Forests for ClimateProof Livelihoods

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Forests for Climate-Proof Livelihoods
Stewart Maginnis Director, Environment and
Development Group
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Climate Change is already happening!
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Geographical patterns of warming vary
But little doubt that the livelihoods of the
rural and coastal poor will be the ones that are
most severely impacted
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Millions at risk
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Natures solution!

• Extreme weather events are not new, people have
  long coped with droughts and floods.
• Natural resources are often a keystone to such
  strategies
• Vulnerability is not just a function of extreme
  weather (or economics) also determined by the
  state of natural resources
• Sustainability of resource management is a major
  determinant of adaptation potential
• Existing vulnerabilities created by poor resource
  management is one starting point for adaptation.
• Requires understanding of local livelihoods and
  assets and capacities on which they are based.

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Example Vulnerability reduction in Lao PDR

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Livelihood changes in Lao PDR
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VULNERABILITY NATURAL RESOURCESa question of
rights and tenure

• Distinguish between
• The chronic poor with too few assets. They cannot
  benefit from most livelihood opportunities and
  rely on forests for fundamental subsistence and
  low level commercial activities
• From the transitory poor who have some assets and
  can respond to growing market opportunities. They
  will directly benefit from improved access to
  markets for forest products.

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Shinyanga, Tanzania

• Encroachment conversion of forests woodlands
• Narrowing of productive base overtime ( usually
  cash), livestock
• No real emphasis on importance of trees tree
  products to livelihood security
• Policies tended to reduce peoples security over
  their lands resources

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NOT ALL POSTIVE LANDSCAPE LEVEL CHANGE REDUCES
VULNERABILITY EQUALLY

• Shinyanga, Tanzania
• The Desert of Tanzania now benefits from
• USD 1200/household/yr in economic assets
• 500,000 ha of new assets
• USD 14 per person per month against the national
  monthly avg. of USD 8.50
• But it also resulted in greater disparity between
  richer men and poorer women

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Landscape perpectives

• (Agro)ecosystem resilence cannot be fully
  addressed at the site level
• There will be a need balance land-use trade-offs
• Adaptable land-use and ecosystems change over
  time.
• Need to accommodate different stakeholder
  perspectives

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CRiSTAL Community-based Risk Screening
Adaptation and Livelihoods

• Goal
• Promote integration of risk reduction and climate
  change adaptation into landscape plans and
  national policies
• Objectives
• Help stakeholders to systematically define the
  links between livelihoods and climate
• Enable users to assess a landscape interventions
  with respect to community-level adaptive capacity
• Employ traditional knowledge on coping strategies
  into adaptation responses
• Link this knowledge to national policy dialogues
  (NAPAs and PRSPs)

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CRiSTAL Application in Zambia

• Pilot activities included
• 8 community groups
• 4 landscape interventions / projects
• 3 different agro-ecological zones

• Indication of the risks related to CC at the
  local level
• ? full-size project will concentrate on
  increasing resilience towards risks identified
  during pilot phase
• 2. Build local capacity to assess climate risks
  and provided framework to adjust ongoing
  landscape interventions to avoid negative impacts
  on local adaptive capacity
• 3. Provided complementary information on climate
  hazards and on existing coping strategies at the
  local level for decision makers and other actors
  involved in national level CC policy discourse,
  e.g. NAPA / PRSP

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Learning on climate-related hazards and impacts
in Zambia

• Variability is a feature of the Zambian climate,
  which has a history of droughts and floods
• Community consultations revealed a rise in the
  frequency and severity of extreme events,
  including droughts, floods and high temperatures,
  and a decrease in the length of the rainy season
• Changes are in accordance with the IPCC climate
  change observations and predictions for the 20th
  and 21st centuries
• ? frequency of warm spells and heat waves over
  most land area
• warmer and more frequent hot days and nights
• ? area affected by drought
• ? frequency of heavy precipitation events

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Learning on coping strategies

• Some adaptation to current climate variability is
  taking place, as demonstrated by various coping
  strategies
• income diversification
• conservation farming practices
• gathering wild foods from the forest
• using medicinal plants to treat diseases
• However, these are not sufficient to deal
  effectively with present climate change and
  variability
• When facing climate hazards, small scale farmers
  rely particularly heavily on access to
  alternative natural resources from forests and
  wetlands
• e.g. wood, charcoal, grass, honey, wild plants,
  fish

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Lessons learned Basis for enabling community
based actions to reduce vulnerability

• Deep understanding of local livelihoods and
  vulnerabilities and of local capacities
• Strong understanding of main climate risks in the
  region and impacts on livelihoods
• Community driven design and implementation
• Reinforcement or strengthening of local social
  institutions to make adaptation choices
• National policy frameworks need to be better
  informed about local realities (disconnect
  between NAPA and local needs).

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Thank you