Beyond domesticity: empowering women and restoring ecosystems in Uttarakhand, India

Climate change is a complex and contentious public issue, but the risk-management options available to us are straightforward and have well-characterized strengths and weaknesses.

The present book focuses on platforms for (natural) resource management. It analyses various case studies in Benin and Burkina Faso. Conditions for collective resource management in conflict and interdependent situations are the most critical issues. The present study raises the importance of socio-economic sustainability. It aims at incorporating social perspective within economic growth by focusing on stakeholders needs and by learning with them to respond to evolving conditions.The present book is based on three main parts. After an introductory chapter (chapter 1), the first part discusses the perspectives and methodologies used to carry out the present study. The second part analyses six case studies, and the third part presents a synthesis and the main conclusions.Part one: perspectives and methodologiesIn part one, perspectives and methodologies used to carry out the research are developed. First, resource management problems are elaborated. They cover several dimensions: social dilemmas in interdependent resource use situations, and social and ecological crises. Collective action and platforms are the puzzles of effective resource management in face of these problems. These two notions are the central points of my argumentation if conditions for sustainably managing natural resources is to be realized.The fact that resource management problems unravel two different assets, the social (stakeholders) and the natural (ecosystems), I have used 'coupled systems thinking' to elaborate perspectives with respect to resource management (chapter 2). Based on this notion, 'hard system thinking' is applied to conceptualize ecosystems for the purpose of resource management. 'Soft system' is also applied as a form under which we organize our attempt to reach common appreciation of problematic situations. These perspectives enable me to develop the notions of platform, social learning to cope with both ecosystem and social dynamics, and the facilitation of change in resource management (communicative intervention, incentives, support institutions, and policy contexts). Having elaborated my perspectives for the present study, I could define first, the following problem statement:"The extent to which the perspectives elaborated, help develop theories, practices and ideas, in the particular contexts of resource use in Benin and Burkina Faso, for the facilitation of adaptive resource management in various attempts to enhance regenerative practices and sustainable development in ecosystems".Second, I define the following research questions:To what extent can various resource management situations from Benin and Burkina Faso, be analyzed?What are the factors that affect the success or failure of the various resource management situations analyzed?Can concrete and fresh theories, concepts and ideas, be identified to support the facilitation of deliberate adaptive resource management interventions towards greater sustainability?The methodologies of the present study (chapter 3) involve a scientist's curricula for discovery learning and the concrete research methodology. Case study research approach, grounded theory and comparative study are used. Exploratory research is done to gain novel and fresh arguments that contribute to the scientific and public debate with respect to resource management practices.Part two: case studiesSix case studies were carried out (four in Benin and two in Burkina Faso). The first case study (chapter 4) deals with fishery resource management, specifically Lake Aheme in Benin. An analysis of the evolution of the platform for Lake Aheme's resource management is done from the pre-colonial period to the recent democratization process in Benin. The major conclusion from the Lake Aheme case is that, sustainability is an emergent property of a soft system, which means that the impasse noticed in the management of the lake can only be broken if two conditions are satisfied. On the first hand, collective action is effective for regulation, mutual control and monitoring. On the other hand, a platform is developed for governing the lake and resolving conflicts.The second case study (chapter 5) deals with rangeland resource management within the Chabe community in Benin. Two situations are compared: the local arrangement in Savè area and the implementation of the Appui-Conseil for collective rangeland resource management. The first situation reveals that, a lack of decision making capacity and concerted action, and an absence of organizations and institutions for resource management, affect failures. In the second situation, a negotiated agreement and concerted action led to the development of a platform. The major conclusion from this case study is that, barriers to collective rangeland resource management can be overcome if different categories of stakeholders adopt collective action, develop platforms for decision-making, monitoring, sanctions and exclusion at the level of gaa, villages and regions.The third case study (chapter 6) presents watershed development problems with two ethnic groups, the Adja and Mahi people in Benin. The critical issue here is the extent to which scaling up watershed development from the level of farms to the watershed for intervention, is effective. This implies the need to develop inter-village perspectives. Within both the ethnic groups, the absence of consistent property right institutions was a barrier for watershed development. Platforms for pooling a systematic treatment of micro-watersheds towards the watershed development based on inter-village structuration (scaling up) did not yet emerge in Mono. A reason was the nonexistence of local organizations that could strengthen this process. In Ouèssè, the creation of the Union Inter-Villageoise pour la Gestion des ressource Naturelles (UIGREN) also called SEDOKU, was a platform at the level of the region of Mahi people. The success of the scaling up process was due to existing organizations and a collective learning path adopted by the intervening agency.Resource-flow management to improve soil fertility by a women's group is analyzed in the fourth case study (chapter 7). The analysis considers two different contexts: before, and during democratization process in Benin. Resource-flow management can be effective only if successful collective action is maintained to provide public goods (e.g., infrastructures, the group itself). A major conclusion for this case study is that, a shift in the political system of Benin, has some implications for making grass-root development processes more dynamic. Many opportunities such as credit, training, exchange of experience, enable the maintenance of the group, and in turn, collective action for resource management.The fifth case study (chapter 8) shows the evolution of forestry problems from a purely indigenous regulation to the recent intervention of the PNGT and co-management practices in Burkina Faso. This case study reveals that, the evolution of the platform is sensitive to ownership issues concerning the Maro forest. This case involves both public goods (e.g., fire break) and common goods (e.g., trees). Co-management practices, exclusion of free-riders and monitoring, enable collective action and platforms for regenerating the Maro forest.The gestion des terroirs applied in a physical planning process to enable the creation of a zone for herding and tree planting, is analyzed in the sixth case study (chapter 9). The main issue was the aménagement of a zone sylvo-pastorale . The need to initiate this aménagement emerged from severe problems such as crop damages due to the transhumant herders, and clashing interests among herders, the native Bobo and the migrant Mossi. Perceived interdependence among these stakeholders was a driving factor for successful collective action and platform development for the aménagement of a zone sylvo-pastorale . This interdependence has become visible through repeated conflicts between herders and crop-farmers. However, the case study reveals that the management of the zone sylvo-pastorale will require new roles such as monitoring, conflict resolution, and mediation for professionals.Part three: synthesis and conclusionsMany propositions and concrete ideas are pulled out with respect to resource management (chapter 10). They are addressed to resource management problems, social learning, and the facilitation of changes. Crises in ecosystems are triggers of social learning by stakeholders and intervening agencies. The facilitation of change goes beyond transfer of technology, advisory work and information support services, and extension which focuses on solution of specific problems. The case studies acerbate the importance of collective action and platforms to realize a successful collective resource management. Collective action means that individual action are consistent norms, rules, etc., which are collectively agreed upon. Collective action can be expressed through the willingness of many stakeholders to act beyond their individual interest, maybe because of stimuli from their environment. Conditions for successful collective action are: perceived interdependence with respect to resource management; mutual benefits; perceived externalities within resource management activities; risk sharing, tontine and increasing negotiation power; and trust in social capital for resource management. The platform notion is dynamic, heuristic and sensitive to the boundary problem within ecosystems under siege for resource management. Conditions identified for the functioning of effective platforms are: collective action, representation at the appropriate ecosystem level, quality of leadership, possibilities to meet, capacity for implementing mechanisms for concerted action and conflict resolution, stakeholders are the main concern for the functioning of operational platforms, and possibilities for continual learning for adaptability. The present study explains adaptive resource management concept. A major conclusion (chapter 11) is that adaptive resource management is different from conventional technology development. Sustainability with respect to resource management depends on collective action, trust in resource management institutions, decision making capacity, quality of leadership, management capacity and policy contexts. Implications of adaptive resource management for planning are discussed. Practical recommendations are suggested. They are addressed to the role of governments, local communities, and effectiveness of adaptive resource management.

Nature‐based Solutions to tackle climate change and restore biodiversity

In this paper, I argue that African environmental ethics can contribute to sustainable development as well as mitigate the devastating effects of global warming and climate change in Africa. Although Africa bears the least onus of responsibility for global warming and climate change, she suffers the greatest burden of the adverse effects of global climate change and environmental crisis. While industrialized countries, nations which are largely responsible for the greatest amount of greenhouse emissions are laggard and reticent in implementing international agreements aimed at palliating the untoward effects of climate change, there is an urgent need to seek indigenous solutions to environmental crisis in Africa without compromising the much needed development in the continent. African environmental ethics extends the moral community beyond anthropocentric concerns by including non-human animals, plants, the unborn, and the supernatural into the moral universe. I use Kom environmental ethics to show how indigenous African societies employed different values and customs to make their environment physically and spiritually sustainable. There were taboos, values, and norms which prescribed correct behavior towards nature. But as a result of the colonial encounter, Africans were forced to abandon some of these indigenous environmental values and sustainable practices for an anthropocentric approach. With this outlook where humans have moral responsibility only towards humans, development meant the complete disregard for traditional African holistic values and customs. This disregard, in conjunction with weak or absence of institutional framework regarding environmental protection and corruption in the management of natural resources, has led to unsustainable exploitation of the natural environment in Africa.

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a concept that was introduced in southern Africa back in the 1980s with the dual aim of biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction in communities endowed with natural resources. Community-based tourism (CBT), one of the major forms of CBNRM, depends on natural resources, particularly wildlife, and weather and climatic conditions. However, natural resources are under threat from climatic changes and other anthropogenic and natural disturbances. This calls for the need to interrogate the extent to which CBNRM initiatives mainstream climate change in their agenda. The main aim of this article is to assess the extent to which the climate change agenda has been mainstreamed into the policy framework of Botswana's CBNRM program. The specific objectives are to (1) document the impacts of climate change on CBNRM-related initiatives in Botswana; (2) determine the relationship between climate parameters (temperature and rainfall), extreme events (drought and extreme heat), and visitor trends in Botswana and the Okavango Delta; (3) establish a historical correlation between evolution of climate change policy and CBNRM policy and vice versa, policy initiatives, programs, strategies, and projects in Botswana; (4) explore the extent to which international, regional, national, and local climate policies mainstream CBNRM and tourism issues and vice versa; and (5) explore the challenges and opportunities related to climate change and CBNRM, with a particular focus on adaptation and mitigation initiatives. This study mostly used qualitative approaches (desktop review of policy documents and scholarly articles) as well as secondary quantitative data (time-series data) to explore the evolution of CBNRM in Botswana, providing an overview of its structure, policy initiatives, programs, and projects and how these correspond with climate change issues. A scoping review was conducted to identify relevant studies on the impacts of climate change on CBNRM initiatives published between 1992 and 2023. A total of 50 articles were identified to answer the following research question: What evidence is available regarding the impacts of climate change on CBNRM initiatives? The article further looks at how climate change–related extreme events, particularly drought, has affected tourism performance over the years. The article then zeros down on the effects of climate change on CBNRM initiatives and the challenges, threats, and opportunities, as well as the mitigation and adaptation strategies adopted by the CBNRM projects in Botswana. The findings indicate that climate change–induced events, particularly drought, have affected nature-based tourism products in Botswana. However, it was revealed that although there is no statistically significant correlation between drought and tourism performance, evidence from the literature reveals that drought has impacted tourism in Botswana. The findings from policy analysis indicate that the climate change agenda is woven into more recent key legal and policy documents on CBNRM, on one hand, while the climate change policy documents also include components that speak to CBNRM, on the other. This implies that the tourism sector can leverage these provisions to strengthen climate resilience through transformative adaptation and mitigation action.

The research method is qualitative with a theory research action combination with phenomenological approach. The research design using multi-site involving six locus in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Data collection techniques used were content analysis, participatory observation and depth interviews. The analysis used in answering this research is a combination of various analytical methods to answer each of the objectives namely miles & Huberman analysis, BAPenas MAPP Analysis, Siagian Leadership Role Analysis and Webbed Spider Model Analysis as the ultimate in formulating green leadership models in the management of natural resources and sustainable environment. This study aims to observe, study and find events related to the focus of research to get the formulation of a model of green leadership in the management of natural resources and the sustainable environment that appears naturally. The results of this research found that the Green Leadership Model’s has the criteria : has an understanding of environmental issues, response to policies, community accessibility, institutional support, commitment to environmental sustainability, has innovation that is pro to the environment and an optimal role for leaders in the management of natural resources and sustainable environment. These included the following; in the past experience, sustainable management of natural resources and the environment around the Meratus mountains is strongly influenced by the leadership role both formally and informally. Sustainability of natural resource management and sustainable environment is strongly influenced by leadership who: has awareness and love for the environment, provide motivation through direct implementation to the community through policies that are implemented in maintaining environmental sustainability, provide broad access for the community to participate in the management of natural resources and the environment which experiences a lot of quality degradation ; firm and able to refuse in responding to the demands of the business world which focus on increasing profits alone to exploit natural resources and the environment; and has criteria as an environmentally friendly leadership model in accordance with the criteria needed as an ideal description of leadership. Green leadership models in the management of natural resources and the environment come from formal and informal leadership. The formal green leadership comes from the Regional / Institution / Institution of government, while the informal green leadership comes from the customary leadership that carries out customary rules that do not conflict with government regulations in the management of natural resources and the sustainable environment.

Agriculture is one of the key drivers and victims of climate change. Climate-resilient agriculture is therefore vital for achieving enhanced food security—which is a crucial component of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This paper provides answers to questions that are prerequisite for policies that address agriculture and climate change. We analyze the determinants of global average crop production for maize, wheat, rice, and soybeans over the period 1961–2013. We find strong and statistically significant supply elasticities for all four crops with respect to own crop prices. Our results also underscore the relevance of output price volatility for the supply of these key global agricultural staple crops—especially on production of wheat and maize. Comparing the standardized effect sizes of own price and price volatility estimates, the effects are on par for wheat production while the price volatility effect is only a fifth of the own price effect on maize production. In agreement with previous studies, we also find that climate change has significant adverse effects on production of the world’s key staple crops. More importantly, this study finds that weather extremes—both in terms of temperature and precipitation shocks— during the growing months have significant adverse impacts on the production of the abovementioned food crops. Price and weather extremes do not only adversely affect average global food production, they also positively contribute to the year-to-year fluctuations of food availability. Thus, combating climate change using both mitigation and adaptation technologies is crucial for global production and hence food security.

Basic capability effect: Collective management of pastoral resources in southwestern Kenya

Effect of global climate change and human disturbances on tree diversity of the forest regenerating from clear-cuts of mixed broadleaved Korean pine forest in Northeast China

WANA Region is mostly arid or semiarid, therefore climate extremes (particularly drought) are frequent events. Agriculture is constrained with limited land and water resources, as well as inadequate capital investment and poor marketing facilities. Climate change (CC) is a global recognized phenomenon including warming, sea level rise and greenhouse gas emissions. In spite of the fact that several scenarios are forecasting occurrence of CC events, degrees of certainty are questioned by many researchers, to the extent of even citing some CC benefits from temperature rise and CO2 enrichment in enhancing agriculture outputs. The agriculture sector, as much as it could be a victim of CC; has a significant mitigation role. International organizations focused lately on CC mitigation and adaptation plans, including the FAO Conference on CC Adaptation and Mitigation in Beirut in 2006 and the ICARDA International Conference on CC and Food Security in Jordan in 2010. A Regional Adaptation Framework is presented to address climate change including a multidisciplinary approach, covering the following issues: (i) move from emergency to risk management, (ii) sustainable management of the natural resource base (land, water, forestry, fisheries); (iii) relevant policy reform and legislation; (iv) enabling capacity to adapt to climate change with regional cooperation and partnership; and (v) enhancing the role of research including potential of resources, land and water and indigenous water-saving techniques.

The ratchet effects of global climate change make all countries and regions vulnerable. It is believed that if countries/regions are not involved in climate change mitigation initiatives, they may be overwhelmed by ‘climate flood’, and their citizens may be victims of climate change. The HKH, as the biggest, poorest mountain area in the world, faces a big challenge, and efforts should be made to understand the status of the HKH and to develop a blueprint for mitigating climate change. This chapter integrates several components including: (1) the carbon management status of the HKH region and the urgent need for livelihood improvement and research and development linked with climate issues; (2) the framework for evaluating the level and mode of carbon compensation; (3) the strategy of sharing benefits from carbon management with indigenous people in the HKH region; and (4) the options for carbon management in HKH over future decades. Finally, this chapter provides a short summary of the contents and purpose of this book.

Forest ecosystems are important to ecological, economic and social wellbeing, particularly for the adjacent communities who depend on it. Understanding the socioeconomic dynamics that make households choice to be involved in forest conservation is crucial for sustainable management of natural resources. This study therefore examined the socioeconomic factors that influenced households’ participation in forest management. Multistage probability sampling technique was used to select 202 respondents from households adjacent to Aberdare forest ecosystem. Data collected was analysed using Chi-square test, Spearman’s rho correlation and multinomial logistic regression. The factors that influenced participatory forest management included forest management approach (χ² = 17.551, p < 0.001), distance to the forest reserve (χ² = 29.071, p < 0.001), distance to the national park (χ² = 27.303, p = 0.008), gender of household head (χ² = 10.719, p = 0.002), land tenure (χ² = 34.313, p < 0.001), sources of income (χ² = 31.353, p < 0.001) and importance of the forest ecosystem (χ² = 29.241, p < 0.001). The factors that significantly influenced the regression model were farm size, household size, annual income, forest management approaches (FMA), land tenure, and importance of the forest ecosystem where R2 was 0.703. The study established that, although the proposition that natural resources need protection from anthropogenic destruction is widely accepted, communities are interested in collaborating with resource managers for long-term resource conservation. This study therefore recommends strategies for harnessing this high interest through broadening the economic benefits base on spur community involvement in conservation, a prerequisite for sustainable forest conservation. These include promotion of agroforestry practices, supporting non-extractive benefits and formation and capacity building of community associations to enhance participation in forest ecosystem management. Key words: Benefit-cost sharing, economic and non-economic benefits, forest ecosystem, forest management approach, forest reserve, national park, livelihoods.

Nurses play essential roles in reducing health problems due to climate change

A merely national ‘universal’ basic income and global justice

This second edition of Climate Change and Public Health provides a comprehensive review of the health consequences of climate change. It also covers what is being done and can be done to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change, and to adapt to the consequences of climate change. The first edition of this book, which was published in 2015, was selected as the Environmental Health Book of the Year. Most of the 55 contributors to this edition are leading scholars and practitioners who have been studying and addressing climate change and its health consequences. Of its 20 chapters, 15 are thorough updates of chapters in the first edition and five are new chapters. After introductory chapters on public health and climate science, this book focuses on heat-related disorders, respiratory disorders, vectorborne diseases, waterborne diseases, food insecurity and malnutrition, mental health impacts, and violence. It then describes the policymaking process and energy, transportation, and agriculture policies that aim to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and provide health co-benefits. It then covers adaptation measures for the consequences of climate change, including health adaptation, healthy and sustainable built environments, and nature-based solutions. Finally, it covers ways of strengthening the public and political will to address climate change, including measures to communicate the health relevance of climate change, build social movements to address climate change, and promote climate justice.