Adaptation
Patuca Reserve Resilience Network
Honduras' ecosystems are being destroyed at an incredible rate, taking with it the rich natural heritage of biodiversity that has required million of years to evolve. In 20 years, human populations in Honduras will be be threatend from ecosystem collapses that are likely to create abect misery and population collapses at an extraordinatry level. Already population crashes are happening in small scale collapses due to the degradation of social ecology.
There is a need to build a Patuca Reserve Resilience Network to help preserve the remaining 30% of the Patuca Reserve that has not been destroyed by deforestation and gold mining in the rivers. Association Patuca and Dr. Perinjaquet are working on introducing Resilience Capacity Zone Assessments and Mapping in order to identify solution sets local communities would embrace for preserving their environments and livelihoods, considering that they are squating within a national preserve that to date has had no environmental enforcement.
Video - TIME, GOOGLE AND NASA: Timelapse of the Earth Over the Last 30 Years
world.time.com - by Jeffrey Kluger
Spacecraft and telescopes are not built by people interested in what’s going on at home. Rockets fly in one direction: up. Telescopes point in one direction: out. Of all the cosmic bodies studied in the long history of astronomy and space travel, the one that got the least attention was the one that ought to matter most to us—Earth.
That changed when NASA created the Landsat program, a series of satellites that would perpetually orbit our planet, looking not out but down. Surveillance spacecraft had done that before, of course, but they paid attention only to military or tactical sites. Landsat was a notable exception, built not for spycraft but for public monitoring of how the human species was altering the surface of the planet. Two generations, eight satellites and millions of pictures later, the space agency, along with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), has accumulated a stunning catalog of images that, when riffled through and stitched together, create a high-definition slide show of our rapidly changing Earth. TIME is proud to host the public unveiling of these images from orbit, which for the first time date all the way back to 1984.
Community of the Ark.
http://www.markshep.com/peace/Ark.html
Island of Peace
Lanza del Vasto and the Community of the ArkBy Mark Shepard
Excerpted and adapted from the book The Community of the Ark, Simple Productions, Arcata, California, 1990
Principles and Practice for Resilience, Food Security and Nutrition
This article by Ambassador Erthin Cousin, Jose Graziano da Silva and Kanayo F. Nwanze addresses six principles to protect the most vulnerable from hunger and malnutrition in a world of global changes that are rapidly increasing risks, often with no social safety net for 80% of the world's population.
PRINCIPLE 1: People, communities and governments must lead resilience-building for improved food security and nutrition
PRINCIPLE 2: Building resilience is beyond the capacity of any single institution
PRINCIPLE 3: Planning frameworks should combine immediate relief requirements with long-term development objectives
PRINCIPLE 4: Ensuring protection of the most vulnerable is crucial for sustaining development efforts
PRINCIPLE 5: Effective risk management requires integration of enhanced monitoring and analysis into decision-making
PRINCIPLE 6: Interventions must be evidence-based and focus on long-term results
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ertharin-cousin/global-food-security_b_254...
AID POLICY: Resisting the Mantra of Resilience
Resilience has many meanings. A mother and child wait to be seen at the Outpatients Department, AMISOM base in Mogadishu, Somalia. Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN
irinnews.org
Maldives to build floating islands to save country from rising sea levels
photo courtesy of Troon Golf / Koen Olthuis/Waterstudio.NL
submitted by Samuel Bendett
www.ibtimes.com - August 20, 2012 - by Mark Johanson
Maybe you've already heard: The Maldives is sinking. So what do you do when your tourist-dependent country is slowly disappearing into the sea? If you're the Maldivian government, you create a series of floating islands that include a hotel and convention center, private villas, yacht club and 18-hole golf course.
Fascinating floating city concepts to house humanity in a globally warmed world
submitted by Samuel Bendett photo courtesy of Oculus
www.ecofriend.com - by Dattatreya Mandal - April 2012
Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and the Urban Poor - Cities Building Resilience for a Changing World
scribd.com/WorldBankPublications - April 2012
Poor people living in slums are at particularly high risk from the impacts of climate change and natural hazards. They live on the most vulnerable lands within cities, typically areas that are deemed undesirable by others and are thus affordable. Residents are exposed to the impacts of landslides, sea-level rise, flooding, and other hazards.
Exposure to risk is exacerbated by overcrowded living conditions, lack of adequate infrastructure and services, unsafe housing, inadequate nutrition, and poor health. These conditions can turn a natural hazard or change in climate into a disaster, and result in the loss of basic services, damage or destruction to homes, loss of livelihoods, malnutrition, disease, disability, and loss of life.
This study analyzes the key challenges facing the urban poor given the risks associated with climate change and disasters, particularly with regard to the delivery of basic services, and identifies strategies and financing opportunities for addressing these risks.
Several key findings emerge from the study and provide guidance for addressing risk:
Australians Told Sweeping Economic, Societal Changes Needed to Cope with Severe Weather
submitted by Samuel Bendett
Homeland Security News Wire - April 27, 2012
The Australian government’s Productivity Commission has just released its much-anticipated report, titled Barriers to Effective Climate Change Adaptation (a 305 page .PDF report). The report calls for sweeping changes across the Australian economy, including ditching property taxes which discourage people from moving out of areas prone to extreme weather events.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the commission, accepting that some degree of climate change is now inevitable, says that Australia will need to adapt. This means removing obstacles in the areas of taxation, local government, disaster relief, planning and building rules, and emergency management.
