• Introduction

Introduction to livelihoods and climate change

This paper discusses a variety of issues surrounding livelihoods and climate change.

Highlights of the paper include:

• while climate change is not the only threat to natural resources and livelihoods, climate-induced changes to resource flows will affect the viability of livelihoods unless effective measures are taken to protect and diversify them through adaptation and other strategies
• for the poorest and most vulnerable, strategies should include ecosystem management and restoration activities such as watershed restoration, agroecology, reef protection and rangeland rehabilitation
• if adaptation strategies should reflect the dynamics of peoples’ livelihoods, then adaptation must be seen as a process that is itself adaptive and flexible to address locally-specific and changing circumstances
• institutional capacity must be strengthened in order to lessen the gaps between local and national processes, and between formal and informal patterns of economic activity and resource management.

[adapted from author]

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