-thinking water storage potential during extreme rainfall events.

If a VA had not been conducted capturing different types of information, the nature of the problem would have been fundamentally misunderstood, and the resulting solutions ineffective.


For project managers, VAs should be integrated into the analytical process undertaken at the beginning of project design to ensure the analysis can be incorporated throughout. This principle applies regardless of whether the project is specifically an adaptation intervention or rather the integration of adaptation within development activities (CARE, 2009).

Given the dynamic nature of vulnerability to climate change, it may be necessary to update and repeat simplified VAs over the course of a project. As mentioned, VAs are important as a baseline for the M&E system of a project, tracking changes in vulnerability resulting from project interventions and changing climate conditions. VA approaches use a systematic framework and toolkit which help to analyse information at national, local government, community and individual levels. With this information, derived from active community participation, proponents should be well positioned to draw conclusions about adaptive capacity in target communities, and to design appropriate interventions to support adaptation (CARE, 2009).

102 LEARNING BLOCK 3

Session 9: The CF-CCA vulnerability assessmentObjectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • List key criteria that are important in conducting a CF-based climate VA • Assess the respective benefits and shortcomings of different VA approaches • Describe the components of the CF-CCA framework and approach

Materials

• Flip charts • PowerPoint presentation • Handout

Time

• 2.0 hours

Steps

1. Divide participants into small groups of five or six. Ask the groups to brainstorm a list of key criteria for assessing climate vulnerability in the context of community forestry and write them on a flip chart. They should consider points discussed in earlier sessions about the climate-based impacts in community-forestry landscapes The exercise will take 30 minutes.

2. The trainer may give examples of criteria such as how much attention is paid to forest ecosystems, to local community livelihoods and institutions, and to how well they integrate social and environmental concerns, as well considering climatic impacts.

3. After 30 minutes ask the groups to present back in a plenary session. Next, groups should focus on presenting new and additional criteria and points that have not already been stated.

4. Using either flip charts or a PowerPoint presentation, provide a brief introduction to existing well known climate VA frameworks.

5. Deliver a presentation outlining the CF-CCA approach, the rationale behind it and its practical application.

6. Ask the participants in their groups to consider the following questions: • How do the climate VA approaches presented and in particular, the CF-CCA

approach, relate to the criteria they came up with at the beginning of the session?

• What are some of the benefits they see associated with the CF-CCA framework?

• What are some of the shortcomings of the framework?

103LEARNING BLOCK 3

7. Conclude the session with the following key points: • The framework has a participatory, landscape-based approach and aims

to improve existing landscape management strategies for climate change adaptation. Community forestry is an entry point for the assessment vulnerabilities.

• The framework consists of three phases: VA, intervention feasibility assessment, and implementation and M&E.

• The application of the CF-CCA framework focuses on enabling community ownership of climate adaptation initiatives, and places poor, disadvantaged ethnic groups and castes, and women at the centre of its activities and addresses equity in all of its processes. These groups must lead the CF-CCA process.


1. The trainer should spend time getting to know both the CF-CCA approach as well as the fundamentals of the other vulnerability approaches discussed in this session.

2. For the PowerPoint presentations, the trainer can refer to the handout to prepare the relevant slides.


Session 9: The community forestry-climate change adaptation (CF-CCA) framework and approachAn overview of vulnerability assessments

As discussed in the sessions on CBA and EBA, VAs tend to have a specific emphasis. Often this is reflected in providing greater weight to either biophysical impacts or societal factors in the assessment of climate impacts, adaptive capacity and vulnerabilities. This session presents a selection of key VA frameworks that are relevant and are in some cases already being used in regional community forestry contexts. This session also introduces the CF-CCA framework.

In order to identify, develop, or employ a VA framework that meets the objectives and conditions of a given context, it is useful to have a broad awareness of the frameworks already in existence. Practitioners may be confused at the array of VA frameworks available and their respective benefits and usefulness. Having a broader understanding may allow for the adoption or reformulation of different aspects in a way that allows for the accomplishment of specific adaptation goals. Table 4 provides an overview of some of the notable vulnerability-related approaches that can be relevant for community forestry contexts.


Table 4: Climate change vulnerability and related assessments relevant to CF-CCA

Organization Tool Remarks

CARE International Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis

A qualitative VA that addresses the underlying causes of vulnerability at a variety of scales, from the national to the household and individual levels.

UK Department for International Development (DFID)

Sustainable Livelihoods Approach

A tool that allows for an improved understanding of the livelihoods of the poor. It presents the main factors that affect people’s livelihoods and the relationship between these factors.

International Centre for Environmental Management (ICEM)

Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Methodology

An integrated approach to climate change adaptation and mitigation developed specifically for the Asia-Pacific region.

International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)

Framework for Community-Based Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment in Mountain Areas

An analytical framework and methodology to assess the vulnerability and capacity of rural, natural resource dependent communities living in mountainous environments. Designed primarily for development practitioners and institutions.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Policy Guidance on Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Development Co-operation

Policy guidance for development co-operation agencies, policymakers, and practitioners on how to mainstream climate change into development practices. It identifies approaches for integrating adaptation at national, sectoral, and project levels and in urban and rural contexts.

A community forestry-based vulnerability assessment

This session presents an integrated CF-CCA framework, developed by RECOFTC with support from USAID Adapt - Asia Pacific, for practitioners working in rural contexts. The framework draws on a participatory, landscape-based approach to NRM to reconcile trade-offs and identify priorities amongst different land-use sectors and asset types. In addition, the framework aims to improve existing landscape management strategies for climate change adaptation by using community forestry as an entry point for the assessment and possible interventions that address both climate and non-climate vulnerabilities. It focuses on enabling community ownership of climate adaptation initiatives, and places the poor, disadvantaged ethnic groups and castes, and women at the centre of its activities. Below is an overview of the CF-CCA framework and the specific tools it offers for conducting an integrated climate change VA.


The CF-CCA framework

The CF-CCA framework is comprised of three phases:1. VA2. Intervention feasibility assessment3. Implementation and M&E

The first phase includes defining all aspects of the community-forestry landscape and how they interact. It assesses current and future climate trends based on both community knowledge and meteorological data, and evaluates local institutional, social and economic factors and their effect on community adaptive capacity and livelihoods. The second phase includes prioritizing identified interventions from the first phase and exploring financing opportunities. It also provides tools that will guide project proposal development, and the identification and assessment of potential partner institutions. The third phase is comprised of intervention implementation. This handout focuses on the first of the three phases: VA.10

The framework should rely on the institutional support of the local community-forestry user group for its activities, and target marginalized populations within the user group, as determined by the intervention facilitators. Who the facilitators work with within the community during the framework’s implementation and how they reach consensus on decisions will be complicated, contentious and political, and should be determined based on the local context. As mentioned, the framework seeks to enable pro-poor adaptation that targets socially marginalised groups, including women and ethnic minorities. It draws on the institutional and physical resources of the community forest.

Figure 8: The CF-CCA framework

10The other two phases of the framework are described in the following two publications:RECOFTC and USAID. 2016a. Community forestry-based climate change adaptation: a practitioner’s brief. RECOFTC, Bangkok, Thailand. RECOFTC and USAID. 2016b. Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Report: Developing a Demonstration Site in Nepal on Community Forestry, Gender and Climate Change Adaptation. RECOFTC, Bangkok, Thailandt raining manual.


Box 2: Piloting the CF-CCA framework in Nepal’s Terai

RECOFTC - The Center for People and Forests, with funding from USAID Adapt Asia-Pacific, has piloted the CF-CCA framework in the Bishnupur community of Nepal’s Terai. The framework has enabled a women-led community forestry user group to identify promising adaptation interventions and attain external adaptation financing.

Based on local conditions in Bishnupur, RECOFTC’s adaptation practitioners and user-group members used the framework to conduct an integrated analysis of the forestry, agriculture, livestock and water sectors. This allowed for the examination of vulnerabilities within the community forestry landscape and the identification of adaptation interventions that will cut across sectors.

From the application of the CF-CCA framework, a number of community-level vulnerabilities emerged that are the result of both climate and non-climate threats. The identified landscape-level vulnerabilities in Bishnupur with community forestry linkages included:

• Declining productivity of crops due to decreasing soil quality, changing rainfall patterns, and an increasing number of pests and weeds

• Decreasing income from sugarcane (a major income generator) due to diminished productivity

• Decreasing availability of multipurpose tree species in the community forest • Increasing workloads and decreasing incomes, in general, for women due to

water scarcity and its impacts • Flood vulnerability

To address these vulnerabilities, feasibility assessments were conducted by RECOFTC and the forest user group on three interventions riverbank stabilization, agroforestry and water management. These adaptation options were pursued in parallel in order to provide an integrated adaptation intervention package The user group has also secured adaptation financing and is implementing specific interventions related to these topics.

Conducting the vulnerability assessment

The CF-CCA approach begins with a community-level VA. It follows a process that will result in the free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of the relevant stakeholders. A toolkit of four CF-CCA matrices for data collection and analysis is presented on page 108. In particular, these support the triangulation of scientific and community knowledge related to: general climatic threats and impacts, threats and impacts related to local livelihood assets, climate vulnerabilities related to community-level assets and threats and vulnerability response options.

The matrices are designed for the clear collection, organization, and evaluation of the climate change information needed to assess community-based vulnerabilities to climate change. Each matrix builds on the information captured and analysed in the previous one and should be filled in sequentially. Both primary and secondary information are expected to be collected from various sources to fill in the matrices. Primary data should


draw on common VA methodologies, including participatory rural appraisals (PRA) and PAR approaches (see tools in Table 5). Secondary data can come from a range of sources including meteorological data, community forestry user group plans, district level government offices, research institutes and other sources. Table 5 provides a list of data-collection tools and information sources that can be drawn on during the various stages of the VA.

Table 5: VA data-collection methodologies (sample)

Stage Tool(s)FPIC and climate sensitization WorkshopsIdentification of climatic threats Quantitative analysis, focus group discussions, workshopsIdentification of climatic impacts

Transect walks, women’s mobility mapping, household data, well-being rankings, seasonal calendars, historical timelines, hazard mapping, pairwise ranking

Adaptive capacity and VA Gender-based social and power mapping, stakeholder mapping, focus group discussions

Identification of response options

Focus group discussions and stakeholder workshops

Identification of financing opportunities

Office visits

Practitioners can progress through the VA matrices while using the tools above to gather information. After each individual matrix is filled in, the information should be evaluated, and practitioners should move on to the next matrix accordingly. Portions of each matrix are included below, with a brief description of how they should be completed. The various climatic variables and exposed sectors that are analysed by the matrices will depend on site-specific factors.

Using the toolkit

The matrices allow practitioners to compile local knowledge and empirical data in order to clarify and assess the nature of climate threats and impacts. Using the various familiar PRA and PAR tools in Table 5, including historical timelines, focus group discussions and transect walks, practitioners should compare the impacts of climate change on various sectors, according to different sources such as local knowledge and meteorological data. The priority sectors will vary depending on the context, but may include agriculture, forestry, livestock and others. While only agriculture and temperature are included in the sample matrices in Table 6 below, it is important to evaluate a whole range of sectors and threats with the matrices. After the matrices are complete, community forestry user group members, together with the adaptation facilitator(s), will be able to determine the nature of the threats posed by specific climatic variables and the actions that should be taken for positive, cross-sectoral adaptation.


Table 6: The vulnerability assessment matrices

Matrix 1 (abridged): identifying climatic threats and impacts (local knowledge and data combined analysis)

A B C D

CLIMATIC VARIABLE

EXPOSED SECTOR IMPACT ASSESSMENT CLIMATE CHANGE THREATS

Temperature Agriculture Local knowledge:· Increasing temperatures in hot season makes it difficult to work in the fields- Add your own example

- More intense/hotter dry seasons- Changing seasonality- Increase in cold wave

Empirical data:· Meteorological records from 1984-2013 show that temperature in the months of December and January decreased by 0.62° and 1.10°C, respectively, while temperatures increased 1.15° to 1.22°C in the months of July and September, respectively- Add your own example

Forestry Local knowledge:Add your own example

Add your own example

Empirical data:Add your own example

Livestock Local knowledge:Add your own example


Empirical data:Add your own example

Water Local knowledge:Add your own example


Matrix 2 (abridged): assessing threats and impacts through an asset lens

A B C D E FCC THREATS(from Matrix 1, Column D)

EXPOSED SECTOR(from Matrix 1, Column B)

ASSET ASSET DESCRIPTION

IMPACTED? DESCRIPTION OF IMPACTS ON SECTORAL ASSETS

• Intense heat

• More intense dry seasons

• Changing seasonality

• Cold waves

Agriculture Natural Land, crops including local seed varieties, seed stocks, organic manure, water table, rivers

Yes • Soil losing moisture and becoming hard due to factors including regular intense heat

• Subsistence and cash cropping of maize, paddy, wheat, mustard, lentil, pigeon pea, cowpea no longer viable

• Add your own example

Social Add your own example


Financial Add your own example


Human Add your own example


Physical Add your own example



Matrix 3 (abridged): Identifying vulnerabilities

A B C D ECC THREATS EXPOSED SECTOR

(from Matrix 1, Column B &Matrix 2, Column B)

IMPACTS(synthesized fromMatrix 2, Column F)

EXISTING ADAPTIVE CAPACITIES

VULNERABILITIES

(from Matrix 1, Column D & Matrix 2, Column A)

Agriculture Decrease in soil moisture - decreased agricultural production

• Existing water sources

• Mulching potential

• Low/no till agricultural practices


· Declining availability of irrigation water, limited forest-based and other forms of mulch


Increasing temperatures, intense heat

Loss of soil fertility - decreased agricultural production

Matrix 4 (abridged): Identifying response options to vulnerabilities

A B C D E FCC THREATS(from Matrix 1, Column D &Matrix 2&3, Column A)

FREQUENCY OF THREAT

VULNERABILITIES(synthesized from Matrix 3, Column E)

SERIOUSNESS OF IMPACTS(evidence according to indicators)

VULNERABILITY RATING(by the community)

POSSIBLE BROAD RESPONSE TOPICS(result from other tools)

Temperature increase, more intense dry season

• Prolonged drought typ-ically every 2-3 years

• Tempera-ture rise is continuous, but peaks periodically every 5-6 years

Declining pro-ductivity of ag-ricultural crops due to decreas-ing quality of soil (a function of extended pe-riods of dryness, current cropping practices and chemical fertil-izers)

More than 40% of hand pumps are now dry for 4 months of the year

High or Medium

• Develop-ment of agroforestry plots on private land

• Planting of fast-growing fodder and multipur-pose tree species

As going through all of the VA matrices in detail may be time and resource consuming, it is also possible to adapt and modify the framework and steps. The assets in column C of Matrix 2 can be collapsed as long as consideration of the SLA assets is otherwise accounted for in the narrative. The aim at the end of going through the matrices together with the communities is that general adaptation intervention topics will emerge. How the process is presented to the communities should be interactive and simple. At this point practitioners should move on to the feasibility-assessment phase of the CF-CCA framework.

Considerations for practitioners:

In order to facilitate the successful uptake of the CF-CCA framework by future practitioners, a number of key points should be emphasized:

• The flexible implementation of the CF-CCA framework is imperative. This will be ensured with a genuinely participatory and community-forestry user group-led process that targets marginalized populations.


• In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of project outcomes, practitioners must engage with governmental units and line agencies via technical and financial assistance.

• Practitioners must work to triangulate all available information on climate change, including local knowledge, through the VA phase.

• Practitioners must determine whether they are seeking to address current or future climate threats and impacts, and they must be aware that addressing current impacts may exacerbate future climate threats.

• The application of the CF-CCA framework should aim to address equity in all of its processes. Women-led community forests may serve as a useful entry point for the implementation the framework.

When using the CF-CCA framework it is important to resist seeing forest dependent communities, and the various marginalized populations within them, as uniformly vulnerable and passive subjects. Understanding these groups in such a way fails to recognize the work that they likely have already undertaken to enhance their adaptive capacity, and their potential to adapt in the future. These groups must lead the CF-CCA process.


Session 10: Ensuring sustainable adaptation - integrating interventions and securing financial support

Objectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • Explain the need for adaptation initiatives that are sustainable • Describe the importance of participatory processes and local-level support for

adaptation interventions • Explain the importance of developing capacities at local level to support

adaptation actions • Provide an overview of role of climate-sensitive income generation activities

Materials

• PowerPoint presentation • Flip chart paper • Markers • Handout

Time

• 2.5 hours

113LEARNING BLOCK 3

Steps

1. Using flip charts or PowerPoint, present the need to ensure the sustainability of adaptation interventions. Focus on community-based or local government sources of finance as an important consideration in CBA.

2. Ask participants to break into small groups according to the earlier case study work on Nepal and Viet Nam, continuing work on the same case study as before. On the basis of the earlier assessment of climate impacts and community engagement, ask groups to try to roughly identify the following sets of information: climate change impacts, adaptive capacity, key vulnerabilities and proposed adaptation topics for intervention This can be presented in a matrix form on flip charts.

3. Allow 30 minutes for the groups to complete their matrices. Announce that the next step will be the development of a strategy for the financial, social and political sustainability of one of the selected interventions, given the condition that there is only half the money required for the intervention. The group has another 20 minutes to discuss, capture ideas and prepare for presenting in the plenary session. Criteria for groups to consider in preparing their proposals are:

• The definition of the intervention • How community-level buy-in and support,in principle, would be ensured • How community-level financial (or in-kind) support could be generated • Possible contributions from line agencies • Possible political support and how it could be secured • Ideas for national level support • Possible international or NGO support and how it can be secured • Length of support, whether short-, medium- or long-term

Have each group present briefly in a plenary session. Facilitate any questions the groups may have about the points presented. Check that participants have a clear understanding of sustainability of adaptation interventions.

4. End the session with the following summary of points: • Adaptation interventions with little buy-in and ownership from beneficiary

communities are not sustainable and may be abandoned when funding ends.

• The three approaches that can ensure more sustainable adaptation interventions are:• Participatory processes that ensure at least stakeholder buy-in if not a

sense of ownership• Linking adaptation with community driven enterprise and market chain

development• Ensuring communication and partnerships between communities and

local government for adaptation support



1. For the PowerPoint or flip chart presentation, the trainer should include the following points:

• International financing for adaptation is important. • Long term sources are hard to come by especially at local level. • Externally driven and no/little buy-in or ownership by locals results in

adaptation interventions being abandoned. • It is necessary to look for ways to ensure the ultimate success and

sustainability of the intervention. • There are three inter-linked strategies for building sustainability into

adaptation projects:• Genuinely participatory processes ensuring stakeholder buy-in if not

driving vision• Linking adaptation with community driven enterprise and market chain

development • Strengthening the ties between communities and local government for

adaptation support

2. For step 2, it is important for the trainer to underscore that this exercise is purely illustrative. In reality we would need much more information and direct engagement with local stakeholders in order to draw conclusions about their vulnerabilities and potential interventions. There is almost always risk associated with conducting interventions, particularly when interventions affect poorer communities, those dependent on natural resources and livelihood assets. The overarching principle when undertaking adaptation work in the field should be one of ‘do no harm’ and of caution in taking the utmost care that the livelihoods of the most vulnerable of not adversely affected by interventions.

3. The trainer should circulate and ensure that groups have correctly understood and are on the right track.


Session 10: Ensuring sustainable adaptation - integrating interventions and securing financial support

Throughout, this manual has underscored that adapting to climate change is crucial for rural communities dependent on natural resources. Given the growing international acceptance that climate change is already under way, attention has shifted from efforts to mitigate climate change to more equal weighting of adapting to its impacts. This shift in emphasis has also been reflected in international financing. We can see that climate finance and adaptation in particular has been increasing, for example $ 392 billion in 2014 versus $341 billion in 201311. However, long-term sources of adaptation finance for local adaptation initiatives remain hard to come by at local levels.

International and national sources of financing face multiple barriers in reaching local levels where most adaptation actions take place. Some of the challenges include project-based approaches to local level issues. This is evident in projects that are often externally driven with little buy-in and ownership from beneficiary communities. These projects are driven by donors and the reporting demands take over from achieving meaningful and concrete impacts on the ground. Many times, when the funding ends and there are no means to secure new ones, the interventions are usually abandoned. These concerns all have implications for the long-term sustainability of interventions in the context of adaptation, an area in which it is already difficult to measure and demonstrate tangible adaptation ‘outcomes’.

PRIVATE MINISTER NGO GOVT

11 climatefinancelandscape.org/:


Principles of a participatory approach to adaptation • Encourage community ownership • Promote participation for all, especially marginalized groups • Reconcile different interests • Listen to community members • Examine the situation or problem from different points of view • Adapt to local contexts

(Olukotun 2008)

In order to efficiently use resources, and more importantly to respond to communities’ legitimate and often urgent adaptation needs, it is important that adaptation efforts look for ways to ensure the ultimate success and sustainability of the intervention. This session suggests three inter-linked strategies for building sustainability into adaptation projects:

• Creating genuinely participatory processes ensuring stakeholder buy-in (if not driving vision)

• Linking adaptation with community-driven enterprise and market chain development

• trengthening the ties between communities and local government for adaptation support

Participatory processes to support stakeholder buy-in

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014) finds with high confidence that engaging rural people in decision-making, especially to understand climate change, adaptation and how this relates to policies and institutions, plays an important role in making better public decisions about climate change. Natural resource-dependent communities need to have a strong voice in adaptation processes so they can assert their concerns and priorities, which can be quite different from those of government, scientists and development practitioners

(Salamanca 2016).

In general, community participation allows for better interventions and better outcomes. It improves efficiency, leads to greater transparency and accountability on service delivery, supports the development of local contractors and service providers and harmonizes external financial inputs (Okafor, 2005).

Communities who are the beneficiaries of projects should not be seen as targets of interventions but as assets, partners, and most importantly, leaders in the adaptation process. Experience has shown that given access to information and appropriate support, poor women and men can be successful in organizing goods and services that meet their immediate priorities. Communities often have considerable existing capacity to plan and implement programmes when in an enabling environment and with sufficient drivers and incentives.


When communities are involved in project initiation, implementation and leadership, the sustainability of interventions is more likely. This is important, considering that external funding, if secured, is never indefinite. Projects typically last between two and five years, after which beneficiaries are expected to maintain the intervention momentum. Unfortunately, development interventions that end once project funding ceases is more the rule than the exception.

Local level enterprise development

Another way to build in the long-term sustainability of adaptation interventions is by linking them to markets and in particular, local-level enterprise and value chain development. Supporting community forest enterprises (CFE) can be one way to do this, as they provide income opportunities at a community level while employing sustainable forest management practices. Traditionally, community forestry has focused on improving subsistence livelihoods and managing natural resources, although the focus in many national community forestry programmes recently has placed enterprise development at the centre. CFEs can offer an avenue to build adaptive capacity through improving financial assets, building critical social and market networks, and improving the financial and other skills of local entrepreneurs. CFEs can add value to forest products and contribute to alleviating poverty (Molnar et al., 2007), which in turn can encourage local people to invest in sustainably managing their forests, leading to overall increased resilience (Greijmans et al., 2015).

Tapping into local government sources of support

In addition to the role of truly participatory and community-led processes as well as development of CFEs in building in sustainability, external factors can also have significant influence. Specifically, financial, technical and overall political support from local-level government can be an important catalytic factor in the successfulness of community-based adaptation efforts and their overall sustainability. Government support for adaptation can come in a variety of forms ranging from support for and endorsement of community management committees on a voluntary or formal basis, to in-kind and cash support.

According to Mansuri and Rao (2004), even if communities are initially successful in developing an intervention, they often lack the material resources and connections to sustain their efforts. Several important components of local government support are:

• Information sharing meteorological data, the status of community applications for project financing, local-level government budgetary commitments, or application opportunities

• Political will: actively proceeding with applications, submissions and complaints in a fair and timely manner)

• Good governance: performing duties required by their station and doing so without the requirement of additional fees, as well as equitable treatment between communities and the recognition of role as duty bearers


This parallels a growing movement towards more decision-oriented research for adaptation planning and action that would focus on enabling decision makers, primarily local, to make the difficult and urgent choices between a range of alternative policy and management options (Wise et al, 2013). Adaptation responses often require inter-sectoral approaches as well as dialogue and responsiveness between local government duty bearers and local community rights holders. This may be transformative where existing systems of local governance may remain distant from local peoples’ lives or unable or unwilling to respond to challenges being faced. This requires strong political and financial support from national levels of government.

National and subnational adaptation financing

Figure 9 from Terpstra et al. (2014) illustrates the ways in which adaptation funds might be channelled for adaptation purposes.

Figure 9: Pathways for channelling international and national adaptation funding to local

levels

In general, subnational governmental bodies are dependent on central or regional governments for climate adaptation funds, which are distributed through intergovernmental transfers. They might receive adaptation funding from international financing mechanisms, or in the form of development finance with climate change co-benefits (UNDP, UNCDF, UNEP 2013). It is important that information regarding local climate-related activities and financing is shared with community members. This will both increase their awareness, engagement and initiative in climate change adaptation, and create stronger systems of accountability for local governments, particularly relating to the distribution of funds.

Learning Block 4

Field work: reflection on experiences and lessons learned


Session 11: Preparing for the field exercise

Objectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • State the purpose of the field exercise and their own roles in the field visit • Use the secondary information, including printed documents, provided by the

resource person to prepare for the field assignment • Discuss and present the task assigned to them for the field exercise • After the trip, reflect on the lessons learned in the field and articulate what they

saw, heard, felt, and learned

Materials

• Field exercise note • Field information

Time

• 2.0 hours prior to the field visit

Steps

1. Explain the purpose of the field exercise and take questions for clarification. Mention that the visit is not necessarily a showcase of best practices in CF-CCA, but it will provide participants with an opportunity to examine the concepts and principles of CF-CCA with local communities, government, NGOs. It will also foster thinking and discussion on these issues to enhance the overall learning experience. Explain that the field exercise is not just about having a nice time with communities.

2. Divide participants into mixed groups.The trainer may consider in advance the composition of groups and assign groups verbally or in print-outs.

121LEARNING BLOCK 4

3. Walk participants through the field exercise note step by step: purpose, objectives, approaches, advice and methods used for field work.

4. Ask if participants have any questions related to the assignment.5. Invite resource persons, if present, to brief participants on the site they are going

to visit.6. Facilitate a question-and-answer session for clarification and thank all resource

persons.7. Mention that participants will be allocated 1 – 1.5 hours to sit and prepare in

teams before they go to work in the field.

Notes to trainer for the field exercise

1. Background The field trip is used to illustrate concepts, principles and approaches presented in this manual and related to the CF-CCA approach. It allows participants to practice the application of participatory tools and techniques with local communities, government and NGOs, and to test understanding of key adaptation concepts such as climate impacts, exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity, sustainable livelihoods, social differentiation, vulnerability, the role of community forest landscapes in adaptation, and entry points for building local government support and the long-term sustainability of interventions.

It is important to note that conducting a VA takes at least several weeks and potentially much longer. It is also ideally an iterative process that is reviewed over the cycle of a project with a view to updating climatic information as well as social, political and other changes which may have occurred since the project’s initiation. As such, it must be made clear that participants are not conducting a full VA and must be careful in their own expectations and any they bring to the community which they are visiting.

Adaptation intervention ideas must not be proposed to the communities given the limited knowledge participants and discussion of possible interventions is for the post-field visit plenary reflection. Instead there needs to be proper preparation of the host community so that they clearly understand why this exercise is being done, who will be coming, what will occur and what will result from the exercise.

2. Field visit objective • To explore, analyse and synthesize concepts and principles of CF-CCA in a

real situation • To practice some of the participatory CF-CCA VA tools and techniques • To reflect on using participatory processes in designing community-based

climate change adaptation


3. Flow of field exercises

Figure 10 below is a sample flow chart of how a field visit could be planned for a CF-CCA training.

Figure 10: Sample plan of a field visit for CF-CCA training

4. Questions to guide the field work. Hold discussions with community members and collaborative partners if available.

Groups of no more than five or six individuals are asked to develop questions that will be directed to selected resource persons in the community. They should be allocated a period of 1.0 – 1.5 hours before the field visit to develop specific questions. The trainer can provide some guidance but without suggesting actual questions.

Some suggestions of topics and questions are below. Participants should consider that questions may need to be adapted and simplified for local context and resources:

123LEARNING BLOCK 4

• Impacts of climate change:

• What are the impacts the community has experienced from climate change?

• What have been climatic impacts on the forest landscape, if any? • How has the community tried to cope with these impacts?

• Vulnerability assessment:

• What are livelihoods assets of the community?• What have been the climate impacts on livelihood assets?• Has everyone in the community been affected equally? If not, who is

affected more and how?• What general adaptation areas should be proposed to respond to

vulnerabilities?• What external sources of support exist and are being tapped into by the

communities?

• Adaptation responses and participatory processes: • Have there been adaptation interventions?• How did the community or others decide on the interventions?• Who is involved in climate change adaptation interventions? Who is

impacted, including other communities?• What can we say about the adaptive capacity and resilience of this

community?


Session 12: Field visit and overall training reflection

Objectives

At the end of the session participants will be able to: • Articulate and present key vulnerability assessment and findings from the field

site visit • Synthesize and apply principles introduced throughout the course of the training:

climate impacts, exposure, sensitivity, livelihood assets, adaptive capacities and vulnerability

• Reflect on their learning experience with regards to CF-CCA

Materials

• Flip charts • Post-it Notes

Time

• 2.0 hours

Steps

1. Review the purpose of the field visit and its key components. Groups will then present their brief presentations outlining observations, lessons learned and analysis on the basis of the field site visit.

125LEARNING BLOCK 4

2. Invite the first group to present allowing maximum 15 minutes. Encourage questions from the plenary session and seek differences in observations and conclusions regarding livelihood assets, social differentiation, participatory processes and vulnerability.

3. Proceed until all groups have presented.4. Lead a plenary discussion asking participants to reflect on the following

questions. If some the questions have been answered by the groups’ presentations, ask questions that have not been addressed by the presentations:

• What were the climate impacts you observed or noted from the field site? • What were the factors of climatic exposure? • What were the factors of sensitivity at play? • What were the key livelihood assets in the community? • What would you list as the adaptive capacity of this community? • What are their main vulnerabilities? • How did the CF-CCA framework help to understand the vulnerability context

and adaptive capacity? • What are potential adaptive interventions? • How could sustainability be built into these interventions?

5. Explain that the next activity will help participants reflect on their individual and group learning on CF-CCA through designing and implementing creative engagement processes.

6. Divide a flip chart into four spaces by drawing a cross shape. Then draw a symbol in each quadrant as follows: an eye to represent seeing, an ear for hearing, a heart for feeling and a hand for learning.

7. Divide the participants into groups of four or five. Give them a prepared flip chart, each with the same images that you have used in the example.

8. Explain that you would like the participants to think quietly about what they have seen, heard, felt and learned during the training so far on CF-CCA.

9. Explain that they should draw pictures to represent what they have seen, heard, felt and learned on a Post-it Note. Be firm and remind them that they cannot use words. Explain that each person should draw at least one picture for each quadrant. If they have time for more, then they can add more. Give them 15 minutes to think and draw. Explain they can use symbols if they do not like to draw.

10. After 15 minutes, ask them to place their drawings in the quadrant, and give them 10 minutes to analyse their drawings and think about how they will present them to the whole group.

11. Ask each group to present their visual learning journey. After they have finished, point out any key issues or questions that emerged. If you have time, you can also highlight the similarities and differences between the lessons of the different groups.

12. Display the visual learning journey that is on the flip chart on the wall in the training room and refer to it if you need to respond to any new questions or if participants still have queries.



For Step 5 onwards, some participants may protest that they cannot draw what they have heard. Give examples and encourage trust in the methodology. If taken seriously, this exercise may reveal deeper insights into personal learning than verbal sharing allows.As this is the final session before the wrap up session, the trainer should use this as an opportunity to wrap up and synthesize, drawing in key observations, lessons learned and insights from personal learning journeys.

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The Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC)P.O. Box 1111KasetsartPostOfficeBangkok 10903, ThailandTel (66-2) 940-5700Fax (66-2) [email protected]

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RECOFTC holds a unique and important place in theworldofforestry.Itistheonlyinternationalnot‐for‐profitorganizationthatspecializesincapacitydevelopment for community forestry and devolved forest management while taking a landscape approach to natural resource management. We engage in strategic networks and effective partnerships with governments, nongovernment organizations, civil society, the private sector, local people, and research and educational institutesthroughouttheAsia‐Pacificregionandbeyond.We have more than 30 years’ international experience and a dynamic approach to capacity development involving: research, analysis and synthesis; strategic communication; training and learning networks; and piloting and demonstrating. We deliver innovative solutions for people and forests.

ToaddresstheneedsandchallengesoftheAsia‐Pacificregion, RECOFTC developed an innovative new strategy (2018-2023) to help local people find solutions together with government, the private sector, development partners, local institutes, academia, media and others. Building on its previous strategic phases, the 2018–2023 Strategic Plan puts people at the center of change, by empowering communities, governments and the private sector with rights, opportunities for dialogue, networking, technical expertise, tools and knowledge. RECOFTC’s results will help nearly 5 million people in and near forest landscapes live more equitably, with dignity and greater empowerment to protect themselves from the injustices of poverty and environmental degradation.

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