Climate change impacts fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest, most marginalized communities, particularly those highly dependent on direct use of natural resources, such as subsistence fishing communities. Vulnerability to climate change involves social and ecological factors, and efforts to reduce it and build long-term resilience must target both. In Madagascar national and international planning to address vulnerability remains vague and indeterminate for most of the island’s coastal communities, with little meaningful implementation. Therefore, local measures to build resilience and adaptive capacity are critical to ensure that communities are able to cope with the immediate and long-term effects of climate change. This article examines a PHE program in Madagascar, and illustrates how practical initiatives can contribute to building immediate and long-lasting resilience and adaptive capacity. These approaches could play a key role in adaptation measures within the western Indian Ocean region, where many coastal communities live in severe poverty on the front line of a rapidly changing climate.
Year: 2013
Source: Western Indian Ocean Journal of Marine Science
