INTEGRATED PROTECTED AREA CO-MANAGEMENT (IPAC)
Abstract
Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change due to high population density with immense poverty, its geographical location near the Bay of Bengal and flat deltaic topography. It’s high level of poverty and depleted ecosystem increase the vulnerability to the climate change, which has hindered the sustainable development goal of the country. Sustainable development in Bangladesh requires ensuring equitable economic growth, which is built upon a solid foundation of ecological and socio-economic resilience and key to this is an effectively managed and integrated Protected Area (PA) network of forests and wetlands. The Nishorgo Network brings government and community stakeholders together to conserve a large number of forest and wetland PAs across Bangladesh through co-management. Co-management shares the roles, rights and responsibilities of PA conservation between government and PA-dependent communities, ensuring broad benefits of climate change adaptation and mitigation accrue to Bangladesh as a whole while PA-dependent communities benefit directly from increased capacity to adapt to climate change as well as through climate change-friendly livelihoods development opportunities. Nishorgo Network has built climate change adaptation capacity through the facilitation of nearly 1000 community based climate change vulnerability assessments and action plans. Aggregated at the PA landscape level, these adaptation plans provide the basis for Upazila- and District-level climate change adaptation plans. More importantly, the planning process provided a unique opportunity for local communities to become informed, work together to find a voice, and become advocates for building climate change adaptation into local development planning. Key to achieving scale in community climate change adaptation planning was the training and empowerment of nearly 1,000 Nishorgo Shahayaks (community facilitator / volunteers). Over the past year, a flipchart was developed and field tested, and then 35 batches of (an average of 30 Nishorgo Shahayaks) community facilitators participated in 3-day training programs that built skills in community facilitation, adult education, ecosystem conservation, and climate change vulnerability assessment and action planning. Nishorgo Shahayaks then returned to their communities and rolled-out climate change vulnerability assessment and action planning through a series of weekly and monthly meetings. This has resulted in more than 200,000 Bangladeshi’s with increased understanding of and capacity to adapt to climate change as well as nearly 1000 community action plans that are currently being aggregated into more than 20 PA landscape-level climate change action plans. The report summarizes the adaptation plans prepared by ranking vulnerabilities and relevant adaptation measures based on the local community perception. The report will be useful for preparing PA dependent communities to build climate resilient PAs and local community livelihoods.
Citation
USAID
Publisher
USAID
Rights Holder
USAID
URI
https://knowledgehub.pksf.org.bd/collections/bmlEK1hNb3V0Q0FVSlQyWm1NMFllZz09