UNV in action - Natural resource management and community-based approaches to climate change

This document addresses the need to promoting climate change adaptation and mitigation at the local and community level for a number of interconnected reasons, including (i) changes in the ecosystem resulting in freshwater shortages, reduced agricultural productivity, or increased health risks; and (ii) context-specific vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities depending on unique combinations of ecological, political, and socio-economic factors that determine people’s ability to react to and cope with climate variations. It provides some good examples of UNV's work on environment and climate change as part of one of the three focus areas of 2011-2013 UNV Programme Strategy, in response to an increased global recognition of the actual and potential role of volunteerism for achievement of sustainable development and the MDGs. The good examples include: (i) alternative livelihoods for biodiversity conservation through community volunteerism in Cambodia; (ii) involvement of Ethiopian youth in combating desertification; (iii) Community Based-Adaptation (CBA) programme in Niger; (iv) environmental sensitization based on satellite imagery in Togo; (v) UN Volunteers in support of natural resource management and biodiversity conservation; and (vi) UN Volunteers in support of a community-based climate change approach.