A People-First Approach to Nature Based Solutions: CARE-WWF Alliance Climate Adaptation Experiences
Toward Community and Ecosystem Resilience: The Urgency of Integrating Community Based Adaptation and Nature Based Solutions
Even if we reach zero net emissions by target dates, accelerating climate change will affect people and biodiversity. Disproportionate impacts will be levied on vulnerable communities in developing countries, especially women. Combining nature-based solutions is critical to build the resilience of ecosystems on which poor communities rely for their livelihoods and income. Community-based adaptation solutions are also vital because they draw on local people’s capacities to enhance the resilience of their social and economic systems to climate impacts.
Drawing on a decade of on-the-ground experience, the CARE-WWF Alliance offers lessons and tools that respond to the urgent need to integrate nature-based and community-based approaches to climate change adaptation. Only by working inclusively and collaboratively with diverse stakeholders across landscapes will the global community succeed in building the community and ecosystem resilience needed to adapt and thrive under climate change.
Learning
This two-page learning brief showcases how integrating community and ecosystem approaches enhances resilience to climate change. This details the CARE-WWF Alliance’s work in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Nepal and demonstrates that integrating socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable approaches adds value by building social and ecological resilience to climate change and other stressors.
This paper, aimed at practitioners and policy makers, synthesizes evidence on how gender transformation can amplify the benefits of adaptation. Case studies from various agencies are presented, lessons are summarized and recommendations are made on how climate change adaptation can and should tackle gender-based inequality.
This four-page learning brief presents lessons on the Hariyo Ban Program’s climate adaptation work, particularly major lessons focus on the value of integrating ecosystems in adaptation, as well as the importance and challenges of working at different scales, considering different time scales and taking a multi-disciplinary approach. While lessons are from Nepal, they are relevant for practitioners and decision-makers around the world.
Tools and Guidance
Building on a decade of joint implementation experience, the CARE-WWF Alliance consolidated this annotated bibliography to offer practitioners guidance on the best approaches for designing, implementing and monitoring contemporary integrated conservation and development projects. The document includes summary tables organized by theme – including climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and humanitarian relief – for quick identification of relevant, hyperlinked resources.
Building on a decade of experience and lessons from analyzing climate vulnerability and capacity in risk-prone landscapes, this manual presents a step-by-step guide on how to understand the vulnerabilities that communities experience and the capacities they have to adapt to climate change. It is a participatory planning tool for community-based adaptation – facilitating the development of scenarios and plans by communities for communities. The manual places prime importance on understanding gender-based vulnerabilities, ensuring that adaptation programs are designed with gender equality goals.
This manual, produced by the South African National Biodiversity Institute, is an excellent resource for Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EbA) stakeholders anywhere in the world. It clearly articulates the role of ecosystem-based adaptation in the context of sustainable development through four cornerstones and seven principles. Particularly useful is the tailored guidance for four primary user groups – planners and practitioners, researchers, policymakers and funders.