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Communicating Climate Change Information for Decision-Making (Springer Climate)
by Liese Coulter Anne Coudrain Silvia Serrao-NeumannThis book provides important insight on a range of issues focused on three themes; what new climate change information is being developed, how that knowledge is communicated and how it can be usefully applied across international, regional and local scales. There is increasing international investment and interest to develop and communicate updated climate change information to promote effective action. As change accelerates and planetary boundaries are crossed this information becomes particularly relevant to guide decisions and support both proactive adaptation and mitigation strategies. Developing new information addresses innovations in producing interdisciplinary climate change knowledge and overcoming issues of data quality, access and availability. This book examines effective information systems to guide decision-making for immediate and future action. Cases studies in developed and developing countries illustrate how climate change information promotes immediate and future actions across a range of sectors.
Communicating Endangered Species: Extinction, News and Public Policy (Routledge Studies in Environmental Communication and Media)
by Eric Freedman; Sara Shipley Hiles; David B. SachsmanCommunicating Endangered Species: Extinction, News, and Public Policy is a multidisciplinary environmental communication book that takes a distinctive approach by connecting how media and culture depict and explain endangered species with how policymakers and natural resource managers can or do respond to these challenges in practical terms. Extinction isn’t new. However, the pace of extinction is accelerating globally. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies more than 26,000 species as threatened. The causes are many, including climate change, overdevelopment, human exploitation, disease, overhunting, habitat destruction, and predators. The willingness and the ability of ordinary people, governments, scientists, nongovernmental organizations, and businesses to slow this deeply disturbing acceleration are uncertain. Meanwhile, researchers around the world are laboring to better understand and communicate the possibility and implications of extinctions and to discover effective tools and public policies to combat the threats to species survival. This book presents a history of news coverage of endangered species around the world, examining how and why journalists and other communicators wrote what they did, how attitudes have changed, and why they have changed. It draws on the latest research by chapter authors who are a mix of social scientists, communication experts, and natural scientists. Each chapter includes a mass media and/or cultural aspect. This book will be essential reading for students, natural resource managers, government officials, environmental activists, and academics interested in conservation and biodiversity, environmental communication and journalism, and public policy.
Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement (Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies)
by Anne Marie ToddEnvironmental patriotism, the belief that the national environment defines a country’s greatness, is a significant strand in twentieth century American environmentalism. This book is the first to explore the history of environmental patriotism in America through the intriguing stories of environmental patriots and the rhetoric of their speeches and propaganda, The See America First movement began in 1906 with the aim of protecting and promoting the landscapes of the American West. In 1908, Gifford Pinchot and President Theodore Roosevelt hosted the White House Conservation Conference to promote the wise use of natural resources for generations of Americans. In 1912, Pittsburgh’s smoke investigation condemned the effects of coal smoke on the city’s environment. In World War II, a massive propaganda effort mobilized millions of Americans to plant victory gardens to save resources for the war abroad. While these may not seem like crucial moments for the American environmental movement, this new history of American environmentalism shows that they are linked by patriotism. The book offers a provoking critique of environmentalists’ communication strategies and suggests patriotism as a persuasive hook for new ways to make environmental issues a national priority. This original research should be of interest to scholars of environmental communication, environmental history, American history and environmental philosophy.
Communicating Sustainability: Making Sustainability Legible
by Margaret RobertsonCommunicating Sustainability is a book of evidence-based strategies for making sustainability vivid, accessible, and comprehensible. To do this, it brings together research from a range of specialties including cognitive psychology, visual perception, communication studies, environmental design, interpretive exhibit design, interpretive signage, wayfinding, storytelling, courtroom litigation, information graphics, and graphic design to illustrate not only what approaches are effective but why they work as they do. The topic of sustainability is vast and complex. It interconnects multiple dimensions of human culture and the biosphere and involves a myriad of systems and processes, many of which are too large, too small, too fast, or too slow to see. Many people find verbal explanations about all of this too abstract or too complicated to understand, and for most people the concepts of sustainability are regarded as quirky, peripheral, and not essential to everyday life. Yet the challenges of sustainability concern the very survival of most species of life on Earth, including the human species. In order for life as we know it to survive and thrive into the future, sustainability must become broadly understood—by everyone, not just activists or specialists. This book offers tools to help make complex systems and nuanced, abstract ideas concrete and comprehensible to the broadest range of people. The goal of communication, and of this book, is to build understanding.
Communication, Science, Technology, and Innovation in Disaster Risk Management: Recent Trends and Approaches in South Asia (GIScience and Geo-environmental Modelling)
by Swapan Talukdar Ranit Chatterjee Somnath Bera Atish Prashar Rajib ShawThis book presents the three pillars of Disaster Risk Management (DRM): communication, innovation, and science and technology. These three pillars are applied across five dimensions, namely risk identification and reduction, preparedness, financial protection, resilient recovery, and risk-informed investments in South Asia. In the coming decades, the region will experience rapid economic development and population growth, which, combined with the effects of climate change, will increase the likelihood of being affected by hazards. As hazards can negatively impact every sector of the economy and undo years of economic progress, effective measures to reduce the risk must be incorporated into development plans and poverty reduction strategies. Technological advances have opened up previously unimaginable opportunities to strengthen resilience and improve communications. In the South Asia, it has been experienced that the prevention of hazards and the development of emergency plans enabled by advances in communications and space technology can be much more successful and significantly costly effective than in the past. The use of space technology in disaster monitoring, early warning, and emergency response and for response has shown remarkable efficiency. New approaches to Disaster Risk Management (DRM) are becoming more available due to recent advances in space and communication technology. This book focuses on the use and innovation of space technology and communication for DRM in two specific areas: the Early Warning System (EWS) and the Disaster Information Management System (DIMS).
Communication Skills for Conservation Professionals
by Susan Kay JacobsonWhether you are managing wetlands, protecting endangered species, or restoring ecosystems, you need to be able to communicate effectively in order to solve conservation and resource management problems. Communication Skills for Conservation Professionals can help you do just that--it is a practical and inspiring book that provides user-friendly guidance on achieving conservation goals through effective communication. Following introductory chapters that draw on research from communication, psychology, sociology, and education to highlight elements critical for effective communication, the book describes how to gather background information and target audiences, explains how public relations can influence attitudes and behaviors, and outlines how to design and conduct a communications campaign. In addition, it provides step-by-step guidance for using print, broadcast, and electronic mass media; demonstrates methods for developing public talks, interpretive brochures, exhibits, and trails; and explores long-term conservation education strategies for students and adults. This second edition of a widely praised book, originally published in 1999, includes new material on working with stakeholders, volunteers, and other groups to multiply conservation success. It also expands on the use of electronic media with examples of conservation Web pages, blogs, e-newsletters, and other new media. The book's citations have been updated to include a host of Web sites and other electronic sources useful for planning and implementing communication programs. Communication Skills for Conservation Professionals is a valuable addition to the conservationist's toolbox that will help scientists, managers, concerned citizens, and students communicate more effectively.
Communities and Museums in the 21st Century: Shared Histories and Climate Action (ICOM Advances in Museum Research)
by Karen BrownCommunities and Museums in the 21st Century brings together innovative, multidisciplinary perspectives on contemporary museology and participatory museum practice that contribute to wider debates on museum communities, heritage, and sustainability. Set within the context of globalisation and decolonisation, this book draws upon bi-regional research that will enrich our understanding of the complex relationships between Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean through museum studies and practice. Chapters reflect upon the role of museums in defining community identities; the importance of young people’s participation and intergenerational work for sustainability; the role of museums in local development; and community-based museums and climate change. Contributors examine these issues through the lens of museum partnerships and practices, as well as testing the continued relevance of the notion of ‘integral museum’ and its relatives in the form of ecomuseums. With its focus on regional museums in Latin America and Caribbean, this book highlights how the case studies promote greater intercultural dialogue, global understanding and social cohesion. It also demonstrates how the methodology can be adapted to other communities who are facing the perils of climate change and unsustainable forms of development. Communities and Museums in the 21st Century proposes creative and sustainable strategies relevant to a globalised future. With its focus on global societal challenges, this book will appeal to museologists and museum practitioners, as well as those working in heritage studies, cultural studies, memory studies, art history, gender studies, and sustainable development.
Communities in Transition: Protected Nature And Local People In Eastern And Central Europe (Routledge Studies in Environmental Policy and Practice)
by Saska PetrovaThe role of local people in contemporary nature conservation practices is often poorly understood or neglected. This book, therefore, examines questions of local participation at the nature-society nexus within national parks in the transitional context of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The post-1990 reconfiguration of conservation paradigms in this part of the world has re-opened various age-old debates about the protection and administration of natural heritage. Further complicating the situation has been the introduction of market-based principles, which has embedded the entire process in broader dynamics of neoliberalization and the capitalist space economy. Providing an integrated perspective on why, how and for whom nature conservation practices have been implemented in CEE, this book sheds further light upon the mechanisms through which such practices both redefine and are affected by the everyday life of people living in national parks. Offering a critical global review of the environmental motivations and power interests behind the creation of national parks, as well as a typology of the relations between local people and the dynamics of nature protection in them, this work challenges the dichotomy between developed and developing countries that pervades much of the academic literature on nature protection. Author Saska Petrova highlights the lessons that can be learnt by applying the experiences of local community participation in environmental management in CEE to other locations undergoing major systemic change in their environmental governance practices, such as the 'low carbon transition' that is currently unfolding at a global scale.
Communities of Resistance and Resilience in the Post-Industrial City: A Transnational Perspective from Lyon and Pittsburgh, 1980–2010 (Routledge Studies in Modern History)
by Daniel HollandThis book is about the grassroots community revitalization movement in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Lyon, France, between 1980 and 2010, an extension of the post-WWII civil rights campaign that is rarely considered.It tells the story of residents' attempts to improve their communities through social capital or people power. In positive ways, citizens created vibrant, attractive neighborhoods. But their actions also generated unintended consequences, such as high real estate prices and minority displacement that threatened to unravel their hard work. Communities of Resistance and Resilience is an ethnographic survey that relies on oral histories, archival research, on-the-ground site surveys, and the author’s personal experience as a neighborhood reinvestment practitioner for more than 30 years. It brings to life stories that would otherwise remain obscured, such as the lingering impact of the March for Equality and Against Racism, organized in Lyon in 1983, and the formation of the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group in Pittsburgh in 1988, both of which launched national movements.This is of great use to scholars of transatlantic history as well as a general audience interested in modern social movements in the United States and France.
Communities Surviving Migration: Village Governance, Environment and Cultural Survival in Indigenous Mexico (Routledge Studies in Environmental Migration, Displacement and Resettlement)
by James P. Robson Dan Klooster Jorge Hernández-DíazOut-migration might decrease the pressure of population on the environment, but what happens to the communities that manage the local environment when they are weakened by the absence of their members? In an era where community-based natural resource management has emerged as a key hope for sustainable development, this is a crucial question. Building on over a decade of empirical work conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico, Communities Surviving Migration identifies how out-migration can impact rural communities in strongholds of biocultural diversity. It reflects on the possibilities of community self-governance and survival in the likely future of limited additional migration and steady – but low – rural populations, and what different scenarios imply for environmental governance and biodiversity conservation. In this way, the book adds a critical cultural component to the understanding of migration-environment linkages, specifically with respect to environmental change in migrant-sending regions. Responding to the call for more detailed analyses and reporting on migration and environmental change, especially in contexts where rural communities, livelihoods and biodiversity are interconnected, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental migration, development studies, population geography, and Latin American studies.
Community Action and Climate Change (Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research)
by Jennifer KentThe failure of recent international negotiations to progress global action on climate change has shifted attention to the emergence of grassroots sustainability initiatives. These civil society networks display the potential to implement social innovation and change processes from the 'bottom up'. Recent scholarship has sought to theorise grassroots community-based low carbon practices in terms of their sustainability transition potential. However there are few empirical examples that demonstrate the factors for success of community-based social innovations in achieving more widespread adoption outside of their local, sustainability 'niche'. The book seeks to address two significant gaps related to grassroots climate action: firstly the continuing dominance of the individualisation of responsibility for climate change action which presupposes that individuals hold both the ability and desire to shift their behaviours and lifestyle choices to align with a low carbon future. Secondly, the potential for community-based collectives to influence mainstream climate change governance, an area significantly under researched. Drawing on empirical research into Australian Climate Action Groups (CAGs) and related international research, the book argues that grassroots community-based collective action on climate change holds the key to broader social change. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, citizen participation, environmental sociology and sustainable development.
Community Action for Conservation: Mexican Experiences
by Luciana Porter-Bolland Isabel Ruiz-Mallén Claudia Camacho-Benavides Susannah R. MccandlessThis book provides an in-depth analysis on community conservation in Mexico. The volume explores vivid examples and case studies that illustrate some of the critical issues at stake, including the participation of local communities in national and global conservation, indigenous and local perceptions of conservation initiatives in Southern Mexico, and challenges in ICCA governance and ecotourism. The book also reviews methodological approaches for understanding and strengthening community conservation, touching upon such topics as community-based biodiversity monitoring and tools for understanding children's perceptions of community conservation. Written by international experts in the field, Community Action for Conservation: Mexican Experiences is a lively and deep-running resource that offers invaluable stories and analyses of the Mexican experience with conservation.
Community Adaptation and Vulnerability in Arctic Regions: Framework Document For An International Polar Year Consortium
by Barry Smit Grete K. HovelsrudUnder the auspices of International Polar Year (IPY), the CAVIAR consortium was formed with partners from all eight Arctic countries. The aim of the interdisciplinary CAVIAR project is to increase understanding of the vulnerability of Arctic communities to changing environmental conditions, including climate change, and to contribute to the development of adaptive strategies and policies. In partnership with local collaborators in over two dozen communities, researchers have documented the conditions and forces that contribute to vulnerabilities, identified adaptive strategies and attempted to assess the prospects for adaptation in the future.
Community and Climate Resilience in the Semi-Arid Tropics: A Journey of Innovation
by K. V. Raju S. P. WaniThis book focuses on developing an integrated holistic approach for harnessing the potential of rain-fed agriculture. In this approach, rainwater management through harvesting and recharging the groundwater is used as an entry point activity for increasing the productivity for farmers through enhanced water use efficiency. To provide the holistic and integrated solutions, the approach of consortium through building partnerships with different stakeholders, eg. different research institutions (State, National and International), development departments, eg. Department of Agriculture, Department of Animal Husbandry etc., Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Farmers Organizations Community-based Organizations (CBOs) along with market linkages through private companies.
Community and Frontier: A Ukrainian Settlement in the Canadian Parkland (Studies in Immigration and Culture #6)
by John C. LehrA social and economic history of one of the oldest Ukrainian settlements in Western Canada. Established in 1896, the Stuartburn colony was one of the earliest Ukrainian settlements in western Canada. Based on an analysis of government records, pioneer memoirs, and the Ukrainian and English language press, Community and Frontier is a detailed examination of the social, economic, and geographical challenges of this unique ethnic community. It reveals a complex web of inter-ethnic and colonial relationships that created a community that was a far cry from the homogeneous ethnic block settlement feared by the opponents of eastern European immigration. Instead, ethnic relationships and attitudes transplanted from Europe affected the development of trade within the colony, while Ukrainian religious factionalism and the predatory colonial attitudes of mainstream Canadian churches fractured the community and for decades contributed to social dysfunction.
Community-based adaptation: Mainstreaming into national and local planning
by Hannah ReidCommunity-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change is based on local priorities, needs, knowledge and capacities. Early CBA initiatives were generally implemented by non-government organisations (NGOs), and operated primarily at the local level. Many used ‘bottom-up’ participatory processes to identify the climate change problem and appropriate responses. Small localised stand-alone initiatives are insufficient to address the scale of challenges climate change will bring, however. The causes of vulnerability - such as market or service access, or good governance - also often operate beyond the project level. Larger organisations and national governments have therefore started to implement broader CBA programmes, which provide opportunities to scale up responses and integrate CBA into higher levels of policy and planning. This book shows that it is possible for CBA to remain centred on local priorities, but not necessarily limited to work implemented at the local level. Some chapters address the issue of mainstreaming CBA into government policy and planning processes or into city or sectoral level plans (e.g. on agriculture). Others look at how gender and children’s issues should be mainstreamed into adaptation planning itself, and others describe how tools can be applied, and finance delivered for effective mainstreaming.This book was published as a special issue of Climate and Development.
Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change: Scaling it up
by E. Lisa F. Schipper Jessica Ayers Hannah Reid Saleemul Huq Atiq RahmanAs climate change adaptation rises up the international policy agenda, matched by increasing funds and frameworks for action, there are mounting questions over how to ensure the needs of vulnerable people on the ground are met. Community-based adaptation (CBA) is one growing proposal that argues for tailored support at the local level to enable vulnerable people to identify and implement appropriate community-based responses to climate change themselves. Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change: Scaling it up explores the challenges for meeting the scale of the adaptation challenge through CBA. It asks the fundamental questions: How can we draw replicable lessons to move from place-based projects towards more programmatic adaptation planning? How does CBA fit with larger scale adaptation policy and programmes? How are CBA interventions situated within the institutions that enable or undermine adaptive capacity? Combining the research and experience of prominent adaptation and development theorists and practitioners, this book presents cutting edge knowledge that moves the debate on CBA forward towards effective, appropriate, and ‘scaled-up’ adaptive action.
Community-Based Collaboration: Bridging Socio-Ecological Research and Practice
by Juliana E. Birkhoff E. Franklin Dukes Karen E. FirehockThe debate over the value of community-based environmental collaboration is one that dominates current discussions of the management of public lands and other resources. In Community-Based Collaboration: Bridging Socio-Ecological Research and Practice, the volume's contributors offer an in-depth interdisciplinary exploration of what attracts people to this collaborative mode. The authors address the new institutional roles adopted by community-based collaborators and their interaction with existing governance institutions in order to achieve more holistic solutions to complex environmental challenges. Contributors:Heidi L. Ballard, University of California, Davis * Juliana E. Birkhoff, RESOLVE * Charles Curtin, Antioch University * Cecilia Danks, University of Vermont * E. Franklin Dukes, University of Virginia and George Mason University * María Fernández-Giménez, Colorado State University * Karen E. Firehock, University of Virginia * Melanie Hughes McDermott, Rutgers University * William D. Leach, California State University, Sacramento * Margaret Ann Moote, private consultant * Susan L. Senecah, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry * Gregg B. Walker, Oregon State University
Community-Based Disaster Risk Management in Azerbaijan (SpringerBriefs in Geography)
by Rovshan AbbasovThis book illustrates the main factors of vulnerability and gives a clear picture about the possible interventions to reduce disaster risks both in schools and communities in Azerbaijan. A new methodology for child centered vulnerability assessments both on school and community levels has been developed. This methodology can be used to assess the level of vulnerability of schools and communities. The book is a newly prepared training manual which will help practitioners conduct trainings for government and community organizations. While the book is focused on a specific region, the suggested approach is generic and can be used elsewhere.
Community-Based Integrated Care and the Inclusive Society: Recent Social Security Reform in Japan (International Perspectives in Geography #12)
by Hitoshi Miyazawa Teruo HatakeyamaThis book discusses the building of comprehensive community support systems, which constitutes a key issue in social security reforms in Japan. The book comprises three parts: (I) Mapping Social Security in Japan, (II) Community-Based Integrated Care Systems in Japan, and (III) A Prospect of Community-Based Inclusive Society in Japan. The chapters in this book were composed on the basis of research into community-based integrated care systems and community-based inclusive society, conducted by members of the Association of Japanese Geographers’ Study Group “Regional Issues Related to the Birthrate Decline and Population Aging.” Choosing local governments with different regional characteristics, the authors conducted empirical research to uncover the characteristics of comprehensive community support systems, building processes, and challenges in the respective local governments. Non-Japanese readers will acquire an understanding of the characteristics of social security and the trends of the reforms in Japan. To support its use as a reference book, chapters in Part I include numerous maps and figures with the themes of welfare, medical care, and health levels in Japan.
Community-Based Urban Development: Evolving Urban Paradigms in Singapore and Seoul (Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements)
by Im Sik Cho Blaž KrižnikThe book compares different approaches to urban development in Singapore and Seoul over the past decades, by focusing on community participation in the transformation of neighbourhoods and its impact on the built environment and communal life. Singapore and Seoul are known for their rapid economic growth and urbanisation under a strong control of developmental state in the past. However, these cities are at a critical crossroads of societal transformation, where participatory and community-based urban development is gaining importance. This new approach can be seen as a result of a changing relationship between the state and civil society, where an emerging partnership between both aims to overcome the limitations of earlier urban development. The book draws attention to the possibilities and challenges that these cities face while moving towards a more inclusive and socially sustainable post-developmental urbanisation. By applying a comparative perspective to understand the evolving urban paradigms in Singapore and Seoul, this unique and timely book offers insights for scholars, professionals and students interested in contemporary Asian urbanisation and its future trajectories.
Community Biodiversity Management: Promoting resilience and the conservation of plant genetic resources (Issues in Agricultural Biodiversity)
by Walter Simon de Boef Abishkar Subedi Nivaldo Peroni Marja Thijssen Elizabeth O’KeeffeThe conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity are issues that have been high on the policy agenda since the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. As part of efforts to implement in situ conservation, a methodology referred to as community biodiversity management (CBM) has been developed by those engaged in this arena. CBM contributes to the empowerment of farming communities to manage their biological resources and make informed decisions on the conservation and use of agrobiodiversity. This book is the first to set out a clear overview of CBM as a methodology for meeting socio-environmental changes. CBM is shown to be a key strategy that promotes community resilience, and contributes to the conservation of plant genetic resources. The authors present the underlying concepts and theories of CBM as well as its methodology and practices, and introduce case studies primarily from Brazil, Ethiopia, France, India, and Nepal. Contributors include farmers, leaders of farmers’ organizations, professionals from conservation and development organizations, students and scientists. The book offers inspiration to all those involved in the conservation and use of agrobiodiversity within livelihood development and presents ideas for the implementation of farmers’ rights. The wide collection of experiences illustrates the efforts made by communities throughout the world to cope with change while using diversity and engaging in learning processes. It links these grassroots efforts with debates in policy arenas as a means to respond to the unpredictable changes, such as climate change, that communities face in sustaining their livelihoods.
Community Capacity and Resilience in Latin America (Community Development Research and Practice Series)
by Paul R. Lachapelle Isabel Gutierrez-Montes Cornelia Butler FloraCommunity Capacity and Resilience in Latin America addresses the role of communities in building their capacity to increase resiliency and carry out rural development strategies in Latin America. Resiliency in a community sense is associated with an ability to address stress and respond to shock while obtaining participatory engagement in community assessment, planning and outcome. Although the political contexts for community development have changed dramatically in a number of Latin American countries in recent years, there are growing opportunities and examples of communities working together to address common problems and improve collective quality of life. This book links scholarship that highlights community development praxis using new frameworks to understand the potential for community capacity and resiliency. By rejecting old linear models of development, based on technology transfer and diffusion of technology, many communities in Latin America have built capacity of their capital assets to become more resilient and adapt positively to change. This book is an essential resource for academics and practitioners of rural development, demonstrating that there is much we can learn from the skills of self-diagnosis and building on existing assets to enhance community capitals. Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
Community, Change and Border Towns (Border Regions Series)
by H. Pınar ŞenoğuzThis book provides an interdisciplinary approach to power, inclusion/exclusion and hierarchy in a Turkish border town, with a focus on the impact of nation-state border on social stratification and change. Through the lens of ethnographic research and oral history, the book explores social mobility among various strata within the context of transition from Ottoman rule to the Republican regime, in order to reveal culturally informed strategies of border dwellers in coming to grips with new border contexts. It is suggested that the border perspective will move the social analysis beyond "methodological territorialism" and provide a theoretical framework that explores social change at the intersection of local, national and transnational processes. This book will appeal to readers interested in borders and circulations, social structure and power relations in border regions, as well as transnational shadow networks in the Turkish/Middle Eastern context. The book is a valuable resource for students and scholars of border anthropology, political and economic geography, studies of globalization and transnationalism, anthropology of illegality and Turkish and Middle Eastern studies. It will be a useful grounding for humanitarian professionals who are learning about the social and economic landscape of border towns.
Community Energy and Sustainable Energy Transitions: Experiences from Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique
by Vanesa Castán BrotoThis open access book engages with the difficulties of delivering community energy in practice, building on practical experiences in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. In these countries, where many people lack access to electricity, community energy is an alternative to advance universal energy access. This book argues that, besides providing access, community energy is essential for achieving justice and resilience in sustainable energy transitions. Community energy combines off-grid infrastructures with innovative forms of governance to incorporate the perspectives of beneficiaries in the generation and distribution of electricity. Community energy has multiple benefits for communities, such as facilitating the adoption of renewable technologies, providing energy access where it is lacking, and building resilience. They also offer societal benefits beyond beneficiary communities, such as providing additional capacity to existing grids, delivering off-grid services where the grid is absent, and bridging on-grid and off-grid systems. Despite its promises, however, the adoption of community energy has been slow. This book presents a feminist-informed perspective on community energy to advance energy justice that puts disadvantaged communities at the centre of sustainable energy transitions. It also explores the room for manoeuvre within existing regulatory systems, supply chains, and delivery systems to facilitate its development. By engaging with existing experiences in community energy, the book demonstrates the potential of communities to gain control over their energy needs and resources and argues for the need to develop a wide range of transdisciplinary skills among policymakers, technicians and communities to deliver a just energy transition.