Getting to know the communities of Life and Nature Project
On August 17, 2015 in Phnom Penh, FAO Cambodia in partnership with Ministry of Environment held a workshop to launch the Life and Nature Project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Since the launch, the project has entered its planning phase conducting vulnerability impact assessments (VIA) in all project sites. The participatory assessments will pave the way for the development of project activities and guide the project forward.
In September and October, the project team traveled to Siem Riep, Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear and Ratanak Kiri, on a field mission to conduct the assessments in order to understand climate change vulnerabilities as well as to get to know the communities that are involved in the project.
The Life and Nature project aims to improve the life of thousands of smallholder farmers, through strengthening the adaptive capacity and resilience of rural communities. Cambodia is highly vulnerable to climate change, at the same time it is the country in South East Asia with the lowest adaptive capacity to deal with the impacts of climate change. The agricultural sector in particular is extremely vulnerable to changing climate conditions, which poses a significant threat to amplify existing challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition. Utilizing a micro-watershed approach, the project will work to improve the management of ecosystems that the farmers depend on for their livelihoods, aiming to attain sustainable food security in the four pilot sites.
The first province visited was Siem Riep, where three villages in Lvea Krang Commune are selected to participate in the project. Thirty women and men gathered to take part in the VIA, which was jointly facilitated by the project team and government counterparts from the Provincial and District Departments of Agriculture, –Environment and Women’s Affairs in each province.
The VIA consists of a set of participatory tools, which enables the communities to identify local climate vulnerabilities and ultimately come up with potential responses and solutions. The first day of the VIA always started with a historical timeline, where the villagers were asked to look back and identify changes and hazards such as floods, droughts and typhoons that have occurred over time in their communities.
During the two and a half day event, the participants were guided through eight exercises, exploring different topics such as the usage of natural resources, gender roles and responsibilities within the households, and potential sustainable livelihood options for women.
After an intense first VIA in Siem Riep, the same exercise was undertaken in Kampong Thom. The project team then headed further north to Preah Vihear and lastly to Ratanak Kiri, where representatives from four villages located in Ta Vaeng district in the most northeastern part of the province, joined the VIA to share their knowledge and perspectives. In each VIA, the participants consisted of women and men from different age-groups and backgrounds in order to obtain a variety of views on the vulnerabilities and capacities within the communities.
Central to the VIA is to create visual tools that allow the participants to depict their own realities. For every village, two maps were drawn, one by women and one by men. After drawing the maps separately, the groups joined each other to compare the maps and vulnerabilities identified and subsequently agreed on climate vulnerabilities reflecting the realities of both men, woman, elderly and youth in the communities.
The four VIAs resulted in a number of maps, historical timelines, seasonal calendars and other data that will help the project team to analyze the existing situations in the communities. This will inform the planning and implementation of upcoming activities such as farmer field schools, alternative livelihood options for women and the development of watershed management plans. The VIA does not only serve as a project baseline, but is also crucial in order to fully involve the communities in identifying adaptation and resilience coping strategies which focus on solutions to climate related issues they face on a daily basis. The ultimate goal is to increase food security, improve livelihoods and natural resource management as well as build capacities.
Written by: Veronica Ahlenback, Project Intern
For further information contact:
Dr. Stacy Crevello, Chief Technical Advisor of Life and Nature Project
Tel: +855 23 216 566
E-mail: [email protected]