The purpose of this block is to build capacity of park managers on climate change through workshops focusing on topics that are very specific to climate change issues encountered at the park level. 

A series of capacity building workshops were held in Mpanda and Sumbawanga in 2017 to raise awareness on key concepts related to climate change including impacts, vulnerability and resilience in relation to protected areas. The workshops were attended by delegates from Katavi National Park, Lwafi Game Reserve, Mpanda District Council and conservation NGOs working in Mpanda and Rukwa such as LCMO.

The workshops provided participants with key information and knowledge on climate aspects needed in the next steps of integrating climate change in the Park General Management Plan.

Since 2010, public interest in machiya conservation has surged and banks have begun offering tailored restoration loans for these bygone architectural artifacts. Recently, the Kyoto Center for Community Collaboration created and issued “Machiya Karte”s, imitating the clinical records used in medical care. By documenting the uniqueness and value of each machiya building in a tangible form, the liquidity of machiya as a tradable good increased significantly. As a result, as of March 2018, three local banks have started special loan products for machiya renovation or utilization. For example, Kyoto Credit Bank provides both consumer (accommodation) loans and corporate loans. The former offers 1-100 million JPY at the interest rate of 1.8-2.0%, as opposed to the normal housing loan requiring 2.675%. The latter offers 30 or 50 million JPY at the interest rate of 1.2-2.3%, depending on the period and whether collateral is provided. From 2011 to 2017, the consumer loan product won 123 contracts, and the corporate loan product won 7 contracts.

Making charcoal is a rural activity that is gradually being lost and could be of great value for rural employment if revived. Charcoal has a number of uses: it can be burned directly in traditional stoves, as mix for briquettes, or for the popular barbecues. Charcoal has a higher calorific value (about 7,500 kcal/kg almost double the briquettes that are currently being manufactured) and can increase the quality of the briquettes. However, this process should be studied and tested in the production plant before commercial production is started.

Compost production aimed to find alternative sources of organic fertilizer for local farmers. It involved the development of composting units in some central areas of the SBR and in private gardens. This required practical training of landowners and the development of Composting is a biological process by which microorganisms decompose organic matter. It could be done in two ways: anaerobic composting and aerobic composting. Aerobic composting involves organisms that need oxygen for their living, while anaerobic composting involves organisms that can survive in the absence of oxygen. The key condition for any composting design is the type of composting that must be used. The aerobic composting, for example, necessitates the entrance of oxygen to the composting pile. The process adopted in this project is aerobic composting. The raw materials used are remains of pruning forest trees, adding cow and chicken manure from farms in surrounding villages. In addition to making use of the shreds, this activity yields an alternative organic fertilizer. Some educational materials could eventually be developed. It is worth noting that two commercial shredding machines were bought to enable cutting the woody material.

To prevent the excessive re-sprouting of the thinned oak stands, and hence a higher chance of forest fires, the project recommended grazing the area with herds of goats during the years following the cutting operations as a mixture of silvopastoral interventions (oak stand thinning and grazing control) . All of these activities will eventually take pressure off the Cedar trees in the core zone of the Reserve.

Thanks to the expertise acquired in Blocks 1 and 2, the Management Board took an informed decision and asked the French government to regulate jet ski traffic in the Molène archipelago. Given the irrefutable nature of the assessment, based on the knowledge acquired by the Park, the French government has decided to ban Jet Skiing in the archipelago.

From the execution of the participatory mapping and creation of medium term planning, it’s required to have short term follow up action plans such as:

1. Making the union of farmers, village owned company (Pondok Lada), research group is legally recognized both locally and nationally,

2. Support annual strategies that based on medium term planning, such as:

a. Farmers union is to increase the annual harvest volume, not expand their agriculture in water source protection area, using organic pesticide and fertilizer, grading pepper berries to be sold to the company, Pondok Lada.

b. The company buy graded pepper berries with the fair price that is disscussion with farmers union, producing post harvest product as a instant product, gradually transform to eco-packaging to reduce the impact of plastic waste.

c. Research group to teach how to grade pepper with global standard, teaching how to integrate each type of farming (pepper, fishery) by supplying each other nutrition.

This annual planning that is arranged by village has to be synchronized to district and national medium and long term planning in order to have better support from the government.

The Advisory Council serves as a vehicle to escalate up to the Commission local experiences and evidence of the benefits of ecosystem based adaptation. To address adaptation challenges, it is governed by several criteria, among them: identify and reduce the vulnerability of society and ecosystems; consider climate change scenarios in territorial planning; study and strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of natural and human systems; take advantage of opportunities generated by new climatic conditions and; promote food security, productivity and ecosystem conservation. To facilitate the consideration of technical matters, the Council established 4 Working Groups, the last one being that for Adaptation. This latter Group hopes to consolidate a space for exchanges and multidisciplinary synergies, where its members can advocate for EbA. The Council's contribution to governance for adaptation will depend on the mechanisms it is able to facilitate for the integration of grassroots and civil society organizations (ejidos). If it also adopted a basin-wide approach to territorial management, and collaborated with the other Working Groups, it could build an even more collegial, ecosystemic and resilient governance model.

The Climate Change State System is the permanent mechanism for communication and coordination of State entities and municipalities on climate change policies. It members are: Climate Change Inter-Secretariat Coordination Commission (CCISCC), Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC), State Secretary of Environment, federal delegations, mayors and state Congress.The CCISC is in charge of developing the adaptation and mitigation policies against climate change in the State of Chiapas and the CCAC is the permanent consultative body. Although the CCAC was established in 2014, it was inoperative, leaving a gap in the promotion of public participation in the formulation and implementation of CC policies.

IUCN conducted an analysis and interviews to identify the reasons behind it, which were: 1) lack of time due to the honorific (non-paid) basis of the Counsellor and 2) lack of an Internal Regulations with rules on removal from office due to prolonged absence. Counsellor lasts 3 years in office, thus IUCN and the State Secretariat of Environment used the momentum in 2017 to promote the appointment of new Counsellors by the CCISCC president and the elaboration of its Internal Regulation. They also made sure to include a Working Group on Adaptation.

There are several governance challenges in río Paz, such as institutional weak presence and weak institutional coordination which drives to the mismanagement of the river and the coastal ecosystems.

IUCN,  UNES and local communities  proposed a buiding block to ensure the full implementation of the solution. The process implies strenthening and articulation of governance local structurers by:

- identification of leaders

- social awareness

- consolidation of local groups such as the Istatén Association, the Aguacate Microbasin Committee, women's groups and water boards.

Governance structures develop integral operative working plans, that respond to local needs and improve socio-political and advocacy capacities. The advocacy seeks to (i) persuade the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) to establish sanctions for those who incur in prohibited fishing practices, and to demand greater responsibility in the use of water and management of liquid waste by the sugar industry; and (ii) request the Ministry of Agriculture (MAG) to monitor the water use of this industry (i.e. the permits extended) and to introduce water rates that are proportional to the volume used. The case has already been brought forth to the Environmental Court and is waiting for a resolution.