Enabling Environments? Examining Social Co-Benefits of Ecosystem-Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Climate change vulnerability and social marginalisation are often interrelated in and through environments. Variations in climate change adaptation practice and research account for such social-ecological relations to varying degrees. Advocates of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation (EbA) claim that it delivers social co-benefits to marginalised groups, although scant empirical evidence supports such claims. I investigate these claims in two EbA interventions in Sri Lanka, interpreting social benefits through an empowerment lens. I use qualitative methods such as focus groups and narrative interviews to study the conduct and context of the interventions. In both cases, marginalised people’s own empowered adaptive strategies reflect how power relations and vulnerabilities relate to dynamic ecologies. The findings show that EbA enabled social benefits for marginalised groups, especially through support to common-pool resource management institutions and the gendered practices of home gardens. Such conduct was embedded within, but mostly peripheral to, broader and deeper contestations of power. Nevertheless, projects acted as platforms for renegotiating these power relations, including through acts of resistance. The results call for greater recognition of the ways that marginalised groups relate to ecology within empowered adaptive strategies, whilst also highlighting the need to recognise the diverse interests and power relations that cut across the conduct and contexts of these nominally ecosystem-based interventions.

Understanding the value and limits of nature-based solutions to climate change and other global challenges

“…For example, the implementation of community-based natural resource management in pastoral communities in Ethiopia is reported to have empowered local communities to develop systems for managing natural resources in the face of change, improved institutional governance and thereby potentially increased capacity to deal with future climate change [42]. Similar benefits of ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation have been reported across the globe, including in Togo [44] and Sri Lanka [41] (table 1). However, NbS will only deliver these benefits if they are specifically designed to do so.…”

“…Governance reform, empowerment and improving access to resources -Sri Lanka: EbA empowered marginalized groups to respond to climate change impacts by supporting common-pool resource management institutions, and by supporting local adaptive strategies such as home gardening [41].…”

Global recognition of the importance of nature-based solutions to the impacts of climate change

“…Compared to degraded or artificially created ecosystems (e.g., low-diversity tree plantations), intact ecosystems are more resilient (Hutchinson et al , 2018; Jactel et al , 2017), store more carbon (Maxwell et al , 2019; Osuri et al , 2020) and offer greater protection to people from climate change impacts (Martin & Watson, 2016; Watson et al , 2018). However, the means by which protection and/or restoration are achieved are critically important, and most evidence to date shows that full engagement and consent of local communities and Indigenous Peoples in the design and implementation of NbS are needed if they are to deliver their intended benefits over the long term (Woroniecki, 2019; Woroniecki et al , 2019). Therefore, nations would benefit from emphasizing in their NDCs NbS targets that support locally led ecosystem stewardship with robust social safeguards.…”

Mapping the effectiveness of nature‐based solutions for climate change adaptation

“…Poorly implemented NbS, meanwhile, can have the opposite effect; for example, local communities in Portugal uprooted eucalyptus plantations because they were concerned about their negative impacts on groundwater resources and fire risk (Rodriguez, 2017). Deeper understanding of the interlinked effects of NbS on social, economic, and ecological dimensions is needed to avoid such negative outcomes and enable effective, sustainable NbS (Woroniecki, 2019).…”