Adapting to a Changing Environment (Hardcover)

Joshua Cinner

ISBN 10: 0199754489 / ISBN 13: 9780199754489

Published by Oxford University Press Inc, New York, 2011

About this Item

Hardcover. For those who depend on the bounty of the sea for their livelihoods, climate change and its consequences (warming water, coral bleaching, rising sea levels) could spell disaster. The region comprising the eastern coastline of Africa and the islands of the western Indian Ocean--home to many of the Earth's most impoverished people--is particularly vulnerable to significant climate impacts.Focusing on coral reef fisheries in these areas, whichcollectively support millions of people, this book provides a tool box of options for confronting the consequences of climate change through building local-scale adaptive capacity and improving thecondition of natural resources. This requires strengthening a society's flexibility, assets, learning, and social organizations, as well as restricting or limiting its resource use. These two broad concepts--building social capacity and limiting certain types of resource use--interact in complicated ways, requiring coordinated actions. The authors argue that adaptation solutions are context dependent, determined in part by local resource conditions, human adaptive capacity, and exposure toclimate change impacts, but also by a people's history, culture, and aspirations.Providing an up-to-date and original synthesis of environmental stress, natural resources, and thesocioeconomics of climate change, Adapting to a Changing Environment develops a framework to provide governments, scientists, managers, and donors with critical information about local context, encouraging the implementation of nuanced actions that reflect local conditions. Adapting to a Changing Environment provides tools and a theoretical framework for governments and managers to understand and confront the consequences of climate change. Focusing on coral reefs and the societies that depend on them--the eastern coastline of Africa and the islands of the western Indian Ocean--the authors examine potential problems and solutions. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780199754489

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Adapting to a Changing Environment (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, New York
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199754489
• ISBN 13: 9780199754489
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

For those who depend on the bounty of the sea for their livelihoods, climate change and its consequences (warming water, coral bleaching, rising sea levels) could spell disaster. The region comprising the eastern coastline of Africa and the islands of the western Indian Ocean--home to many of the Earth's most impoverished people--is particularly vulnerable to significant climate impacts.

Focusing on coral reef fisheries in these areas, which collectively support millions of people, this book provides a tool box of options for confronting the consequences of climate change through building local-scale adaptive capacity and improving the condition of natural resources. This requires strengthening a society's flexibility, assets, learning, and social organizations, as well as restricting or limiting its resource use. These two broad concepts--building social capacity and limiting certain types of resource use--interact in complicated ways, requiring coordinated actions. The authors argue that adaptation solutions are context dependent, determined in part by local resource conditions, human adaptive capacity, and exposure to climate change impacts, but also by a people's history, culture, and aspirations.

Providing an up-to-date and original synthesis of environmental stress, natural resources, and the socioeconomics of climate change, Adapting to a Changing Environment develops a framework to provide governments, scientists, managers, and donors with critical information about local context, encouraging the implementation of nuanced actions that reflect local conditions.

About the Author

Tim McClanahan is a Senior Conservation Zoologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. His science and conservation work focuses on tropical fisheries, climate change, ecology, and management of coral reefs.

Joshua Cinner is Senior Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University. A human geographer, his research explores how poverty and other socioeconomic conditions influence how people use and govern natural resources.