Climate change is a major challenge for life on Earth. It is mainly manifested through modifications of average temperature, rainfall intensity and patterns, winds and solar radiation. These modifications significantly affect basic resources, such as land and water resources. Populations at disproportionately higher risk of adverse consequences with global warming of 1.5°C and beyond include disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, some indigenous peoples, and local communities dependent on agricultural or coastal livelihoods (IPCC, 2018). Therefore, adaptation measures are recommended in order to cope with climate change. Indigenous peoples have developed practices for climate change adaptation, based on their long-term experience with adverse climatic effects. There was thus a need to identify such practices as they could be effectively mainstreamed in community-based adaptation programmes. This report makes an inventory of indigenous and community adaptation practices across the world. The inventory was mainly done through literature review, field work and meetings with selected organisations. The case studies documented are categorized in five technologies and practices themes, including: (1) Weather forecasting and early warning systems; (2) Grazing and Livestock management; (3) Soil and Water Management (including cross slope barriers); (4) Water harvesting (and storage practices); (5) Forest Management (as a coping strategy to water scarcity), and; (6) Integrated wetlands and fisheries management. These were then related to the corresponding main agro-ecological zones (AEZ), namely arid, semi-arid, sub-humid, humid, highlands and coastal and wetlands. The AEZ approach was considered as an entry-point to adopting or adapting an existing indigenous strategy to similar areas. Challenges that threaten the effectiveness of indigenous and community adaption strategies were identified. These challenges include climate change itself (which is affecting the indicators and resources used by communities), human and livestock population growth (which is increasing pressure on natural resources beyond their resilience thresholds), current institutional and political settings (which limit migrants’ movements and delimits pieces of usable land per household), cultural considerations of communities (such as taboos and spiritual beliefs), and the lack of knowledge transfer to younger communities. Indigenous knowledge provides a crucial foundation for community-based adaptation strategies that sustain the resilience of social-ecological systems at the interconnected local, regional and global scales. In spite of challenges and knowledge gaps, these strategies have the potential of being strengthened through the adoption and adaptation of introduced technology from other communities or modern science. Attention to these strategies is already being paid by several donor-funded organisations, although in an uncoordinated manner.

Agriculture is often considered as one of the main threats to ecosystems. Unsustainable farming practices often result in habitat loss, inefficient use of water, soil degradation, pollution, genetic erosion, among other negative impacts on human life, including hunger, low food quality, reduced access to food resources, as well as the abandonment of rural areas. Nevertheless, when agriculture is practiced in a sustainable way, it can contribute to the preservation of many habitats, to the protection of watersheds, to the preservation and improvement of soil health. The use of sustainable and ecological practices is the key feature distinguishing traditional agriculture from intensive one. It may not provide very high yields, but ensures sustainable harvests over time, thanks to time-tested technologies and traditional know-hows and also represent examples of adaptation to harsh environmental conditions. Based on this approach, in 2002, FAO launched the concept of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme, to identify and safeguard agricultural systems that are ensuring food and livelihood security, while maintaining magnificent landscapes, agricultural biodiversity, traditional knowledge, cultural and social values. This book presents 18 examples of these traditional agriculture systems around the world, with a special focus on Europe, Asia, Africa, Central and South America, as a result of the “GIAHS Building Capacity” project co-funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI) of the University of Florence (Italy).

Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Meteorology, Aeronomy, Climatology, grade: 1.5, University of Bonn (Faculty of Agriculture), course: Agricultural sciences and resource management in the tropics and sub-tropics, language: English, abstract: The Central Dry Zone covers about 13 % of Myanmar and is home to nearly a third of the total population of 52 million. The majority of households depend on agriculture-based income (83%). Besides low profitability, poor diversification, and high reliance on credit, these agricultural households are subject to additional stress by soil degradation, erratic rainfall patterns and extreme temperatures, and commodity price fluctuations. Particularly the climate change phenomena have become recently a major constraining factor for agricultural production in the Dry Zone. In this study we explore how farmers perceive agricultural problems in relation to climate change, and which strategies they apply to cope with and adapt agricultural practices to climate change based on traditional knowledge. Based on household surveys, participatory rural appraisals (PRA) and key-informant interviews it can be concluded that most farmers recognize climate change as a key constraint as they perceive their agricultural production being severely impacted, particularly by erratic rainfall. In response to increasingly frequent pre-monsoon droughts, some farmers have actually abandoned during the past 15 years cultivating rice as the main subsistence and market-crop, but also the cultivation of pre-monsoon crops such as sesame. Most farmers have traditionally been dealing with climatic risks by providing supplementary irrigation, e.g. by establishing tube wells, by cultivating short-cycled cash crop instead of rice, and by substituting annual crops by fruit orchards. Some farmers have done changes in cropping patterns and agronomic practices. These differentially affect adaptation to climate change and there are still needs of institutional support with the knowledge and technology for the unfinished-adaptation measures. There are the strong linkages between farmers’ perceptions and their adaptation to climate risks at the farm level, and the adaptation measures are likely conducted on their own knowledge. Traditional knowledge and expert knowledge must be combined in order to work for successful adaptation to climate change.

The Digital atlas [www.plantatlas.eu] of traditional agricultural practices and food processing documents the various processes involved in the production of food--from working the fields through to processing the crops for food, fodder, and other purposes. The atlas aims to define and describe these various processes unambiguously by using a standardized vocabulary and by explicitly taking into account the intention behind each process. Illustrated with more than 3,000 photographs and numerous films documenting 20 years of field observation in the Mediterranean area, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, the atlas also includes detailed case studies of the practices and processes involving grapes, olives, date palms, barley, and wheat. Many of these processes are part of the intangible cultural heritage of agriculture that is now rapidly disappearing.