Governance options and responses for adaptation to climate change are new and must be constantly evolving; desicions and governance pklan need to be flexible; hence adaptation must move forward under a flexible approach. This is possible with the application of EbA measures with a "learning by doing" while using best available sicientific information on climate scenarios and informing policy local and national instruments.

Climate vulnerability in Esquichá was assessed using the CRiSTAL tool ( “Community-based Risk Screening Tool – Adaptation and Livelihoods.")

After a first planing of EbA activities, actions for integrating flexibility were:

• The periodic evaluation of field EbA actions and the adoption of short-term decisions
• Monitoring and evaluation results will be key to include important adjustments
• Inclusion of EbA measures in the Microbasin Management Plan
• Assessment of measures to inform the municipality Development Plan.
• Informing of results to competent authorities as the municipality of the Forest Institute (INAB). This has lead INAB to seek tools to improve the way incentives are assigned and to identify communities located in key water catchment areas.

Ecosystem-based adaptation and conservation of non-PAs is possible only in done at a landscape level. Multiiple stakeholders with varying interests and agendas co-exist and influence a landscape, including the communities that resides within them. It is critical to create consensus among these stakeholders. Getting stakeholders together requires a driving force - it can be an individual/ group /organisation/a set of organisations - they can be public/private or civil society. Working together especially if done with govt agencies helps create widespread impacts and ensure optimum utilization of resources (financial, time, human, common, physical). More often than not, interventions done on EbA/ conservation are done in isolation, do not achieve the devised outcomes and lead to failed investments. Working together reduces this risk. It gains further importance in a country like India with complex adminstrative structures and conflicting priorities among stakeholders. Working together leads to the pooling of resources, including knowledge and learning, essential for tackling the complexity of prevalent issues in landscapes like the KPC. "Working Together" is a value that RBSFI and other stakeholders have adopted through the PSC platform and it forms the basis of project success.

Farmer groups develop business and advanced marketing plans to guide their continued activities and farm and business growth. When we initially select farmers, we ensure they are a part of a farmers group, which enhances their power as sellers, as they can sell in bulk and work as a group to market crops.. In Kaffrine, Senegal and Singida, Tanzania, some of our farmers grow higher-value crops like Hibiscus, Cashew, and Sunflower:We build capacity of farmers to approach buyers in regional capitals  export quality crops . In Kenya, we work with a dairy cooperative to offset their cattle feed costs, and give them the opportunity to sell extra tree fodder they product to other cooperative members. Ownership of the project is fully transferred to the farmer groups. After graduation, farmer groups continue to support each other as a team in the on-going development and management of Forest Gardens and marketing of products.  

After the 4-year project, farmers are expected to continue their Forest Gardens, given the significant successes they have seen and training they have received.  In the future, TREES is hoping to follow-up with farmers after the program, however we do not yet have the capacity to continue monitoring farmers outside of the 4-year program.

Three types of data were particularly important in the design and promotion of the “Program for Earthquake-Resistant School Buildings”: school data, data on damages, and data on hazard risks. School data was collected by surveys and investigations conducted by FDMA and MEXT. A list of the surveys is indicated below.

One of the biggest instigators for developing and promoting school retrofitting is the past experiences of earthquakes. The 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake triggered the development of the program’s comprehensive guidelines, and the program gained momentum after the 2004 Chuetsu Earthquake and 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China which caused the collapse of 6,898 school buildings and 19,065 deaths of schoolchildren. This prompted MEXT officials to pass the revised Act on Special Measures for Earthquake Disaster Countermeasures, which supported additional national subsidies toward the school retrofitting and reconstruction program. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake prompted the program to give higher priority to nonstructural elements and highlighted the need for tsunami countermeasures and functional improvements of schools as evacuation centers. Learning from each disaster event and applying the lessons learned to the improvement of the systems has contributed to ensuring the seismic safety of public schools.

PNG is one of the most diverse places on Earth — a country with over 850 languages and numerous mountain ranges that have historically limited contact between clans. These clans traditionally manage their own land their own way. Yet over the past two decades, communities scattered across the Huon Peninsula have defied tradition, joining hands to create a community-based group that collectively manages what in 2009 became known as the YUS Conservation Area (YUS CA), the first legally protected area of its kind in PNG.  Stretching over 75,000 hectares, YUS encompasses cloud forest peaks towering 4,000 meters high, coral reef on the coast below and tropical rainforest in between. The YUS CA protects not only the Matschie’s tree kangaroo, TKCP’s flagship species, but also a host of threatened species, as well as critical habitat that local communities depend upon for subsistence agriculture, clean water and hunting.

The YUS Conservation Area is managed in partnership among TKCP, the YUS community and the PNG government. TKCP manages the YUS conservation ranger team and the Ecological Monitoring Program conducts community awareness-raising, mapping and facilitates the YUS Conservation Area Management Committee.

The long-term plan of OMY is embodied not merely by one private developer but jointly initiated by a group of public-private stakeholders across the local business districts. Indeed, the Council for Area Development and Management of OMY, being comprised of 68 landowners, 12 observers, and 8 special members in 2016, established the Advisory Committee on OMY Area Development in 1996 together with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Chiyoda Ward, and East Japan Railway Company. As the first area management initiative in the country, the Committee regularly updates the guidelines for redevelopment activities since 1998. These guidelines set out 8 development goals, key functions of zones, axes, and hubs, district design standards, and local operation rules for coordinating cityscape, networking public open spaces, and transferring FARs. Furthermore, the committee has introduced a variety of area management and place-making initiatives such as free loop bus service, car-free public spaces, establishment of a district-level association, and various city events.

Association Las Huacas has developed a Cooperative networking with different allies from private and public sectors. Partnership agreement with GEOGES C.Ltda. (environmental consultancy agency), wich has been interested into cooperate with ancient populations in order to preserve the culture and traditions, as well as to recover the optimal conditions for mangrove development and conservation.
The agreement brings to the association the technical capabilities of the Agency, in order to get the assistance to design- implement- and follow up of the management plan. The agreement has also served as a framework for cooperation at different levels – community, asociation – in order to enforce the organizational aspects of both institutions, as well as to propose and to develop alternative initiatives of production or self-employment, and the critical analysis of thrird parties cooperation initiatives.

Scientists, who have been monitoring the area before it was closed, estimate a 500% increase in biomass within the area since the closure. The area, previously covered with sea urchins, is now a thriving biodiversity hotspot with the balance restored. The elders report new species in the MPA that have not been seen in living memory. The coral, previously destroyed by human feet, has recovered quickly and the lagoon area is now known as one of the best snorkelling destinations on the Kenyan coast. Local and international students come and learn in our living marine classroom. Turtles feed on the seagrass beds undisturbed, and the number of nests has increased significantly. The area has returned from being a marine desert to a marine paradise and a critical model globally that shows how a poor community can help conserve nature and benefit from it too. Bigger and better catches outside the MPA has ensured support for the permanent closure.

Community recognition that action was needed to improve dwindling fish stocks was followed by the identification of various stakeholders to help us achieve our goals. Communication, outreach and awareness building programmes were set up and a visit to a similar project in Tanzania went ahead in 2004, and encouraged the community to use local marine resources sustainably.

A democratic decision to close an agreed lagoon area was agreed. Legal and policy frameworks were put in place, and the first LMMA in Kenya was approved in 2006 under the National Environmental Management Authority. Following this, a collaborative governance model has emerged under Beach Management Units (BMU's), where fishers and government work together towards sustainable fishing and improved livelihoods. In setting up the MPA, we went through various phases; conceptualisation; inception; implementation; monitoring; management and ongoing adaptive management.