By Regie Junio, Ateneo de Zamboanga University, Philippines
 Children fetching drinking water © Regina Junio Three years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a non-government organization in implementing development projects funded by official development assistance. One of the main objectives of the project was to establish marine protected areas (MPAs) through a participatory coastal resources management approach (PCRM) in the provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in the Philippines. In doing so, we hoped to provide an enabling environment for good governance, peace, and development. We partnered with local government units, including the barangays (the smallest administrative division in the Philippines), municipalities and provinces, as well as peoples’ organizations and other community stakeholders.
The process of implementing the project moved these stakeholders from simply being participants in the CRM project to being CRM practitioners. In the beginning, the communities found managing their MPAs truly burdensome, as they needed to dedicate some of their time to helping patrol the MPAs on top of finding alternative areas to fish. But as they persevered with the project they began to observe a decrease in illegal fishing activities, an increased awareness among local folks on the significance of MPAs, and eventually a witnessed increase in their fish catch.
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 @ R.Isotti, A.Cambone - Homo Ambiens / WWF-Canon Last August I found myself in a dark room at a conference facility outside of Delhi, listening to what was meant to be an adaptation talk. The speaker was supposed to be walking us through adaptation options for conservationists and natural resource planners in India, but with only 15 minutes left in his hour-long talk, I had yet to even hear the word “adaptation” mentioned. Which is maybe why one nervous looking individual crept up to an open chair next to me, sat down, and started drawing a map on the back of his workshop agenda. When he was done he tapped me on the shoulder and (in a whisper) started to tell me the story of the fishery he had just finished labeling on the map. The story he told was definitely troubling. This particular fishery that his work has been focusing on, and that thousands of people rely upon was seeing a significant decline in productivity. Looking up from the map he said “I believe this is because of climate change… so what should we do?” Smiling, he handed me his pen and awaited my answer. My response was unsurprisingly unsatisfying- “Have you and your colleagues though about doing a vulnerability assessment?” I asked.
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By Eliot Levine, WWF-US
One of ClimatePrep’s primary goals is to highlight unique solutions to some of the toughest challenges presented by climate change. This week we would like to draw attention to a project in Peru that combines an old technique for gathering water with modern technology to develop a low cost solution to dwindling, and costly, water supplies for a suffering hillside community.
 Kai Tiedemann (front) and local worker Segundo Velasquez inspect a net in April 2007 that Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich designed to collect water from fog in Bellavista, Peru. © Anne Lummerich The cheapest place to live near Lima is on the steep hills at the edge of the city. The hillside village of Bellavista has attracted people from all over the country, mostly farmers looking for a cheaper way of life. The newcomers who settle in this area build shacks on unclaimed land. If they stay long enough, and plant enough trees to fend of the dangerous landslides, they can obtain government issued title. Unfortunately, the region has a serious lack of freshwater. Lima only gets about 1.5 centimeters a year and as a result the city relies heavily upon glacial melt from the Andes Mountains. Unfortunately, the glaciers have been receding at an alarming rate and according to climate models this trend will only increase. The lack of water available has meant that planting and irrigating the trees has become extremely difficult for longtime residents as well as newcomers. Additionally, the lack of reliable water resources means that the villagers are spending ten times the amount that city dwellers spend on water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking as it must be transported up the hills on a weekly basis. Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich, two German biologists who run Alimón (a small nonprofit that supports Latin American development) have decided to implement a unique solution. Continue reading
By Eliot Levine, WWF-US
The information, graphics, and quotes found in the article below were repurposed from an earlier report on this subject by Scientific American. The original article, with additional pictures can be found here.
 The artificial glacier stores water for the drier sowing season © Nick Pattinson for Scientific American In India, the ancient kingdom of Ladakh, between Pakistan, Afghanistan and China, is the highest inhabited region on Earth. It is also one of the driest , and received no more water a year than the Sahara Desert. But despite this, more than 275 000 people are living in Ladakh, most of them farmers and their families. Due to the weakness of infrastructures in this area, all of them are totally dependents on glaciers and snowmelt to irrigate crops and so to survive. Changes in the regions climate, such as decreasing amounts of precipitation and increasingly warmer winters, has resulted in a severe decrease in the number and size of many of the glaciers. The ones that remain are at higher altitudes, too far from villages, and don’t produce significant melt water to irrigate the population’s crops. Consequently, the inhabitants only have 2 solutions to survive: one is to migrate to megacities, and the other one is to adapt to these new changes in climate. A retired civil engineer, Chewang Norphel, has decided to develop an innovative community-based solution. “Water is the most important thing we have. Without water, we have no food; no life” he says. His solution is both innovative and relatively simple- create an artificial glacier. Continue reading
By Eliot Levine, WWF-US
The Lunana area of Northern Bhutan is surrounded by a stunning array of pristine mountains and the glaciers that move slowly through them. Amidst this serene beauty, however, is a growing danger that has the potential to be cataclysmic. As the ancient glaciers melt, their runoff collects and eventually forms pools of water known as glacial lakes. These pristine pools normally pose no danger to the surrounding villages, agricultural fields, temples, and schools. Recently, however, climate change has caused some of these lakes to grow substantially in size, posing a massive risk to the surrounding community.
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By Eliot Levine, WWF-US
The Kathryn Fuller Science for Nature Seminars bring distinguished scientists from a variety of fields to present cutting edge research of central importance to international conservation. Dr. Andrew Baker, an Assistant Professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Miami, presented in 2009. He discussed the effects of climate change on coral reef ecosystems and the adaptive capacity of corals to these effects. Watch Baker share the innovative research he’s working on, and how it might translate into effective conservation tools.
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