Peripherality as key to understanding opportunities and needs for effective and sustainable climate-change adaptation: a case study from Viti Levu Island, Fiji

Korovulavula, Isoa T.; Nunn, Patrick D.; Kumar, Roselyn; Fong, Teddy

doi:10.1080/17565529.2019.1701972

Cited by 25 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Rather than experiments in communities to improve their adaptive capacity deficit, communities would, in community-led adaptation, build on their strengths and design/drive their own adaptation aspirations based on local knowledge, experiences and coping mechanisms. With communities leading their own adaptation agendas, numerous aspects of the optimization points would likely be autonomously incorporated: the most pressing climatic and non-climatic livelihood pressures in the relevant system would be equally prioritized and considered; context will be underpinned which means important resources, knowledge and contextual factors are will be more appropriately utilized; and a stronger sense of local approval and ownership will be fostered 29,30 . These factors, in turn, support sustainability (as the key area requiring improvement) as initiatives, being rooted in community aspirations and local context, will be self-sufficient over time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Basing initiatives on geographic community parameters (which was most common) occasionally excluded certain groups and/or inflamed internal disputes. This reminds us of the elusiveness of 'communities' and how the 'framing' of a 'community' imposed by implementing agencies may not equally benefit intended participants 42,43 , likely due to uncritical assumptions about homogeneity 4,30,40 . 'Community' boundaries and scales should be understood as complex and contextually dependent 24,40 .…”

Section: Shared Access To and Benefit From Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the selection of these island nations to some extent reflected researchers' existing networks, it was intentional in that it included one atoll nation (Kiribati), one mixed atoll and high-island nation (FSM), and two high-island countries (Fiji and Vanuatu) with contrasting economic rankings, in order to sample a representative range of contexts among Pacific SIDS. Within each island nation, rural communities were sampled along core-periphery gradients to capture differences in adaptation contexts, as earlier work shows exist 27,29,30 . In Pacific SIDS, most rural communities are largely subsistence-based, occupying land to which they have title and have done so for generations, and engage in livelihoods that are at least partly culturally-grounded 29 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Pacific SIDS, most rural communities are largely subsistence-based, occupying land to which they have title and have done so for generations, and engage in livelihoods that are at least partly culturally-grounded 29 . While there are variations in the nature of such rural communities attributable to peripherality 29,30 , their commonalities dominate, making site selection for this study more straightforward than elsewhere.There is no consensus on, and a lot of ambiguity around, what 'successful' adaptation is and how to measure it 31,32 . Based on a review of literature about what constitutes 'successful' adaptation, five key evaluation components were deemed appropriate for this study: appropriateness, effectiveness, equity, impact and sustainability (see Table 1 for definitions).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

An assessment of community-based adaptation initiatives in the Pacific Islands

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Community-based adaptation, in principle, leverages existing local knowledge, capabilities, and priorities.Although there is an increase in adaptation activities in the Pacific region, it remains uncertain whether these are effectively promoting long-term adaptive capacity. Here we evaluate the performance of 32 community-based adaptation initiatives across 20 rural communities in the Pacific Islands. We find that initiative appropriateness was a strength while sustainability was a consistent issue; locally-funded initiatives and those implemented by non-governmental organisations were more likely to perform better; climate-awareness raising initiatives and those integrated with ecosystem-based adaptation performed best. We also identify four interdependent optimization points for future community-based adaptation initiatives: local approval and ownership; shared access to and benefit from initiatives; integration of local realities; and systems-thinking and forward planning. Our analysis suggests a need for a praxis shift whereby adaptation is locally-led, communities drive their own agendas, and donors and implementers become facilitators that resource the diverse capacities of communities.The Pacific Islands are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, despite having contributed little to its causes 1 . With projections showing that island communities will continue to face worsening climate change impacts over the remainder of this century and beyond, understanding what successful adaptation looks like for the Pacific Islands is urgent 2,3 . Significant donor-funded adaptation investment means efforts have already been carried out, with the Pacific receiving the highest per capita climate aid globally 2 , a focus likely to be maintained at least in the short term 3 .With growing understanding of diminishing returns resulting from top-down climate change responses, assistance is increasingly being delivered at the local scale through bottom-up responses such as community-based adaptation (CBA) 4,5 . CBA is an approach that is small-scale, place-based and grassroots driven, while also having synergies with broader development aspirations 6 . In principle, the local scale focus of CBA provides an opportunity for adaptation to better acknowledge and integrate existing local knowledge, capabilities, priorities and context of the community, and for impacts to be addressed at the scale at which they are experienced 7,8 . Effective and sustainable adaptation that fosters reflective engagement with the community (i.e. ideal CBA) 9 , however, is not as straightforward as often implied 10 .Negative impacts can occur if CBA fails to adequately represent vulnerable populations and generate long-term social resilience 11,12 .Despite the increasing number of CBA activities across the Pacific region, uncertainty remains around whether these communities are becoming better prepared to cope in the long-term 13,14 . Bottom-up approaches such as CBA are important in Pacific Islands as they can support and utilize traditional ...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Shared Access To and Benefit From Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

An assessment of community-based adaptation initiatives in the Pacific Islands

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Traditional knowledge for climate resilience in the Pacific Islands

Nunn,

Kumar,

Barrowman

et al. 2024

WIREs Climate Change

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Pacific Islands, many relatively remote and small, have been occupied by people for more than 3000 years during which time they experienced climate‐driven environmental changes (both slow and rapid onset) that challenged human survival and led to the evolution of place‐based coping strategies expressed through traditional knowledge (TK). In today's globalized Pacific Islands region, into which western worldviews and global adaptation strategies have made significant inroads, most plans for coping with climate‐changed futures are founded in science‐based understandings of the world that undervalue and sideline TK. Many such plans have proved difficult to implement as a consequence. This paper reviews the nature of extant Pacific TK for coping with climate change, something that includes TK for anticipating climate change (including climate variability and climate extremes) as well as ancillary TK associated with food and water security, traditional ecological knowledge, environmental conservation, and settlement and house construction that represent coping strategies. Much of this TK can be demonstrated as being effective with precedents in other (traditional) contexts and a compelling plausible scientific basis. This study demonstrates that Pacific Islands TK for coping with climate change has value and, especially because of its place‐based nature, should be central to future climate‐change adaptation strategies to enhance their uptake, effectiveness and sustainability. To this end, this paper proposes specific ways forward to optimize the utility of TK and ensure it has a realistic role in sustaining Pacific Island communities into the future.This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Modern Climate Change Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Observed Impacts of Climate Change

show abstract

Beyond Belief

Nunn

Luetz

2021

Climate Change Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Peripherality as key to understanding opportunities and needs for effective and sustainable climate-change adaptation: a case study from Viti Levu Island, Fiji

Cited by 25 publications

References 46 publications

An assessment of community-based adaptation initiatives in the Pacific Islands

An assessment of community-based adaptation initiatives in the Pacific Islands

Traditional knowledge for climate resilience in the Pacific Islands

Beyond Belief

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About