Katrina Brown

Adaptation to climate change in the developing world

The world’s climate is changing and will continue to change into the coming century at rates projected to be unprecedented in recent human history. The risks associated with these changes are real but highly uncertain. Societal vulnerability to the risks associated with climate change may exacerbate ongoing social and economic challenges, particularly for those parts of societies dependent on resources that are sensitive to changes in climate. Risks are apparent in agriculture, fisheries and many other components that constitute the livelihood of rural populations in developing countries. In this paper we explore the nature of risk and vulnerability in the context of climate change and review the evidence on present-day adaptation in developing countries and on coordinated international action on future adaptation. We argue that all societies are fundamentally adaptive and there are many situations in the past where societies have adapted to changes in climate and to similar risks. But some sectors are more sensitive and some groups in society more vulnerable to the risks posed by climate change than others. Yet all societies need to enhance their adaptive capacity to face both present and future climate change outside their experienced coping range. The challenges of climate change for development are in the present. Observed climate change, present-day climate variability and future expectations of change are changing the course of development strategies - development agencies and governments are now planning for this adaptation challenge. The primary challenge, therefore, posed at both the scale of local natural resource management and at the scale of international agreements and actions, is to promote adaptive capacity in the context of competing sustainable development objectives.

ADVANCING A POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSES

In the past decade international and national environmental policy and action have been dominated by issues generally defined as global environmental problems. In this article, we identify the major discourses associated with four global environmental issues: deforestation, desertification, biodiversity use and climate change. These discourses are analysed in terms of their messages, narrative structures and policy prescriptions. We find striking parallels in the nature and structure of the discourses and in their illegibility at the local scale. In each of the four areas there is a global environmental management discourse representing a technocentric worldview by which blueprints based on external policy interventions can solve global environmental dilemmas. Each issue also has a contrasting populist discourse that portrays local actors as victims of external interventions bringing about degradation and exploitation. The managerial discourses dominate in all four issues, but important inputs are also supplied to political decisions from populist discourses. There are, in addition, heterodox ideas and denial claims in each of these areas, to a greater or lesser extent, in which the existence or severity of the environmental problem are questioned. We present evidence from location-specific research which does not fit easily with the dominant managerialist nor with the populist discourses. The research shows that policy-making institutions are distanced from the resource users and that local scale environmental management moves with a distinct dynamic and experiences alternative manifestations of environmental change and livelihood imperatives.

The Political Economy of Cross-Scale Networks in Resource Co-Management

We investigate linkages between stakeholders in resource management that occur at different spatial and institutional levels and identify the winners and losers in such interactions. So-called cross- scale interactions emerge because of the benefits to individual stakeholder groups in undertaking them or the high costs of not undertaking them. Hence there are uneven gains from cross-scale interactions that are themselves an integral part of social-ecological system governance. The political economy framework outlined here suggests that the determinants of the emergence of cross-scale interactions are the exercise of relative power between stakeholders and their costs of accessing and creating linkages. Cross-scale interactions by powerful stakeholders have the potential to undermine trust in resource management arrangements. If government regulators, for example, mobilize information and resources from cross-level interactions to reinforce their authority, this often disempowers other stakeholders such as resource users. Offsetting such impacts, some cross-scale interactions can be empowering for local level user groups in creating social and political capital. These issues are illustrated with observations on resource management in a marine protected area in Tobago in the Caribbean. The case study demonstrates that the structure of the cross-scale interplay, in terms of relative winners and losers, determines its contribution to the resilience of social-ecological systems.

Public participation and climate change adaptation: avoiding the illusion of inclusion

Public participation is commonly advocated in policy responses to climate change. Here we discuss prospects for inclusive approaches to adaptation, drawing particularly on studies of long-term coastal management in the UK and elsewhere. We affirm that public participation is an important normative goal in formulating response to climate change risks, but argue that its practice must learn from existing critiques of participatory processes in other contexts. Involving a wide range of stakeholders in decision-making presents fundamental challenges for climate policy, many of which are embedded in relations of power. In the case of anticipatory responses to climate change, these challenges are magnified because of the long-term and uncertain nature of the problem. Without due consideration of these issues, a tension between principles of public participation and anticipatory adaptation is likely to emerge and may result in an overly managed form of inclusion that is unlikely to satisfy either participatory or instrumental goals. Alternative, more narrowly instrumental, approaches to participation are more likely to succeed in this context, as long as the scope and limitations of public involvement are made explicit from the outset.

Governance for sustainability: towards a 'thick' analysis of environmental decisionmaking

Environmental decisions made by individuals, civil society, and the state involve questions of economic efficiency, environmental effectiveness, equity, and political legitimacy. These four criteria are constitutive of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, which has become the dominant rhetorical device of environmental governance. We discuss the tendency for disciplinary research to focus on particular subsets of the four criteria, and argue that such a practice promotes solutions that do not acknowledge the dynamics of scale and the heterogeneity of institutional contexts. We advocate an interdisciplinary framework for the analysis of environmental decisionmaking that seeks to identify legitimate and context-sensitive institutional solutions producing equitable, efficient, and effective outcomes. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by using it to examine decisions concerning contested nature conservation and multiple-use commons in the management of Hickling Broad in Norfolk in the United Kingdom. We conclude that interdisciplinary approaches enable the generalisation and transfer of lessons in a way that respects the specifics and context of the issue at hand.

Innovations for conservation and development

This paper examines attempts to integrate the objectives of biodiversity conservation and social and economic development through a variety of approaches associated with different forms of protected areas and generally labelled as ‘integrated conservation and development’. It examines how the linkages between conservation and development are conceptualized, and the types of policy prescriptions and associated models and practice of integrating conservation and development. It identifies misconceptions about four key aspects that are common in conventional integrated conservation and development approaches. These difficulties involve the conceptualization of community, participation, empowerment and sustainability. Integrated conservation and development projects have often floundered as a result of over-simplification of these factors. It assesses attempts made to overcome these common misconceptions through examining the experiences of two innovative approaches to integrating conservation and development in the Caribbean and in Amazonia. It concludes that fundamental changes are necessary to institutions and management and decision-making strategies to address these issues and to effectively meet conservation and development objectives.

The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture

Despite a significant growth in food production over the past half-century, one of the most important challenges facing society today is how to feed an expected population of some nine billion by the middle of the 20th century. To meet the expected demand for food without significant increases in prices, it has been estimated that we need to produce 70–100 per cent more food, in light of the growing impacts of climate change, concerns over energy security, regional dietary shifts and the Millennium Development target of halving world poverty and hunger by 2015. The goal for the agricultural sector is no longer simply to maximize productivity, but to optimize across a far more complex landscape of production, rural development, environmental, social justice and food consumption outcomes. However, there remain significant challenges to developing national and international policies that support the wide emergence of more sustainable forms of land use and efficient agricultural production. The lack of information flow between scientists, practitioners and policy makers is known to exacerbate the difficulties, despite increased emphasis upon evidence-based policy. In this paper, we seek to improve dialogue and understanding between agricultural research and policy by identifying the 100 most important questions for global agriculture. These have been compiled using a horizon-scanning approach with leading experts and representatives of major agricultural organizations worldwide. The aim is to use sound scientific evidence to inform decision making and guide policy makers in the future direction of agricultural research priorities and policy support. If addressed, we anticipate that these questions will have a significant impact on global agricultural practices worldwide, while improving the synergy between agricultural policy, practice and research. This research forms part of the UK Governments Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures project.

Does tomorrow ever come? Disaster narrative and public perceptions of climate change

The film The Day After Tomorrow depicts the abrupt and catastrophic transformation of the Earth’s climate into a new ice age, playing upon the uncertainty surrounding a possible North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (Gulf Stream) shutdown. This paper investigates the impact of the film on people’s perception of climate change through a survey of filmgoers in the UK. Analysis focuses on four issues: the likelihood of extreme impacts; concern over climate change versus other global problems; motivation to take action; and responsibility for the problem of climate change. It finds that seeing the film, at least in the short term, changed people’s attitudes; viewers were significantly more concerned about climate change, and about other environmental risks. However, while the film increased anxiety about environmental risks, viewers experienced difficulty in distinguishing science fact from dramatized science fiction. Their belief in the likelihood of extreme events as a result of climate change was actually reduced. Following the film, many viewers expressed strong motivation to act on climate change. However, although the film may have sensitized viewers and motivated them to act, the public do not have information on what action they can take to mitigate climate change.

Trade-off analysis for marine protected area management

This paper outlines an approach to natural resource management that incorporates multiple objectives for protected area management within a decision-making framework. Both regulators and other major stakeholders are directly incorporated into the approach to enhance decision-making processes. We call this approach trade-off analysis. The approach uses a framework based on multi-criteria analysis (MCA) but involves stakeholders at all stages. This holistic approach is appropriate for multiple use, complex systems such as marine protected areas (MPAs), where many different users are apparently in conflict and where linkages and feedbacks between different aspects of the ecosystem and economy exist. The paper applies trade-off analysis to the case of Buccoo Reef Marine Park (BRMP) in Tobago. Stakeholder analysis is undertaken, and social, economic and ecological criteria identified. The impacts of four different development scenarios are evaluated for these criteria. Stakeholders are asked to weight different criteria and then the outcomes of different stakeholder weightings in the MCA are used to explore different management options. For BRMP, the MCA suggests consensus around development options characterised as limited tourism development for the area surrounding the park in association with the implementation of complementary environmental management. The approach has been used to enhance stakeholder involvement in decision-making and develop consensus-based approaches to management of the MPA.

Global environmental change I A social turn for resilience

Resilience is everywhere in contemporary debates about global environmental change. The application of resilience concepts to social and ecological systems and dilemmas has been roundly critiqued for under-theorizing social dimensions, and human geographers particularly have been an important critical voice in highlighting the omission of social, political and cultural dynamics from different resilience literatures. Here I examine whether and how resilience theory and applications are addressing these shortcomings and incorporating these social and political dimensions. My premise is that within the emerging field of resilience there are many voices expressing multiple and often contested interpretations and meanings. The field is rapidly evolving and new ideas are being tested and introduced. Importantly, resilience is here to stay and is being widely taken up and applied in policy and practice. I review theoretical and empirical published research across fields of geography, environmental change, natural resource management, and international development, concentrating on new work since 2010. I examine three emerging topics: community resilience; transformations; and resilience as an organizing concept for radical change. I find that there is still relatively little analysis of social difference and resilience, and there are continuing tensions between normative and analytical stances on resilience. These characteristics are mirrored in policy discourses and local level actions on resilience.