{"id":138830,"date":"2023-08-01T14:24:31","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T13:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iucn.nl\/?p=138830"},"modified":"2024-06-10T12:28:15","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T11:28:15","slug":"exploring-locally-led-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iucn.nl\/en\/blog\/exploring-locally-led-adaptation\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring locally-led adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The world is facing a triple and interconnected crisis: a climate emergency, rapid biodiversity destruction and entrenched poverty. The impact of these crises is first and foremost felt by communities whose livelihoods are built on the harvesting and processing of products from the forest, rivers and coastal waters and on small-scale agriculture for subsistence and the local market. These communities are the immediate victims of increasing temperatures and extreme weather conditions like heatwaves, increased dry periods, heavy extended rainfall, flash floods and landslides.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Decisions on how to tackle the interconnected crises are mostly made far away from local contexts and most finance is managed by multilateral institutions and national governments. Only a small proportion of resources are channelled to the local level for locally-designed and locally-led   resilience initiatives. Vital insights and innovation on the community-level are overlooked and there is a great risk for maladaptive solutions that waste money, resources and time. Locally Led Adaptation enables people to take the lead, by providing them the information, capacity, and resources they need to deal with the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and deprived livelihoods.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Header photo: Man in forest in Indonesia<\/mark><\/em> \u00a9 Ruud Bisseling \/ IUCN NL<\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Deforestation, forest degradation and the destruction of other types of ecosystems are causing urgent and growing problems, while forests, wetlands and coastal areas are a crucial part of global solutions for the triple and interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and poverty. The conservation and sustainable and inclusive governance of forests, forest restoration and the planting of more forests is essential in the mitigation of climate change because forests sequester greenhouse gasses emitted by the use of fossil fuels. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Healthy forests are also the basis for sustainable and effective adaptation to climate change at the local level. Moreover, forests and related biodiversity are the basis of the livelihoods of many Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP&LCs). Forests provide products – non-timber forest products like honey, nuts, and rattan, and services – water for drinking and for crops. Forests also provide protection against natural disasters resulting from climate change such as flash floods and landslides, and forests are the cradle for the culture and identity of IP&LCs<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Achieving climate justice<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Climate finance is often seen as a means to increase justice through redistributing resources from countries that have generated the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming, to countries that experience or are expected to experience the most severe impact of climate change[1]<\/sup><\/a>Sarah Colenbrander et all, 2017, Using climate finance to advance climate justice: the politics and practice of channelling resources to the local level – … Continue reading<\/span><\/span><\/span>