Coping and adaptation in response to environmental and climatic stressors in Caribbean coastal communities

TY - JOUR

T1 - Coping and adaptation in response to environmental and climatic stressors in Caribbean coastal communities

AU - Touza, Julia M.

AU - Lacambra, Carmen

AU - Kiss, Alexandra Maria

AU - Amboage, Rosa Mato

AU - Sierra, Paula

AU - Solan, Martin

AU - Godbold, Jasmin A.

AU - Spencer, Tom

AU - White, Piran Crawfurd Limond

N1 - © The Author(s) 2021

PY - 2021/7/29

Y1 - 2021/7/29

N2 - Cumulative and synergistic impacts from environmental pressures, particularly in low-lying tropical coastal regions, present challenges for the governance of ecosystems which provide natural resource-based livelihoods for communities. Here, we seek to understand the relationship between responses to the impacts of El Niño and La Niña events and the vulnerability of mangrove-dependent communities in the Caribbean region of Colombia. Using two case study sites, we show how communities are impacted by, and undertake reactive short-term responses to, El Niño and La Niña events, and how such responses can affect their adaptive capacity to progressive environmental deterioration. We show that certain coping measures to climate variability currently deliver maladaptive outcomes, resulting in circumstances that could contribute to system ‘lock-in’ and engender undesirable ecological states, exacerbating future livelihood vulnerabilities. We highlight the significant role of social barriers on vulnerabilities within the region, including perceptions of state abandonment, mistrust and conflicts with authorities. Opportunities to reduce vulnerability include enhancing the communities’ capacity to adopt more positive and preventative responses based on demonstrable experiential learning capacity. However, these will require close cooperation between formal and informal organisations at different levels, and the development of shared coherent adaptation strategies to manage the complexity of multiple interacting environmental and climatic pressures.

AB - Cumulative and synergistic impacts from environmental pressures, particularly in low-lying tropical coastal regions, present challenges for the governance of ecosystems which provide natural resource-based livelihoods for communities. Here, we seek to understand the relationship between responses to the impacts of El Niño and La Niña events and the vulnerability of mangrove-dependent communities in the Caribbean region of Colombia. Using two case study sites, we show how communities are impacted by, and undertake reactive short-term responses to, El Niño and La Niña events, and how such responses can affect their adaptive capacity to progressive environmental deterioration. We show that certain coping measures to climate variability currently deliver maladaptive outcomes, resulting in circumstances that could contribute to system ‘lock-in’ and engender undesirable ecological states, exacerbating future livelihood vulnerabilities. We highlight the significant role of social barriers on vulnerabilities within the region, including perceptions of state abandonment, mistrust and conflicts with authorities. Opportunities to reduce vulnerability include enhancing the communities’ capacity to adopt more positive and preventative responses based on demonstrable experiential learning capacity. However, these will require close cooperation between formal and informal organisations at different levels, and the development of shared coherent adaptation strategies to manage the complexity of multiple interacting environmental and climatic pressures.

KW - vulnerability

KW - adaptative capacity

KW - environmental risk

KW - socio-ecological resilience

KW - coastal management

KW - governance

U2 - 10.1007/s00267-021-01500-y

DO - 10.1007/s00267-021-01500-y

M3 - Article

SN - 0364-152X

SP - 1

EP - 17

JO - Environmental Management

JF - Environmental Management

ER -