Rachel Clissold

University of Queensland

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Karen E. McNamara

University of Queensland

Ross Westoby

Griffith University

Saleemul Huq

International Centre for Climate Change and Development

Moleen Monita Nand

University of Adelaide

Alvin Chandra

Environmental Earth Sciences

Merewalesi Yee

University of Queensland

Tahlia Clarke

University of Queensland

A. Mirza

International Centre for Climate Change and Development

Christopher Y. Bartlett

Vanuatu Cultural Centre

Eugene Joseph

Micronesia Conservation Trust

Cooperative Institutions

University of Queensland

International Centre for Climate Change and Development

Independent University

University of the South Pacific

University of the Sunshine Coast

Environmental Earth Sciences

Vanuatu Cultural Centre

University of Melbourne

University of Prince Edward Island

Edith Cowan University

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Barriers to adaptation: Insights from Laamu Atoll, Maldives

Asia Pacific Viewpoint (2020)

Rachel Clissold Karen E. McNamara Ross Westoby

Although adaptation to climate change is becoming increasingly recognised as an unavoidable priority, barriers are consistently encountered and reported. Identifying, analysing and overcoming these barriers is essential for ensuring that, as climate change worsens, adaptation capacities are not exceeded. Despite current studies providing a useful structuring heuristic to guide inquiry, there is a significant gap related to explanations around barrier occurrence and how to overcome them. In response, this article, based on semi‐structured stakeholder interviews, aims to provide preliminary insights into the type of barriers that exist in Laamu Atoll, the Maldives and explore any interdependencies between them. This study found that a range of resource barriers (i.e. funding, physical and human resources in outer islands and data on vulnerable groups) and social barriers (i.e. political/institutional and organisational constraints and inefficiencies, marginalisation and power differences as well as cognitive elements) were hampering adaptation. In exploring the interdependencies that exist between these barriers, the nature of their occurrence, persistence and entry points for resolution were also identified.

Structuring

Atoll

10.1111/apv.12258

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Citations (9)

Exploring local perspectives on the performance of a community-based adaptation project on Aniwa, Vanuatu

Climate and Development (2019)

Rachel Clissold Karen E. McNamara

Adaptation has become an unavoidable priority. Failures of historically dominant top-down approaches have prompted a shift towards bottom-up approaches such as community-based adaptation, despite the scholarly lacuna around its effectiveness. This paper has endeavoured to respond to this gap through evaluating how an adaptation project on Aniwa, Vanuatu reduces people's vulnerability. Drawing from interviews and focus groups conducted across three communities on Aniwa, this study explored local perspectives around the appropriateness, effectiveness, equity and sustainability of the project, as well as impacts on livelihoods assets. Specific nuances and differences in perspectives between women and men were also explored. This study found that there were negative outlooks on sustainability, a lack of improvement in natural assets, as well as issues with exclusion based on religion and timings of activities with the daily schedules of women. Factors that support vulnerability reduction, however, included equal participation and benefit among those of Christian faith, appropriateness of the activities to aspects of the socio-cultural context, as well as improvements in several social and human assets. Two overarching recommendations emerged: (1) ensuring in-depth understandings of underlying contexts, and (2) mainstreaming gender considerations. This paper concludes by encouraging further studies that evaluate adaptation in the longer-term.

Vulnerability

Equity

10.1080/17565529.2019.1640656

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Citations (21)

Ways of healing in the Anthropocene

Climate and Development (2021)

Ross Westoby Karen E. McNamara Rachel Clissold

Grief and mourning are part of the human journey. But what happens when sadness occurs because of changes happening around us: losses to animals and plant species, changing weather patterns and loss of place and identity. How do we, in a time of significant planetary change, begin to acknowledge, process and act when faced with growing distress, anger, anxiety and despair? This paper explores ways of healing in the Anthropocene, a new geological era in which human activities have destabilized life on Earth. We draw upon insights from various fields and perspectives including disaster studies, peace studies and First Peoples. These insights reveal how healing can come about through: slow healing, agency, connections (local to global), place and nature, cultural practices, sociality, voice and narrativity, mnemonics and cultural memory, holism and interconnectivity, deep listening, sharing and storytelling, as well as inter- and intra-generational justice. We must shift away from therapeutic and individualistic approaches towards healing that is social, collective and focused on holistic wellbeing and interconnectivity with the Earth system. These powerful insights can help us process grief and restore harmony in the connection of all things, so that we can gradually, collectively and holistically find hope in the Anthropocene.

Anthropocene

Temporalities

10.1080/17565529.2021.1881425

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Citations (12)

Turning to Nature to Process the Emotional Toll of Nature’s Destruction

Sustainability (2022)

Ross Westoby Rachel Clissold Karen E. McNamara

As challenges emerge in the context of the Anthropocene, one often overlooked area is the emotional toll that the Earth’s destabilisation has on the human psyche. Deeper investigation into perceived “negative” emotions of the Anthropocene requires closer attention if those in highly industrialised societies, as the major contributors to the climate crisis, are to avoid collective denial and move towards transformative change. This paper aims to provide insights into these “negative” emotions that are emerging in Australia in response to changes to the biosphere and the destruction of nature, including sadness, grief, anger, frustration, and anxiety. As a way of processing these “negative” emotions, the authors find that connecting with, and being in, nature is critical. Such connection allows people to cope, renew, and heal. In this way, nature is both the trigger for, and answer to, our ecological grief, anger, and anxiety, and, as such, is at the epicentre of human emotions in the context of the Anthropocene.

Anthropocene

Sadness

10.3390/su14137948

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Citations (7)

Alternative Entry Points for Adaptation: Examples from Vanuatu

Weather Climate and Society (2020)

Ross Westoby Rachel Clissold Karen E. McNamara

Abstract As climate change accelerates, effective adaptation is an urgent and unavoidable priority. Bottom-up approaches such as community-based adaptation have been portrayed as the panacea. Recent studies are, however, highlighting the ongoing and inherent issues with normative “community” conceptualizations that assume a geographically bound, temporally fixed, and harmonious unit. Despite documentation on the negative impact these problematic assumptions can have on adaptation outcomes, adaptation at the community scale remains the preferred option for project delivery in highly exposed places such as the Pacific Islands region. More creative entry points that are less charged with problematic assumptions are needed at the local scale. This paper draws from three examples in Vanuatu to offer compelling alternative entry points for adaptation: 1) a rural technical college embedded within an Anglican mission village, 2) a whole-of-island approach, and 3) the “collective of vendors” at marketplaces. We offer hope by identifying ways to expand on and complement existing, restricted notions of community and, through this, to improve adaptation outcomes.

10.1175/wcas-d-20-0064.1

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Citations (5)

Climate-Induced Non-Economic Loss and Damage: Understanding Policy Responses, Challenges, and Future Directions in Pacific Small Island Developing States

Climate (2023)

Alvin Chandra Karen E. McNamara Rachel Clissold Tammy Tabe Ross Westoby

Despite mitigation and adaptation efforts, the residual risks of climate change will continue to impact the most vulnerable communities globally. Highly exposed regions, such as the Pacific Islands, will continue to experience profound negative loss and damage as a result of climate change, which will challenge current ways of life. Knowledge on the extent to which regional and national climate change polices can identify and respond to non-economic loss and damage (NELD) is limited. From the perspectives of stakeholders in the Pacific Islands region, this research aims to gain insights into how regional and national policies are responding to NELD, as the well as the barriers, shortcomings, and requirements for future responses. Utilising a mixed qualitative–quantitative approach, this research explores the perspectives of expert informants, including those from the government, donors and development partners, civil society, intergovernmental organisations, and other relevant bodies, such as universities. The key findings of this study indicate that current policy responses include a regional policy that integrates disaster and climate change losses, national efforts to preserve traditional and local knowledge, national adaptation and resilience planning, community-based projects, and relocation and resettlement. Additionally, NELD is a relatively new concept for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers, and it is difficult to conceptualise the diversity of issues related to NELD in the region. Owing to this poor understanding, a key gap relates to the dominance of the economic lens when characterising climate-induced impacts in the region. As such, there is a limited holistic consideration of climate change impacts, and thus a limited appreciation of the interrelated factors of NELD within policy responses that then cascade towards communities. Finally, the paper outlines key policy insights as follows: policies on integration, adaptation, resilience planning, relocation and resettlement have advanced; the economic lens dominates when characterising climate-induced impacts on the region; there is a limited appreciation of the interrelated factors of NELD; and there exists a need to account for residual and intangible losses to land, culture, traditional knowledge, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human agency. The insights gained from this research can provide a practical basis for guiding local to regional action and help support and design comprehensive risk management solutions in order to address NELD associated with climate change.

Relocation

National Policy

10.3390/cli11030074

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Citations (5)

Emotions of the Anthropocene across Oceania

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2022)

Rachel Clissold Karen E. McNamara Ross Westoby

As human activities have destabilised life on Earth, a new geological era is upon us. While there is a myriad of challenges that have emerged because of such human-driven planetary changes, one area of investigation that requires ongoing scholarly attention and scientific debate is the emotions of the Anthropocene. The emotional, mental, and psychological burdens induced by rapid and unprecedented change must be understood to better reflect the experiences of people around the globe and to initiate conversations about how emotions may be used for transformative change and effective politics. This paper aims to provide insights into the types of emotions that are emerging in Oceania as the Anthropocene unfolds. To do this, we draw on several data sets: questionnaire results with visitors of Mt Barney Lodge in the World Heritage Gondwana area in Queensland, Australia; another questionnaire with Pacific Island “experts” engaged in climate change, development, and disaster risk management work; interviews with locals living in the Cook Islands; and various spoken, written, and visual art from the Pacific. Bringing these data sets together allows us to explore a diversity of experiences, perspectives, and emotional responses to the Anthropocene from participants across Oceania. We found that acute and slow-onset weather events, experiences of direct loss and change, a perceived lack of agency or control over futures, and a sense of injustice triggered emotions including fear, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, sadness, grief, anger, frustration, helplessness, worry, but also empowerment. These results are critical for the first step of acknowledging and naming the emotions that are emerging in Oceania, such that they can then be worked through, and may be used for transformative change, effective politics, and agency over futures.

Anthropocene

Sadness

Transformative Learning

10.3390/ijerph19116757

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Citations (22)

Using a human rights lens to understand and address loss and damage

Nature Climate Change (2023)

Karen E. McNamara Rachel Clissold Ross Westoby Stephanie Stephens George Koran

Dignity

Safeguarding

Loss and damage

Framing (construction)

10.1038/s41558-023-01831-0

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Citations (6)

Marketplaces as sites for the development‐adaptation‐disaster trifecta: Insights from Vanuatu

Asia Pacific Viewpoint (2020)

Karen E. McNamara Rachel Clissold Ross Westoby

Faced with the pressing challenges of poverty, climate change and disasters, identifying opportunities for interventions that offer positive outcomes across the trifecta of development, adaptation and disaster risk reduction is critically needed. While the overlaps between these streams can be straightforward in theory, practical opportunities for convergence are often lacking. Drawing on 10 focus groups with women market vendors who are part of the UN Women's Markets for Change programme in Vanuatu, this paper explores how markets as places can be useful entry points for this trifecta. Marketplaces can be important sites for developing capabilities and empowering women. As transient and interactive spaces, marketplaces also have inherent strengths that can be built upon and utilised to heighten intervention reach and foster positive outcomes across the development‐adaptation‐disaster trifecta. This paper encourages further exploration into the capacity of marketplaces to achieve this trifecta of outcomes across various scales and locations, and to find solutions to existing challenges.

10.1111/apv.12293

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Citations (9)

Vulnerable groups and preliminary insights into intersecting categories of identity in Laamu Atoll, Maldives

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (2019)

Karen E. McNamara Rachel Clissold

The notion of vulnerability has acquired a significant role in discussions around reducing risk and identifying vulnerable groups, which is particularly important for targeting risk‐reducing policy and practice. Through ten semi‐structured interviews with 24 stakeholders, this study collected local perceptions on the following groups considered most vulnerable in Laamu Atoll, Maldives: youth and children, women, the elderly, people with disabilities, displaced persons and migrants, and farmers. In doing this, the significance of intersecting categories of identity for understanding vulnerability emerged and was explored; an approach that is often absent or scarcely applied in studies that identify vulnerable groups in the Maldives and elsewhere. Intersections between location, youth and gender or disability, as well as gender and marital status emerged as relevant for the Laamu Atoll context. Although this study acknowledges the incompleteness of its intersectional analysis, these findings provide important preliminary insights into the role of intersectionality in shaping vulnerability experience. To enhance scholarship on vulnerability, future studies could further explore intersectionality in Laamu Atoll and the Maldives using this study as a base and also improve its practical applicability for policy and practice.

Vulnerability

Intersectionality

Atoll

10.1111/sjtg.12280

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Citations (15)