The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply affected economic activities worldwide. The challenge for territories and companies has been how to cope with mobility restrictions. Even in the case of essential ...activities such as agri-food industries, the adaptation has been a challenging issue to deal with. The paper aims to show how the wine and olive oil industries in Spain have restructured their activities in order to respond to the confinement and the new normalcy, using new technologies as a strategic tool, but also making the most of new actions to keep their presence in the national and international markets. The research was carried out mostly through qualitative analysis, using the in-depth interview as a main tool to gain strategic information from managers of companies and local policymakers. Results show that when local policy makers and managers cooperate, despite the different perceptions they could have, the outcome is positive for facing competitive shocks and carving out new local initiatives, making firms and the territory itself more resilient.
This reprint presents a collection of twelve scientific articles that delve into the complex relationship between climate change and food security in various regions of the world. The articles ...examine the impact of climate change on crop production, water resources, and livestock farming, and they explore potential adaptive measures to mitigate the effects of climate change on food security. The articles cover a wide range of geographic locations, from Southeastern Poland to Central Ethiopia, Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Afghanistan, and Canada. Each article provides valuable insight into the impact of climate change on food security, including the potential link between drought and wild blueberry production in Maine, the use of geospatial assessments to guide climate adaptation strategies for flood-tolerant rice varieties in India, and the impact of non-conventional agricultural spaces on mitigating the effects of climate change on food security in Quebec, Canada. The authors also explore the impact of climate-smart agriculture interventions on food security and dietary diversity in Myanmar, as well as the determinants of smallholder livestock farmers' household resilience to food insecurity in South Africa. Additionally, the reprint includes a case study on water profitability analysis to improve food security and climate resilience in the Egyptian Nile Delta. Taken together, these articles provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of climate change on food security and highlight the need for innovative solutions to ensure sustainable food systems in the face of climate change.
Purpose
Understanding bottom-up approaches including local coping mechanisms, recognizing them and strengthening community capacities is important in the process of disaster risk reduction. The ...purpose of this paper is to address the questions: to what extent existing disaster policies in Nepal support and enable community-based disaster resilience? and what challenges and prospects do the communities have in responding to disaster risk for making communities resilient?
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on policy and academic literature reviews complimented by field research in two communities, one in Shankhu, Kathmandu district and another in Satthighare, Kavrepalanchowk district in Nepal. The author conducted in-depth interviews and mapped out key disaster-related policies of Nepal to investigate the role of communities in disaster risk management and post-disaster activities and their recognition in disaster-related policies.
Findings
The author found that existing literature clearly identifies the importance of the community led initiatives in risks reduction and management. It is evolutionary phenomenon, which has already been piloted in history including in the aftermath of Nepal earthquake 2015 yet existing policies of Nepal do not clearly identify it as an important component by providing details of how communities can be better engaged in the immediate aftermath of disaster occurrence.
Research limitations/implications
The author conducted this research based on data from two earthquake affected areas only. The author believes that this research can still play an important role as representative study.
Practical implications
The practical implication of this research is that communities need to understand about risks society for disaster preparedness, mitigation and timely response in the aftermath of disasters. As they are the first responders against the disasters, they also need trainings such as disaster drills such as earthquakes, floods and fire and mock practice of various early warning systems can be conducted by local governments to prepare these communities better to reduce disaster risk and casualties.
Social implications
The mantra of community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) is community engagement, which means the involvement of local people to understand and prepare against their local hazards and risks associated with disaster and haphazard development. CBDRM approaches motivate people to work together because they feel a sense of belongingness to their communities and recognize the benefits of their involvement in disaster mitigation and preparedness. Clearly, community engagement for disaster risk reduction and management brings great benefits in terms of ownership and direct savings in losses from disasters because the dynamic process allows community to contribute and interchange ideas and activities for inclusive decision making and problem solving.
Originality/value
This research is based on both primary and secondary data and original in case of its findings and conclusion.
Des initiatives pédagogiques destinées à développer chez les jeunes la capacité de s’engager pour une cause ont progressivement été mises en place en Suède. Cette visée de l’enseignement est ancrée ...dans un cadre théorique, formulé dans l’ouvrage Skolan och den radikala estetiken L’école et l’esthétique radicale (Persson et Thavenius, 2003), qui fait la liaison entre l’engagement et des processus d’apprentissage esthétiques. L’application pratique de ces idées est opérationnalisée à travers des structures poreuses de l’éducation en Suède, qui permettent une écoute de la parole des jeunes et un dialogue critique entre l’école et d’autres domaines de la société. Enfin, la présentation du projet Normstorm « tempête des normes », qui implique des collégiens et des lycéens, illustre la manière dont l’engagement et l’esthétique sont combinés.
To drastically reduce CO2 emissions and to combat seismic activities, the Dutch government has started down the path towards sustainable heat. This is a major challenge, as 90% of all households must ...be disconnected from the gas grid. The responsibilities and roles of homeowners and tenants in this transition may differ, which makes it interesting to compare their perceptions. Using a mixed-methods approach, we conducted four focus groups (n = 24) and a survey (n = 1245) in a subsidized and an unsubsidized neighbourhood to explore differences in perceptions of the transition between homeowners and tenants, and the influence of the local context in this regard. Our research shows that homeowners and tenants consider similar themes to be important in the transition towards sustainable heat (focus groups) and that their acceptance of the transition is related to similar predictors, including environmental concerns and trust in the municipality and the civil neighbourhood council (survey). However, the perceptions of these variables differ between homeowners and tenants (survey). Homeowners are less positive about becoming natural gas free, have a stronger wish to be engaged in the transition, are more interested in its various aspects, and have more knowledge about the transition than tenants. Although both groups regard the municipality as the primarily responsible actor in the transition, tenants see the housing corporation as the responsible actor for adjusting their homes and homeowners feel responsible themselves, but doubt whether they have the ability to do so.
Nowadays budgetary funds still prevail among sources of financing of the projects in the area of increasing the energy efficiency of the regional economy in the Russian Federation. For example, in ...the Tver region in 2016, 82% of the projects for the modernization of the heat supply infrastructure and 100% for the modernization of the electricity supply infrastructure were implemented at the expense of the budget. At the same time, there is a decrease in the total amount of state financing of energy efficiency projects due to a high proportion of the budget deficit of the subjects of the Russian Federation. According to the agency ACRA (information dated April, 12, 2017 at www.acra-ratings.ru), 58 out of 85 regional budgets for 2017 were accepted with a total deficit of 193 billion rubles. At the same time, the urgency of applying organizational and financial mechanisms for the implementation of energy efficient projects involving alternative financing is growing. The article systematizes the views on the perspective mechanisms for implementing projects in the field of increasing the energy efficiency of the regional economy, including taking into account the analysis of problems of their application in the example of the Tver region. The authors studied existing organizational and financial mechanisms for energy-efficient projects, including public private and municipal private partnerships, and the Local Initiatives Support Program.
Amazonas and San Martin are two of the most densely populated regions in rural Peru and have some of the highest deforestation rates in the country. They are also home to many threatened and endemic ...species and are considered a high priority for conservation. Under Peruvian law individuals and community groups can create private conservation areas and conservation concessions, and we evaluated the successes and challenges experienced in the creation and management of such areas, using direct observation, questionnaires and key-informant interviews. Our results show that far from being a problem for conservation many rural communities are actively promoting or participating in conservation initiatives on a local scale with landscape-level impacts. These initiatives include land protection, hunting control and reduced deforestation, thus providing effective solutions to threats. The main obstacles we identified in relation to such campesino (peasant farmer) conservation initiatives were the lack of access to support from governmental and non-governmental institutions and to economic resources to fund the extensive bureaucratic processes of registering protected areas. Many campesino communities bypass these restrictions through informal conservation initiatives.
This paper uses research conducted in Swiss post-war high-rise estates to focus on policies and practices of community building in neighbourhoods with an increasingly diverse population. Initially, ...the estates were mainly populated by Swiss and Southern European lower to middle income families, but latterly the household structures have become very heterogeneous with residents coming from all over the world. The planning and development policies of the estates are based on specific ideas about creating a community, which are still evident in the building and management of community centres but also in various facilities for common use (playgrounds, football and sport fields, community rooms and kitchens, libraries, petting zoos, cafés, crafts rooms, etc.). The community centres, along with community work, are key to encouraging encounters, connecting people and activating cultural life in the neighbourhoods and have played a pioneering role far beyond the boundaries of their respective estates. However, individualisation and pluralisation processes, the aging of the facilities and built structures, and economic pressures pose challenges for the community centres. The current Covid-19 crisis reinforces these challenges by limiting and impeding cultural activities and direct (physical) social encounters. The paper analyses the potential and the challenges of community building in the context of growing diversity among residents, and acknowledges what we can learn from these experiences when thinking about creating and strengthening communities in a multi-faceted world today.
Local initiatives in the energy climate field have gained importance, visibility and support in many countries. Political agendas have been flagging localism as a key to success for energy ...transitions. While encouraging the involvement of multiple constituencies in energy transition processes on various scales, policy frameworks have been evolved to increasingly mirror a neoliberal agenda, relying on business models and the construction of new markets. The composition of and the direction taken by energy transition processes under such a new configuration, as well as their implications as regards to social justice and sustainability on various scales, still have to be analysed. The special issue explores these questions, as well as the multiple entanglements of local climate energy initiatives, based on a few longitudinal case studies.
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