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culture and power relations need to be considered for all adaptation
measures. This is not to say that adaptation measures do not often have a
technological/infrastructural core. On the contrary, a coastal dyke to prevent
intrusion of fl ood waters or a drainage system that prevents glacier lake
outburst fl oods clearly are very tangible adaptation measures. What it means
is that the successful implementation of such measures depends on local
actors embedded in local cultures, social networks and power relations, but
also on decisions driven by political hierarchies that maybe are removed
from the reality of local (mountain) societies. Without their consideration
the danger of unintended effects is considerable (Carey et al. 2012).
To some extent the distinct but complementary strategies of climate
change mitigation and climate change adaptation map to the dichotomies
laid out in the preceding section. The central actors in climate change
mitigation are governance and policy relevant institutions that take on
global responsibility. It is their objective to prevent the global (natural)
climate system from further change. The central actors in climate change
adaptation are individuals and communities that act in their self-interest
and promote and engage in change of their socio-economic conduct (their
culture) to accommodate locally precipitating effects of climate change.
After looking at the specifi c characteristics of mountain regions and the
ways in which they are affected by climate change it will be argued later
that the complex of attributes associated with climate change adaptation
bears particular relevance for mountain regions.
Climate Change and Mountain Regions
To continue the juxtaposing theme of this chapter it may be tempting to
compare mountain societies with those of small island states. Both seem
to occupy opposite ends of the terrestrial surface of the globe: islands are
to the coastal context what mountains are to the continental context. In
many ways they share defi ning characteristics such as an endemic ecology
(diffi cult access, cultural distinctness and economic hardship (see, e.g.,
Messerli and Ives 1997, Baldacchino 2007). Like mountain regions, small
island states are strongly affected by global climate change. In the long term
sea level rise will lead to their disappearance altogether. The drama and
utter devastation that this inevitability means for their inhabitants is hard
to comprehend. More tragic still that this drama largely remains solely with
the people whose life it destroys: small island states have little relevance for
the rest of the world therefore there is little reason to get involved beyond
the role of a spectator. Their populations are small, they are by and large
economically and often politically marginalized and the existence of their
above sea level natural habitat bears little impact on main land ecosystems.
Small island states are as disjunct from the rest of the world as it gets.
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