Limited room For manoeuvre - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 264

Interrelated factors limiting room for manoeuvre
As noted, climate change is one of many factors affecting various assets; it
leads to both direct and indirect changes in livelihood options, which are also
combined with multiple other sources of pressure. In Nicaragua, for example,
large tracts of formerly impenetrable forests that once prevented settlers and
ranchers from accessing indigenous lands have been flattened by hurricanes;
as a result, there has been encroachment into these lands (Kronik and Verner
2010a). Partially as a result of this encroachment, indigenous people interviewed
in the two regions along the Caribbean coast said that 20 years after Hurricane
Joan in 1988, they had yet to fully recover the abundance of forest resources
(especially lumber and wildlife) that existed before the hurricane. In contrast,
fish catches and agricultural yields regained their pre-hurricane levels within
one to five years, making these livelihood options more resilient.
Changing economic models encouraged by the state and by international
development agents have also had a profound influence. In Syria, while herding
is a traditional occupation, it has also become a business. The effects of this
transition contribute to the current lack of resilience to long-term droughts.
Having greater numbers of sheep makes it both possible and necessary to invest
in tractors and trucks to transport drinking water for the huge flocks, and
expanding flocks put increased pressure on grazing and water resources. With
competition over every straw of edible vegetation has come greater dependence
on feed traders.
In Tunisia, natural rangeland degradation in the central and southern interior
regions is mainly the result of decreasing and more-variable rainfall, coupled
with the eradication of natural vegetation and subsequent erosion. According
to Tunisian regional technical staff from the Gafsa, Médenine and Tataouine,
the expansion of crops and arboriculture, overgrazing and detrimental use
of machinery all play a role in land degradation. Traditionally, Tunisian agro-
pastoralists would build fodder reserves during wet years to sustain their herds
in dry years. Successive years of drought combined with increasing herd sizes
and high-input agriculture result in a downward spiral of decreasing economic
and social options as herders sell off herds at reduced prices to meet the increase
in production costs.
adaptation within limited room for manoeuvre - threats
and opportunities
The over-exploitation of resources described above in the Bedu cases is not
isolated, but part of the current development model based on maximizing the
extraction of resources. Indigenous peoples' room for manoeuvre in adapting to
climate change and in maintaining their livelihood options is severely limited by
increasing pressure on resources, combined with a range of economic, political
and social pressures, including wars and other political struggles, as well as the