Climate Change and Threatened Communities
Vulnerability, Capacity, and Action

Edited by Alfonso Peter Castro ,  Dan Taylor ,  David W. Brokensha
Cloth: 978 1 85339 725 7
Price: $79.95
Published: July 2012 

Paper: 978 1 85339 735 6
Price: $37.95
Published: July 2012 

Publisher: Practical Action
224 pp., 6 1/4" x 4"
Global climate change disproportionately affects rural people and indigenous groups, but their rights, knowledge, and interests concerning it are generally unacknowledged. Shifts in precipitation, cloud cover, temperature, and other climatic patterns alter their livelihood pursuits and cultural landscapes, accentuating their existing social and economic marginalization. This book argues that planners and researchers of climate change mitigation and adaptation must take into account the knowledge and capacity of rural people, and engage them as active participants in the design and governance of interventions, not as a matter of courtesy, but because it is their right. Furthermore, inclusion of local communities in genuine partnership will likely make climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts more effective.

Climate Change and Threatened Communities presents 15 case studies and a variety of approaches to document the capacities and constraints to be encountered among communities facing changing climates in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru, South Africa, Sudan, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. It explores human interactions in environments ranging from subarctic tundra to equatorial rain forest, from oceanic lagoons to inland mountains. Chapters investigate issues such as social vulnerability to climatic uncertainty, shifts in livelihood practices, local perceptions of climatic change, and the potential and limitations of the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries. Authors consider the potential of archaeology, phenomenology, controlled comparisons, historical analysis, gender analysis and other analytical approaches to shed light on the experiences of communities and their members.

This book is important reading for policy makers, academics, and students in the fields of climate change adaptation, anthropology and development studies, as well as more general readers.

Table of Contents:
Tables
Boxes
1) Introduction—A. Peter Castro, Dan Taylor, and David W. Brokensha

2) Climate change and forest conservation: a REDD flag for Central African forest people?—Philip Burnham

3) Social vulnerability, climatic variability, and uncertainty in rural Ethiopia: a study of South Wollo and Oromiya Zones of eastern Amhara Region—A. Peter Castro

4) Farmers on the frontline: adaptation and change in Malawi—Kate Wellard, Daimon Kambewa, and Sieglinde Snapp

5) Risk and abandonment and the meta-narrative of climate change—Dan Taylor

6) Mobilizing knowledge to build adaptive capacity: lessons from southern Mozambique—J. Shaffer

7) Climate change and the future of onion and potato production in West Darfur, Sudan: a case study of Zalingei locality—Yassir Hassan Satti and A. Peter Castro

8) Comparing knowledge of and experience with climate change across three glaciated mountain regions—K.W. Dunbar, Julie Brugger, Christine Jurt, and Ben Orlove

9) Aapuupayuu (the weather warms up): climate change and the Eeyouch (Cree) of northern Quebec—Kreg T. Ettenger

10) ‘The one who has changed is the person’: observations and explanations of climate change in the Ecuadorian Andes—Kristine Skarbø, Kristin Vander Molen, Rosa Ramos, and Robert E. Rhoades

11) Good intentions, bad memories, and troubled capital: American Indian knowledge and action in renewable energy projects—Raymond I. Orr and David B. Anderson

12) Reclaiming the past to respond to climate change: Mayan farmers and ancient agricultural techniques in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico—Betty Bernice Faust, Armando Anaya Hernández, and Helga Geovannini Acuña

13) Can we learn from the past? policy history and climate change in Bangladesh—David Lewis

14) Local perceptions and adaptation to climate change: a perspective from Western India—Dineshkumar Moghariya

15) Ethno-ecology in the shadow of rain and light of experience: local perceptions of drought and climate change in East Sumba, Indonesia—Yancey Orr, Russell Schimmer and Roland Geerken

16) Local knowledge and technology innovation in a changing world: traditional fishing communities in Tam Giang Cau Hai lagoon, Vietnam—Thanh Vo and Jack Manno

17) Conclusion: some reflections on indigenous knowledge and climate change—Dan Taylor, A. Peter Castro, and David W. Brokensha

Resources—A. Peter Castro

Index


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Reviews & Endorsements:
"These 15 excellent anthropological case studies (plus introduction and conclusion) on climate change and diverse responses from communities in Africa, and the Americas utilize a variety of methodologies, ranging from standard ethnographic approaches and ethno-ecological investigations of localized knowledge, perception, and innovation to an archaeological examination of Mayan farming practices. The researchers emphasize the knowledge, capacities, interests, rights, agency, and adaptability of threatened populations of farmers, hearders, fishers, and foragers under conditions resulting from extreme and unpredictable weather, drought, floods, and population shifts. In addition to documenting environmental changes faced by communities at risk the authors point out that the peopole who are the most vulnerable are generally those lease responsible for their present circumstances. Indeed environmental difficulties are not simply consequences of climate change, but also are exacerbated by policies that have favored market liberalization, technological determinism, and structural inequality, resulting in increased socioeconomic injustice and greater cultural marginalization. A more participatory approach, rather than top-down policies that have typified most efforts to integrate local populations into development efforts, may provide greater opportunities for recognizing local innovativeness and expanding the possibility that others may learn valuable lessons from threatened communities."
- B. Tavakolian, Emeritus, Denison Univeristy , Choice
"This book demonstrates powerfully the dynamism of indigenous knowledge and of communities' capacities for adaptation."
- Robert Chambers , Institute of Development Studies, Sussex