Climate-smart landscapes for promoting sustainability of Pacific Island agricultural systems

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Overview

This project aimed to use community management of agricultural landscapes across Fiji and Tonga to increase or protect environmental livelihoods from climate change.

South Pacific islands are vulnerable to climate change. Their geography exposes them to shocks and stresses, and their economies rely on agriculture. The region needs climate-compatible agriculture to cope with climate change. Climate-smart landscapes emphasise sustainable livelihoods, resilience to climate change, and environmental sustainability. Climate-smart landscapes for sustainable agriculture are a new concept in the South Pacific and need to be promoted. This project helps communities develop adaptation pathways to agricultural practices so that landscape management becomes climate-smart and will protect livelihoods from climate while preserving environmental sustainability.

Expected outcomes

  • Enhanced capacity for the community to gather and use geospatial information; visualise and assess coping capacity to climate stressors; and capture and archive their climate-livelihoods-landscape knowledge.
  • Developed higher-level stakeholder capacity to use geospatial data for understanding community livelihoods and landscapes; and recognise where landscape interventions could address climate impacts with respect to differing community groups (e.g. men/women).
  • Improved communication capacity to increase communication between communities and higher-level stakeholders, and to ensure better targeting of climate adaptation policy/projects within the landscape.