Search

Climate change loss and damage (L&D) due to both sudden and slow-onset events are a growing concern for vulnerable countries. Over the last decade, agricultural communities in Fiji have suffered a range of serious L&D from severe drought events. Through a grounded theoretical lens, qualitative research was used to gain in-depth insights into L&D from droughts in the Fijian sugar industry. In-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 68) were conducted in two Indo-Fijian sugarcane communities, Barotu and Toko settlements in Western Viti Levu, Fiji, and with key stakeholders from government ministries, academia, and climate change experts at the national level. Purposive sampling was initially used to identify smallholder sugarcane farmers and key stakeholders. Theoretical sampling further identified key stakeholders for the interview. Despite implementing various adaptation measures, the Fijian sugar industry has suffered severe L&D, including non-economic L&D (NELD) and associated cascading effects. L&D included reduced yields, loss of crops, and reduced income. NELD included deterioration of mental, physical, and emotional health, loss of hope, and uncertainty. Cascading effects included increased food insecurity risks and impacts on children’s education. Key policy interventions are recommended, such as removing adaptation constraints, developing drought risk profiles and early warning systems, investing in livelihood diversification, and engaging in new markets to facilitate social and ecological transformations that will promote livelihood resilience. Key Policy Highlights:Climatic and non-climatic stressors are inherently interconnected and interact in a complex and complicated manner to enhance social-ecological systems (SES) vulnerability.Inadequate drought adaptation measures further marginalise farmers and ultimately increase their vulnerability to drought risks and loss and damage (L&D).L&D presents itself in various ways, including non-economic L&D and cascading effects that are impacting upon future generations.With projected climate change and the likelihood of impacts worsening, there is an urgency to address L&D more coherently through crucial policy interventions.Climatic and non-climatic stressors are inherently interconnected and interact in a complex and complicated manner to enhance social-ecological systems (SES) vulnerability.Inadequate drought adaptation measures further marginalise farmers and ultimately increase their vulnerability to drought risks and loss and damage (L&D).L&D presents itself in various ways, including non-economic L&D and cascading effects that are impacting upon future generations.With projected climate change and the likelihood of impacts worsening, there is an urgency to address L&D more coherently through crucial policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is generating levels of environmental risk that are jeopardising modern development. As the management of water systems becomes more difficult, approaches to governance and engagement within regions are increasingly shaping adaptation successes and failures. We use theory on hydrosocial systems and risk to critically analyse stakeholder experiences of a transition in South Australian water management in peri‐urban Adelaide, with detail from the Langhorne Creek viticultural region. Local prescription of water resources has limited over‐exploitation and supported landowners to use water in sophisticated ways. When community stakeholders deliberated on common concerns with governance organisations for mutually beneficial outcomes, decision‐making supported successful hydrosocial adaptation. Ongoing challenges, such as a lack of confidence in the scientific knowledge guiding decisions, were accentuated when the process was politicised and engagement became inauthentic. If trust between governance organisations and local stakeholders is broken, it is difficult to re‐engage the farming community with adaptation decision‐making. In contrast, by working closely with community end‐users, government can enable appropriate behaviour and guide adaptive management. Attention to hydrosocial processes will be crucial to facilitate effective local adaptation policy in response to climate risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers in the Langhorne Creek–Angas Bremer basin irrigation district of South Australia have faced a series of hydrosocial crises relating to drought and groundwater depletion and degradation. The crises have been negotiated through concerted community engagement and cooperation. Adaptation responses have included a combination of infrastructural development and changes to the licensing, regulation, and oversight of irrigation governance, easing extraction pressures on the local groundwater catchment. However, new risks have emerged in the wake of, and as a result of, these solutions. One aspect of the solution has been to connect the Angas Bremer basin district more intimately to the much larger continental riverine system, the Murray-Darling basin, which stretches across multiple regional and state jurisdictions. The very success of that scalar response to hydrological risk generates broader systemic risks: to water supply and quality from climate change and upstream extraction; to basin governance; and to community cohesion, engagement, flexibility, and resilience. In a post-crisis period, there is a need to understand the emergent risks from transformational adaptation and guard against complacency to ensure that the hydrosocial qualities of flexibility and resilience that enabled positive responses to the initial crises endure to respond to future crises in water supply and its management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological and social risks are part of life on Earth, and yet they have increased during the late modern era due to environmental change and rising inequality. People who are well-educated are better able to plan for and respond to risk, both individually and collectively. Geography teachers' perceptions are critically analysed to examine the contemporary approach to risk education. There can be drawbacks of focusing on risks, including the emphasis on negative futures that could dissuade students from engaging with relevant issues. However, a range of advantages of risk education include engagement with important issues and concepts; learning about practical responses to relevant risks; higher order inquiry-based learning into societal issues; supporting resilience in students; and assistance with personal and democratic decision-making. The teachers' narratives on risk education are used to frame a critical discussion on the roles of the formal education system to prepare students for uncertain futures. The teachers recognised the need for more risk education to prepare students for a second modernity, but cautioned that teaching and learning approaches must focus on appropriate, relevant issues to provide opportunities to imagine and enact hopeful futures.

Anthropogenic climate change loss and damage (L&D) is a key area of climate policy. Much of the L&D governance has been situated within the international climate regime. A major gap in L&D governance is the lack of understanding of how institutions are dealing with L&D policy and decision-making at national and industry scales. This study examines L&D governance with an emphasis on policy gaps, capacity constraints, availability of data, and access to climate finance in Fiji's sugar industry. Systematic policy analysis and in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 28) are conducted to gain insights into L&D governance in Fiji's sugar industry. To date, the Ministry of Sugar Industry has been unable to develop climate change and disaster risk reduction policies and plans. Other institutional constraints in Fiji's sugar industry to avert, minimise, and address L&D include lack of human resources with technical skills as well as limited data and access to financial resources. This research recommends key policy interventions such as developing L&D policy and action plans, building capacity, and implementing a standardised practice of data management between stakeholders for urgent climate action. At the international level, the Warsaw International Mechanism and the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage could be strengthened to mobilise urgent support and action, including finance and technical assistance to avert, minimise, and address L&D in vulnerable countries. Highlights Limited national L&D policy and mechanisms in Fiji have severe implications for farming communities and could exacerbate social-ecological systems vulnerability. The Fijian Ministry of Sugar Industry has been unable to develop robust climate change and disaster risk reduction policies to avert, minimise, and address L&D. At the international level, the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage must become fully operational and provide technical assistance for L&D needs assessment and strengthen L&D governance in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wide range of holistic frameworks are used to assess the sustainability of agricultural policies and programs, but much of the existing research tends to overlook the socio‐cultural and governance dimensions of sustainability. This article aims to address those gaps by comprehensively assessing the environmental, economic, social, and political dimensions of sustainability. We use a case study of irrigation policies for agricultural expansion that target the Pagar Alam upland region in Indonesia. The assessment reveals opportunities and threats from the policy that affect the sustainability of upland landscapes and communities. By overly focusing on productivity goals while ignoring other sustainability criteria, the policy generates risks that threaten existing sustainable development pathways. To achieve positive policy outcomes, Indonesia needs to reconcile its national food production goal with local development goals. Lastly, to optimise policy outcomes, agri‐sustainability research should apply comprehensive approaches that simultaneously address multiple sustainability dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods generate both risks and benefits. In Langhorne Creek, South Australia, a historically-embedded system of shared floodwater management exists among farmers, who rely on semi-regular flood inundations as part of the region's hydrosocial terroir – a dynamic conjunction of water, landscape, social relations and agricultural practice. Unruly floods coexist with a heavily regulated and precisely measured system of modern water management for viticultural irrigation across the region. Since the mid-twentieth century, groundwater extraction and new pipeline schemes have linked Langhorne Creek to the Murray Darling Basin water management system, which has displaced flooding as the primary source of irrigation water. The associated modernist shift towards the rationalization of water as a measurable resource has acted to sideline flood irrigation. Yet, floods maintain important viticultural, ecological and social roles in Langhorne Creek, adding to the flexibility and resilience of the region in response to water management challenges. The system involves technological and infrastructural components, such as flood gates and channels, but also relies upon the cooperation and coordination of community members. Local vignerons suggest that flood irrigation is environmentally as well as economically beneficial, rejuvenating riparian wetlands along watercourses. A more formal acknowledgement of the specific regional experiences of water management in a wine region like Langhorne Creek helps to fill a gap between emplaced and hydrosocial understandings of flood irrigation and broader assumptions about flooding as wasteful and inefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the importance of effective secondary education for all children as Australian society embraces globalization. In a global era, where societal development will rely on the knowledge and skills of the workforce, an effective education will become even more important for socio-economic engagement and equality. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are the most vulnerable to globalization as they are less likely to achieve academically or go on to benefit from the restructured neo-liberal economy. Education policy will need to continue to support the right of each individual to be prepared for life in general, and employment in particular. Opportunities for democratic pedagogy, curriculum and education policy to respond to risk are outlined and critiqued in relation to the ongoing need for justice in education systems. If adequate funding is not provided for secondary education and directed to ensure an effective education is available for all students, obtaining a quality education will increasingly shift from a right to a privilege in Australian society. (Contains 1 table.)

Hobby and part‐time farming have become important elements of agricultural development in peri‐urban areas of developed countries. Although there has been renewed interest recently in examining the characteristics of this farming, studies have rarely attempted to consider its role in transitional multifunctional landscapes. This article reports on research in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, using surveys and semi‐structured interviews to examine contributions of hobby and part‐time farmers to an evolving multifunctionality. Hobby farmers are often recent, well‐educated migrants transferring capital from urban areas to the peri‐urban fringe. They engage in various on‐farm and off‐farm activities, with an emphasis on pro‐environmental actions and/or keeping horses. In contrast, part‐time farmers commonly have a farming background and are often transitioning out of farming while retaining farm‐based enterprises representing up to half their household income. While hobby farmers are seeking amenity value from the fringe, part‐time farmers are a more integral component of the conventional rural economy. A re‐evaluation of the importance of the growing numbers of hobby and part‐time farmers is vital as urbanisation pressures increase in peri‐urban fringes of major Australian cities. These farmers represent an important bulwark against urban sprawl, helping to retain agricultural and environmental land uses on the fringe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropologists have long embraced the value of the 'walk and talk' ethnographic method, which is an interactive means of generating research insights in situ – on site. In this article, we propose that there is room for an expanded appreciation of the 'drive and talk' method. While driving and talking with their interlocutors, researchers can elicit information prompted by features in the landscape and the environment that might be otherwise forgotten or overlooked if the interview context was set in a fixed location. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, this article explains the empirical and phenomenological (sensorial and experiential) insights yielded by driving and talking with interlocutors in a South Australian wine‐growing region. Automobility has the advantage over ambulation when it comes to accessing landscapes at the scale of the farm, which is where environmental management decisions are on heightened display. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-5871.2007.00472.x Byline: DOUGLAS K. BARDSLEY (1), ANNETTE M. BARDSLEY (2) Keywords: climate change; education; geography; critical thinking; constructivist education; risk; adaptation; South Australia Abstract: Abstract It is now broadly acknowledged that climate change due to an enhanced Greenhouse Effect is underway and such change will have major implications for our societies and environments. This paper outlines a pedagogical approach devised to encourage learning and critical thinking about climate change. A constructivist approach to teaching and learning is applied to stimulate analysis of potential impacts of climate change on systems familiar to secondary school students in South Australia. The problem-based method guides students through a conceptualisation of the implications of environmental change. Students at Woodcroft College, when given the opportunity to examine the potential climate change impacts on a local coastal ecosystem, found the method to be both challenging and engaging. The exercise concluded with students discussing possible personal behavioural and broader societal responses to reduce the impacts of future climate change. The paper contends that such teaching to support students to become resilient young adults will be vital in a future world of environmental risk. Author Affiliation: (1)School of Geography, Planning and Architecture, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia. (2)Woodcroft College, PO Box 48, Morphett Vale, South Australia 5162. Article History: Received 17 November 2006; Revised 25 March 2007; Accepted 3 April 2007 Article note: (*) Corresponding author. Email: d.bardsley@uq.edu.au