Abstract
In most regions in West Africa, livelihoods depend heavily on forest ecosystem goods and services, often in interplay with agricultural and livestock production systems. Numerous drivers of change are creating a range of fundamental economic, ecological, social and political challenges for the governance of forest commons. Climate change and its impacts on countries' and regions' development add a new dimension to an already challenging situation. Governance systems are challenged to set a frame for formulating, financing and implementing adaptation strategies at multiple layers, often in a context of ongoing institutional changes such as decentralisation. A deeper understanding of actors, institutions and networks is needed to overcome barriers in socio-ecological systems to adaptation and enable or enhance adaptive capacity. In this paper, we explore the relationship between governance and adaptive capacity, and characterise and assess the effects of a set of variables and indicators related to two core variables: Institutional flexibility, and individual and organisational understandings and perceptions. We present a comparative analysis with multiple methods based on a number of case studies undertaken at different levels in Burkina Faso and Mali. One of the key findings indicates the importance and influence of discourses and narratives, and how they affect adaptive capacity at different levels. Revealing the ideological character of discourses can help to enable adaptive capacity, as it would break the influence of the actors that employ these narratives to pursuit their own interests.
Highlights
In most regions in West Africa, livelihoods depend heavily on forest ecosystem goods and services, often in interplay with agricultural and livestock production systems
To contribute to a deeper understanding of how governance of dryland forest commons affect the adaptive capacity of socio-ecological systems, this paper draws on a range of interdisciplinary studies on adaptation in forest-based ecosystems and livelihoods
Most interviewees suggested as an activity engagement with and capacity building of the media to enhance public awareness in the short-term and capacity across all levels in the long-term (which is reflected in the Burkina Faso national communication (Ministry of Environment 2011)). If we put these results in the context of our assumptions in Table 1, we find that most perceptions and proposed solutions to the problem of climate change and the need for adaptations across all levels of governance are influenced to a high degree by specific narratives and discourses, e.g. the sedentarisation versus mobilisation discourse, the techno-fix discourse, and the discourse around the “return of the lake”
Summary
In most regions in West Africa, livelihoods depend heavily on forest ecosystem goods and services, often in interplay with agricultural and livestock production systems. Adaptation is inherently local, an enabling framework of rules, regulations, mechanisms and institutions is necessary to allow for a shift from mere reactive responses to climate change and extreme events towards strategic and sustainable action in socio-ecological systems (Adger et al 2005a; Füssel 2007; Agrawal 2008). These systems are characterised by a complexity of a multitude of actors, interactions and processes, what Poteete (this issue) called multidimensional linkages, incorporating multiple levels and multiple scales.. Characterising and assessing governance aspects of adaptive capacity in dryland forest ecosystems requires an interdisciplinary and mixed methods approach, and we conclude with the identification of possible trajectories to enhance or enable adaptive capacity and some methodological reflections to strengthen such assessments
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