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Ecosystems provide important services that can help people adapt to climate variability and change. Recognizing this role of ecosystems, several international and nongovernmental organizations have promoted an ecosystem-based approach to adaptation. We review the scientific literature related to ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) with forests and trees, and highlight five cases in which forests and trees can support adaptation: (1) forests and trees providing goods to local communities facing climatic threats; (2) trees in agricultural fields regulating water, soil, and microclimate for more resilient production; (3) forested watersheds regulating water and protecting soils for reduced climate impacts; (4) forests protecting coastal areas from climate-related threats; and (5) urban forests and trees regulating temperature and water for resilient cities. The literature provides evidence that EBA with forests and trees can reduce social vulnerability to climate hazards; however, uncertainties and knowledge gaps remain, particularly for regulating services in watersheds and coastal areas. Few studies have been undertaken on EBA specifically, but the abundant literature on ecosystem services can be used to fill knowledge gaps. Many studies assess the multiple benefits of ecosystems for human adaptation or well-being, but also recognize trade-offs between ecosystem services. Better understanding is needed of the efficiency, costs, and benefits, and trade-offs of EBA with forests and trees. Pilot projects under implementation could serve as learning sites and existing information could be systematized and revisited with a climate change adaptation lens.  2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. How to cite this article:WIREs Clim Change 2012Change , 3:581-596. doi: 10.1002 INTRODUCTIONC limate change will affect human well-being in many parts of the world 1 and effective adaptation is needed even under the most stringent mitigation * Correspondence to: e. 2 The role of ecosystem goods and services in societal adaptation to climate variability and change has received renewed recognition. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) is an anthropocentric approach, in which ecosystem services are conserved or restored to reduce the vulnerability of people facing climate change threats. 3,4 Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems and can be classified as provisioning services (e.g., timber and firewood), regulating services (e.g., water regulation), and cultural services (e.g., recreation). 5 Examples of EBA include the restoration of mangrove shelterbelts for the protection of coastal settlements against storms and waves and the conservation of forested watersheds for the reduction of flood risk. Many international and nongovernmental conservation and development organizations have promoted EBA by stressing its effectiveness in reducing social vulnerability, its cost-efficiency, and its co-benefits for biodiversity conservation, poverty reduction, and climate change mitigation. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] However, the ...

Climate change and related adaptation strategies have gender-differentiated impacts. This paper reviews how gender is framed in 41 papers on climate change adaptation through an intersectionality lens. The main findings show that while intersectional analysis has demonstrated many advantages for a comprehensive study of gender, it has not yet entered the field of climate change and gender. In climate change studies, gender is mostly handled in a men-versus-women dichotomy and little or no attention has been paid to power and social and political relations. These gaps which are echoed in other domains of development and gender research depict a ‘feminization of vulnerability’ and reinforce a ‘victimization’ discourse within climate change studies. We argue that a critical intersectional assessment would contribute to unveil agency and emancipatory pathways in the adaptation process by providing a better understanding of how the differential impacts of climate change shape, and are shaped by, the complex power dynamics of existing social and political relations.

Human benefits from ecosystems result from complex interactions between ecological and social processes. People affect ecosystems' capacity to deliver services that contribute to the well-being of humans and their resilience. The delivery of ecosystem services (ES) has often been considered as a linear and direct flow from nature to people without feedbacks or human inputs. We adjusted the widely used ES cascade to highlight how humans mediate each step in the ES delivery. We then applied the proposed framework to empirical field studies in Indonesia. We focused on the role of forested landscapes to increase rural people's resilience to climate hazards such as drought and floods. We found that human actions determine benefits from ES through several mechanisms (ES management, mobilization, allocation-appropriation, and appreciation). These mechanisms are influenced by peoples' decisions along the ES cascade, which depend on specific factors related to rules, assets, values, and spatial context. By facilitating or hindering ES flows, some stakeholders can determine who benefits from ES and influence the well-being of others. A better understanding of the mediating mechanisms, factors, and feedbacks in ES delivery can support the design of sound environmental assessments and sustainable land management practices. (Résumé d'auteur

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Vulnerability assessment is increasingly recognised as a starting point to identify climate adaptation needs and improve adaptive capacity. However, vulnerability assessments are challenging because of the complexity of multifaceted biophysical, human and institutional factors, interacting at different scales and levels within socioecological systems. Using a participatory approach across levels and genders, this paper explores the vulnerability of livestock-and forest-based livelihoods to climate variability and change in Lake Faguibine, northern Mali, where drastic ecological, political and social changes have occurred. Our results show that the distribution of vulnerabilities within livelihoods and groups shifted when the ecosystem evolved from a lake to a forest. New vulnerability drivers have emerged, related to resources availability, access and power relations. In addition, political interests and psychological barriers hinder the local transition to an equitable and sustainable use of forest ecosystem services. Divergent perceptions, social identities, interests and power explained why different actors-governmental and non-governmental, men and women, local, sub-national and nationaldiffered in their vulnerability assessments. This is exemplified in the way actors at different levels and of different gender analysed the effects of herders' mobility and in the way women analysed men's migration. This case study confirms the need for participatory and gender-sensitive vulnerability assessments across different scales and levels that consider the interaction between socio-ecological systems and the dynamics and distribution of vulnerability across different social subsystems .

In West Africa, rural livelihoods depending on natural resources develop coping and adapting strategies to face climate variability or change and economic or political changes. The former Lake Faguibine in northern Mali has experienced drastic ecological, social, and economic changes. Forests have emerged on the former lake and have become important for local livelihoods. This paper analyses the coping and adapting strategies of forest- and livestock-based livelihoods facing ecological changes. Results from field research at different levels indicate that most local strategies are based on diversification including migration within the livestock production system or in complement to it, with differences according to gender, age, and ethnicity. Political discourses, cultural identities, and past experiences influence and shape adaptation strategies at the local level. The sustainability of the observed strategies depends on the access to natural resources and the sustainable management of these resources, which in turn depends on institutions at local and national levels. Many local strategies are reactive to external events but would need strategic support from higher levels to move from coping to adapting. Examples are the development of institutions and technical actions for natural resource management, as well as development actions supporting local strategies and sustainable investments. Researchers, practitioners and development planners will need simple methods and tools for understanding and analysing local adaptation perceptions and actions to achieve an effective support of sustainable and gender-equitable local adaptation and to avoid mismatches between strategies proposed by local and by sub national and national actors. (Résumé d'auteur

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