Really looking forward to this discussion, starting in 40min!
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Thank you, @Julia Barrott! I'm looking forward as well! 9 AM BST; http://timeanddate.com international meeting planner can help you determine what time this is where you are located!
Good morning / good afternoon / good evening everyone! Welcome from wherever you may find yourselves on the planet!
Thank you for taking part in this first experimental and experiential learning process, our collectively created and dynamically-co-evolving CBA online moderated discussion forum, the New Highlander School! For more information about why we called it The New Highlander School, you can read here: https://www.weadapt.org/knowledge-base/community-based-adaptation/the-new-highlander-school
If you have alerts turned on for discussion updates to be sent to your inbox, you may find this helpful, but if you would prefer, you may like to plan to turn off alerts or filter the alerts in your inbox during the next hour! Thanks for your understanding.
it says access is denied!
Sarah, your message is showing here in the thread (this is where our discussion forum will take place) so you may be on. If you continue to have issues, you may wish to switch up your browser--if you're on Chrome, for instance, try Outlook or Edge or Firefox or Safari, and see if that works better. I hope everyone is able to join and can see these messages in the comments thread! This is where our discussion forum is taking place in this first experimental case!
Oh dear I realized now its a comment thread discussion! For some reason I thought its a live zoom feed instead :-) Thanks for leading this Emilie!
No worries! This is part of the learning process! The idea today is to try this out in text (will it make this more accessible or less)--and to get feedback about this versus a Zoom conference or otherwise! @Sarah_Queblatin, it would be great if you could share a bit about your work with GEN and GreenReleaf. I'd like to start the conversation about models that are working, and what about them works, as well as where challenges and learning in the processes emerge. Feel free to share links as well. Could you share with the forum what your work with Green ReLEAF is about, and how that is an aspect of CBA? Thanks! (Please don't reply here, but rather add a new comment into the thread.)
Welcome everyone to this online moderated discussion forum! If you're on and ready to join in, it'd be great to get some hello's to see who is here!
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This is an invitation for participants to share stories about their experiences in Community Based Adaptation (CBA) climate action. What works, what doesn’t, and what does this teach us. We will be utilizing the discussion forum here for the hour (9-10 am BST). This is a learning experience, and meant to evolve and improve through use. That means we need your feedback, suggestions and ideas. You are welcome to share feedback with me, @Emilie Parry as well as @Julia Barrottand @Sukaina Bharwani .
Please note that while this is a monthly, organised moderated discussion forum, everyone who is on the weADAPT platform is able to initiate a discussion forum, at any time, and to invite others to join in! You can tag friend, colleagues or other folks on the site, and build discussions organically, as well as through the messaging option on this site.
While Sarah is drafting her overview to my question about Green ReLEAF, I'd like to open the discussion and invite others to add their comments here. Let’s talk about examples of what is working in Community Based Adaptation to climate change.
One interesting example is from a coastal village I’ve visited is a community initiative in Thailand, where community members pooled their resources and purchased the land around their region that had once been mangroves, but had been turned into corporate shrimp farms. They have been gradually restoring the mangroves, and it has been increasing resilience to storms while counteracting coastal erosion. The challenge has been to develop local, sustainable livelihoods through and with the restoration of mangroves, and one strategy has been to develop a family-hosting experience for travelers, students and other visitors. Has anyone come across work like this? What have you found in this? Where have the difficulties been, and what has worked well? In this case, language and outreach was a challenge and an opportunity, and the community decided to diversify its offerings to include a traditional healing center, and fishing, waterway and boat activities.
Hi!
My name is Sarah Queblatin, I co-founded Green Releaf working with communities in recovery after disaters and other forms of displacement. We ask : How do we use change as an opporunity for the new story?
What works so far for us is to activate leadership across early adapters - those community members who have the vision, commitment, and curiosity to create change. We also learned to listen more to what they need then design from there. We highlited what resources - inner and outer capacities they already have that become starting points or springboard for any assistance.
What doesn't work is to have ceremonial or symbolic representation from local leaders expecting them to commit to activate and deliver solutions. They can serve as represntatives for decisions at the start but to sustain and deliver the process, they are not entirely reliable. However - formal and informal agreements across decision making bodies across sectors will create an enabling environment for the long term.
These are what I can think of for now...
For stories from Green Releaf, you can click here: https://www.greenreleaf.org/stories
@SarahQueblatin it would also be interesting to know about the processes for assessing capacities and identifying early adaptors. Would you call it a participatory assessment process? Do people engage in mapping, or story telling, or do you have other ways to assess and determine existing capabilities, as well as where there may be gaps and priorities a community has for adaptation / risk management and resilience building?
Thanks for asking.
Yes we use particiaptory proceesses - mapping inner and outer and ecological, economic, cultural, and social dimensions of a community.
We use the arts, visual storytelling, and somatic practices to express ways of understanding and planning.
We also engage with social threefolding - civil society, government, and businesses for social good.
This is very exciting to see; I think many people would like to learn more about the mapping inner and outer, the ecological, economic, cultural and social dimensions, the inclusion in processes of arts, visual storytelling, and somatic practices. It would be great if you could share more of these examples in a case study linked to CBA (Dropdown under 'Share', go to Add A Case Study). Social threefolding to be an discussion unto itself as well!
Thank you, Sarah. Some people might ask about how you engage with leadership-- the process in which people are identified as being more-than-ceremonial or symbolic representation in community leadership. It would also be interesting to know what is involved in 'activating' this leadership--what kinds of working relationship must be present, what kinds of commitment over what periods of time are necessary? Trust is another issue often raised-- establishing trust across all parties involved. Any insights you may have with this would be valuable to the group learning process! Thank you!
I would be interested to hear views on what are the essential characteristics of delivering effective adaptation at scale. We have been looking at case studies of social movements developing funds for delivering flexible finance behind the priorities of their communities (available here: https://pubs.iied.org/10199IIED/) as well as governments that are testing climate funds at local government level (eg https://www.iied.org/how-devolved-climate-finance-can-deliver-climate-resilience-local-level)... and are trying to identify what are the most important characteristics for delivering real quality at scale (whilst recognising this is a journey for many institutions to build their capabilities)... Do you have experiences you can share that illustrate the critical characteristics for effectively supporting communities respond at real scale? thanks!
Clare this is an excellent question, and thank you for the links! In some ways, it might be of value to define what is meant by 'at scale'-- is this about experiencing a wide-spread / large range of engagement, activation and impact, or about a kind of took kit that standardizes activities in order to scale up impact? I appreciate what networks can do for catalysing / inspiring activities across a wide range of divere local actors, leverage knowledge, capabilties, sharing, models for action, that can mobilize a wide range (or scale) of behavior change across communities and geographies, yet maintains the local agency, sovereignty, guidance, values and biocultures of unique and diverse populations involved in the CBA work.
Some key characteristics I can share from my experiences have to do with 1. process, 2. ownership / sovereignty, 3. capacity to share and learn from each other across communities of practice and experiential learning, 4. motivation and facilitative support for others to follow on engagement of program initiatives that are adaptive to and reflective of their own conditions, priorities, and biocultures. I will write a little more about process in the next comment. I'd love to hear from others who've joined the discussion--what are their thoughts regarding characteristics that support scale of impact / engagement in CBA?
As to process: I have been working with local-to-local yet regionally scaled climate & ecology networks across Asia. There are some key aspects of process that are pervasively present across many different cultures, languages, geographies, and climate & ecological challenges. Those processes include a centering around traditional ecological values and beliefs, and ritual that focuses the expression of those values. This often then emerges into a process of collaborative learning and sharing of challenges, experiences, learning and opportunities, a kind of education-for-social change that is linked to critique of systems and exploration of solutions. This education process is clearly articulated as intended for application, and those involved in trainings and workshops as well as learning exchanges in situ, understand they their 'repayment' is the commitment to seeing through activities and initiatives in their own home territories-- WITH (vitally!) the facilitative support, input and discussion of relevant actors and faciliators from across the network space. These activities then also catalyse a new process, or cycle, of ritual / belief-grounding, education for social change (off-the-mat learning so to speak), and learning-by-doing, with a feedback exchange into the network of affiliates to increase shared learning and support problem solving.
* I should note, the network engagement for leveraging scale of impact in these cases enables and supports a fluid rather than rigid formation, with dynamic, self-organizing and self-regulating aspects, rather than a centralized and pre-determined administration. This does require capabilities and confidence within communities--and the education / training, biocultural grounding processes help build such capabiltiies and self-agency.
Hello all, I am a "layperson" rather than a seasoned activist but I have an interest in Japan as well as climate and was wondering what today's participants might make of the following article which appeared recently in The Conversation regarding the relevance of Japanese adaptation techniques to Africa:
Personally I'm not convinced that the solutions mentioned in the article are really specifically "Japanese" at all - so it may not actually be a matter of transplating ideas from one country to another. Nonetheless it does resonate with Sarah's point that symbolic participation from local leaders means nothing without active citizen involvement driving the process of change.
Thank you, Alice, and welcome to the discussion! For the purposes of the discussion (and short time frame), I would like to draw out the aspect of transplanting ideas, versus endogenously generated engagement. I propose there is something that exists in between these spaces-- what we know and understand in our worlds (what our priorities are, our values, how things work and don't work), and what inspiration can come from ideas of others, in other cultures and spaces. These can inform us, give us ideas about ways of working in our own communities, and therefore a hybrid, or transmutation / transformation may occur-- the local and the global in a way-- informing and changing each other, supporting an evolution of engagement, and perhaps seeding more creative solutions (by trial and error learning) that are ever-more needed as we strive for effective climate adapation solutions. What do you think? And what do others think?
Hi Alice, that is an interesting article - thank you for sharing it! I think you are right in that these aspects - the importance of social networks, legitimacy from linking with citizen activities and social capital - can be seen as general good practice and are broadly applicable. As an initial reflection I think the focus on Machizukuri, which a quick search tells me is a method of inter-community dialogue and community-government engagement, really emphasises the importance of the 'soft', human-focused aspects of planning, which is often key to the sucess of adaptation interventions. And whilst the main characteristics of this approach are not distinctly 'Japanese', I wonder if the approach is especially successfull there because of the underlying culture. I have only been lucky enough to visit Japan once, but I felt that there was a real emphasis within their (rather wonderful) culture on interpersonal respect and cooperation.
I think understanding the culture and the values of the comunities we work with is essential for understanding how these approaches will play out and how they can be best facilitated (if appropriate) in different cultures. The ASSAR project have undertaken some interesting work around this, and I'm sure others have too: https://www.weadapt.org/knowledge-base/assar/religion-and-tradition-in-adaptation
These are constant considerations to contemplate in CBA work and in general climate and sustainability realms. Often at issue when an initiating or implementing agency of a 'community project' is coming from outside the community or culture, one could argue that it is not appropriate or sustainable to take something that derived from a very different culture and blanket apply it to someone else's culture. Generally I believe the most effective responses are those that emerge from a community and (bio-)culture, and are reflective of what they value, experience, and prioritize in their lives. The fuzzy 'grey area' is that we can inspire each other and catalyse new creative strategies for others when we share our models / examples across very different geographies and social-cultural-ecological spaces. Colloboration across cultures and communities can bring forth some very exciting and interesting solutions. The key thing from my experiences, is that those co-creating / guiding the local community-based programs are the folks who live there and understand their own internal dynamics and cultures--and will have to sustain those initiatives, responsively, over time. One cannot cut out a model for one way of doing something from one part of the world, and apply it in its original form in another place (that would be exogenous development, and not really considered community / local initiatives). Julia's note suggests aspects of this community collaboration may be present in the example you shared (but this is only from a cursory read of the article, and I do not possess direct familiarity with the case). The article highlights the need for participation and ownership. It is interesting that the Japanese system is what was proposed for 'urban Africa' and 'sub-Saharan Africa'-- in that 1) African cities, culture societies are not uniform, homogenous or singular, but rather extremely diverse, complex and dynamic, and 2) across social life in diversely distinct African regions, nations, cities and villages, there reside a bounty of examples for community participation, cooperation and collaboration in civic life. It seems that what would make the most sense in any locality is to work through and with the complex social-biocultural-economic-political-ecologies of a given place. This is not to suggest that there isn't value for people in any locality to learn from the strategies, systems, and cultures across geographies, systems, language and culture. Yhere can always be value, inspiration, and a deepening of understanding of what is possible. Are the findings / 4 key points from this assessment of the Machizukuri system uniquely Japanese? Good question. (4 Key Points: A need for support networks and cooperation; urban climate change adaptation planning and processes must integrate existing citizen activities; social capital in local areas could be harnessed to support citizens’ collective activities for urban climate change adaptation; the extent to which citizen-led urban climate change adaptation could be prioritised depends on the availability of resources – especially financial support.) From a reading of the article, they do seem more general and universal. The full study would be interesting to read. It suggests an African experiment (referencing this CDKN 2015 paper that I now plan to read) with different ways to ensure adequate citizen engagement in climate adaptation. All of this raises the consideration of processes, approaches, strategies, relationships, roles, and recognition of who must carry the work for the long haul, in their own lives, cultures and communities. Thank you Alice!
These are constant considerations to contemplate in CBA work and in general climate and sustainability realms. Often at issue when an initiating or implementing agency of a 'community project' is coming from outside the community or culture, one could argue that it is not appropriate or sustainable to take something that derived from a very different culture and blanket apply it to someone else's culture. Generally I believe the most effective responses are those that emerge from a community and (bio-)culture, and are reflective of what they value, experience, and prioritize in their lives. The fuzzy 'grey area' is that we can inspire each other and catalyse new creative strategies for others when we share our models / examples across very different geographies and social-cultural-ecological spaces. Colloboration across cultures and communities can bring forth some very exciting and interesting solutions. The key thing from my experiences, is that those co-creating / guiding the local community-based programs are the folks who live there and understand their own internal dynamics and cultures--and will have to sustain those initiatives, responsively, over time. One cannot cut out a model for one way of doing something from one part of the world, and apply it in its original form in another place (that would be exogenous development, and not really considered community / local initiatives). Julia's note suggests aspects of this community collaboration may be present in the example you shared (but this is only from a cursory read of the article, and I do not possess direct familiarity with the case). The article highlights the need for participation and ownership. It is interesting that the Japanese system is what was proposed for 'urban Africa' and 'sub-Saharan Africa'-- in that 1) African cities, culture societies are not uniform, homogenous or singular, but rather extremely diverse, complex and dynamic, and 2) across social life in diversely distinct African regions, nations, cities and villages, there reside a bounty of examples for community participation, cooperation and collaboration in civic life. It seems that what would make the most sense in any locality is to work through and with the complex social-biocultural-economic-political-ecologies of a given place. This is not to suggest that there isn't value for people in any locality to learn from the strategies, systems, and cultures across geographies, systems, language and culture. There can always be value, inspiration, and a deepening of understanding of what is possible. Are the findings / 4 key points from this assessment of the Machizukuri system uniquely Japanese? Good question. (4 Key Points: A need for support networks and cooperation; urban climate change adaptation planning and processes must integrate existing citizen activities; social capital in local areas could be harnessed to support citizens’ collective activities for urban climate change adaptation; the extent to which citizen-led urban climate change adaptation could be prioritised depends on the availability of resources – especially financial support.) From a reading of the article, they do seem more general and universal. The full study would be interesting to read. It suggests an African experiment (referencing this CDKN 2015 paper that I now plan to read) with different ways to ensure adequate citizen engagement in climate adaptation. All of this raises the consideration of processes, approaches, strategies, relationships, roles, and recognition of who must carry the work for the long haul, in their own lives, cultures and communities. Thank you Alice!
Well, the hour allotted for this moderated discussion has passed rapidly, and a lot of learning has come from it! I would like to thank those who joined-- those who added comments and asked questions, and those who were present but we've not yet heard from. I invite anyone to add to this thread of discussion beyond this one hour--share your examples, your challenges, your questions and concerns, your ideas and inspirations, your links, articles and case studies! This has barely touched the surface of a deep and long discussion, and I hope it can catalyse more participation and sharing not only in this discussion forum, but in the GICBA network, the CBA Theme, and across the weADAPT platform! I would propose some immediate learning is that the next moderated discussion forum for CBA is held through a video conference call (such as Zoom) where people can speak, share video and images / links, and we can move our conversation more dynamically and rapidly into the potential depths of learning and exploration. Please send me your feedback or comment here for ways you'd like to see this forum facilitated in the future! THANK YOU EVERYONE! Well wishes, Emilie
thanks Emilie and WeAdapt for organising, i agree zoom (&/or twitter) might help. i was having trouble with refreshing the page to see responses and comments. Maybe setting a few questions to explore together might also help get discussions moving!
Yes, I absolutely agree! The format resisted to a degree the question / answer (call-and-response) direct engagement, but zoom (and / or twitter) with the capacity to share video, documents, and direct questions / facilitate the conversation will be a good next step to take in this learning process! Thank you for your feedback and participation!
We will be holding the second moderated discussion forum in a month's time (and will announce on the CBA Theme page as well as on social media). We will take forward the question with the 2nd highest number of votes, "Questions of Scale (reconsidering our understanding of scale and relationship to the global 'whole' through the local lens)," and will arrange for a format that can allow more directed and congruent discussion! Meanwhile, please continue (invitation to all who visit this forum discussion) to add to this discussion, suss out nuances, share examples, and ask questions of the group. Thank you all!
Here's a question for next time, or for anyone wandering by: what difference does it make if you frame an issue in your community as climate change, or something else? Where I work, there are conflicts over water and I'd like to try to help resolve these before complicating the situation with other projects. While its undoubtedly affected by major droughts in the region, lack of water downstream is not currently viewed, as far as I can tell, as a climate change adaptation problem, but just as a conflict over access. Do people think reframing it as a climate change adaptation problem will help? I can see how it might make many actors think "hey we have to change things and innovate now" which I'm pretty sure is true, but I'm a little worried I guess that framing it that way could be seen as changing the subject from the historical social injustice that they seem to think is the real problem.
Thank you, Meredith. I invite others wandering by (at any time!) or still in the forum now to respond as well. This is a question raised in many climate change / CBA initiatives. In my experience, it tends to be something determined on a case-by-case basis. For me, the most vital element is that people can develop ways in which they and their environs (social-ecosystems) are adapting to rapidly changing and intensifying conditions (yes, linked, often in complex and compounded ways, to climate change). It may be that initiating collaboration around climate change language / focus can shut down or close out key people from participation-- it may be that people do not view climate change as an immediate issue in their lives, do not fully understand the inter-connected nature of climate change and how it impacts their lives. To start with the emphasis on what people consider their priorities (in your case, the dynamic viewed as an aspect of historical social injustice) may be the most effective way to open up a pathway to coping with the impacts (and drivers) of climate change and biodiversity loss. Perhaps along the way, the processes and threads can lend themselves to discussions about the way in which climate change effects their lives, connecting-the-dots so to speak, between their priority issue frame, and climate adaptation strategies. Sometimes the language of climate change may never need to enter the discusion in order to develop strong climate adaptation strategies. Other times, it can be very helpful to link the larger discussion around climate change tinto immediate / direct experiences with emissions, energy, pollution, droughts, storm systems, erosion, wildfires, food security / sovereignty, health, wellbeing and so on. It is really about a dynamic, responsive relationship together with other people in a community or population-- many paths, one destination, when it is all interconnected? I'd love to hear from others about this question. What are some examples of times when you may have worked on what is basically a CBA program, but not once have you (intentionally) used climate change language? Why, and what unfolded in the longer term work? When has a discussion around climate change inspired and informed specific activities and behavioural or systems changes in a local population in which you live or with whom you work?
Although the 1 hour moderated part of this discussion is over, you can still post and respond to existing questions and comments, and otherwise engage in this conversation over the long term!
*Note: Although the 1 hour moderated part of this discussion is over, you can still post and respond to existing questions and comments, and otherwise engage in this conversation over the long term! The discussion is taking place in the comments section at the bottom of this page!
We will be using this forum to host the first of a regular monthly moderated discussion forum. The online discussion will be held this 1st May 2019, 9 am BST! To find out what time this will be held where you are, search from the international meeting planner!
What will happen?
The discussion will be in the form of a instant message dialogue, with comments being posted in the conversation below. In particular, we invite stories that reflect the unique approaches and dynamics of your communities to cope with the drivers and impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss, along with specific or universal conundrums, challenges, mistakes, deep lessons, surprising revelations!
We will prepare some material in advance, but mostly wish for discussion participants to bring their own stories, examples, questions, concerns and ideas. We will have a group of experts online to help facilitate the discussion, share lessons from their own practices and recommend resources that they have found helpful.
This is experimental and thus also meant to offer us all experiential learning in ways to make the weADAPT platform and engagement dynamic, providing a value-added to platform users. We also will work with adapting the time of the forum in order to increase access for engagement across a multitude of time zones. (*Please send us feedback at info@weadapt.org if you are interested to join, but the timezone does not work for you.)
Who can join?
ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN! Bring your stories, your questions, your examples across the board!
How to join?
The discussion will take place below, in this discussion thread. Before participating you will need to join the weADAPT.org site (free) and you can do so by clicking here.
Why this topic?
The topic - "Models for CBA climate action: what works, what doesn't, and what does it teach us?" - has been selected by you, the CBA community of practice. The close 2nd choice is on reconsidering questions of scale, so we will be sure to feature this topic in an upcoming moderated discussion forum.
Why 'New Highlander'? Click here for the story of the Highlander Folk School & Center.
Rules of Engagement / Etiquette:
We respect each other. Recognize people are coming to this forum from many different experiences, perspectives, opportunities, languages and cultures. Everyone has a right to share their understanding and ideas, and no one is to be dismissed, disregarded, or attacked. Show patience, as a text-based discussion requires language and typing skills which may vary-- we all have strengths and weakness, and each person’s contribution is valuable. This is a constructive, mutually supportive and collaborative safe space.
The rules of kindergarten apply: no name calling, no fighting, no biting.
Please keep language and behaviour professional, respectful and kind.
We are learning, experientially, through this together. If you have feedback about challenges, preferences, or opportunities in this discussion forum space, we want to hear from you: info@weadapt.org
For the moment, in this discussion space there is no way to ‘raise your hand’ for a question, so please be patient, and we will do our best to facilitate appropriate focus for aspects of discussion as they emerge. We will aim to enable sufficient time to shift into new areas of the subject, striving to support fair and even participation. (We welcome feedback on this; for instance, would video conferencing like Zoom, that allows for text and video / speech, work better? Or is this method more accessible with internet connectivity, and remote access issues?)