03 how to do rural community adjustment? 16 work orientations for ── to build community resilience

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(by Phil Newell) / Ke Yazhi (project researcher, Rural Development Foundation, a consortium)

To control the rise in global temperatures, "mitigation" greenhouse gas emissions is a top priority. However, while struggling to stop this stalled train of climate change and environmental change, how we, as passengers, should protect ourselves, can "reduce harm" and even "expand opportunities" is an important part of the "adaptation" action.

Adjust not only emergency response, but also maintain long-term resilience

Adjustment strategies can be divided into two types: "reactive" and "preventive". "responsiveness" adjusts to the impact of disasters that may be caused by extreme weather, preparing communities for how to respond in an emergency to reduce the severity of losses. The National Science and Technology Center for disaster Prevention and Rescue, which has promoted the concept of "community disaster prevention" for many years, has established a set of working methods for communities to carry out environmental diagnosis, resource inventory, manpower organization for prevention and relief, evacuation planning and drills, which is an important part of "reactive" adjustment.

In the face of the long-term and non-urgent impact of climate change, "preventive" adjustment is needed to further prevent disasters from happening as far as possible. The Lishan initiative, with the core spirit of "sustainability", provides a thinking direction for "preventive" adjustment in rural areas. ── protects the environment and ecology, promotes local culture, promotes local social and economic growth, and strengthens the foundation of the community. in fact, it coincides with the concept of "resilience."

Professor Chen Mei-hui of the Department of Forestry at Pingtung University of Science and Technology also points out that through the mutual support of the self-sufficiency system and the sharing system within the community, the community is not afraid of climate and environmental changes and can still maintain a safe life.

In the three-fold method of the Li Shan initiative summarized by UNU-IAS, the five key actions not only emphasize the importance of natural resources and local cultural preservation, but also pay attention to social interaction and economic development (data source: forest Bureau Natural Conservation Network) combined with self-care system and interactive response mechanism to build the ability of community self-adjustment.

The impact of climate change in rural areas in terms of industrial livelihood and household security needs to be dealt with through the adjustment of the original model or the strengthening of the basic service function of the community. Therefore, the adjustment of rural communities, combining the concepts of the above-mentioned community disaster prevention and Lishan initiative, can be divided into the following two main axes: first, the "self-care system" ── promotes the community to improve its own living functions; second, the "interaction and response mechanism" ── establishes a model of social support and exchange of information and knowledge inside and outside the community.

Under the two main axes, "industrial model adjustment" and "hardware and software equipment for disaster prevention" are the most directly affected aspects of the community's life in the face of climate shocks, and they are also the work projects that can take the lead in dealing with them. These tasks do not exist independently of each other, and they overlap and connect with each other in operation, and they also need to be matched with each other in order to be effective. The following is a brief description of each content-oriented, and lists the relevant community operation cases as a reference.

Self-adjustment framework of climate change in rural communities (drawn in this study) self-care system

Compared with the dense urban power, water, transportation and other infrastructure, as well as convenient administrative organs, police elimination, medical care and other public service functions, the hardware construction and life service resources in rural areas are relatively insufficient. When extreme weather events impact existing rural patterns of life and destroy local infrastructure, can communities be prepared for backup programmes that will not affect their lives? At this time, if there is a system of self-sufficiency and community mutual assistance and sharing within the community, the basic living function of the community can be maintained.

Gonglaoping Community, Fengyuan District, Taichung City, set up agricultural ponds to store water to solve the local drought problem, and planned a set of community water resources regulation mechanism (data source: agricultural knowledge entrance network) industrial model adjustment.

Climate change directly affects the environmental conditions of agriculture, forestry, fishery and animal husbandry. However, most rural community residents rely on primary industries as a major and single source of economy, and livelihoods for the whole year may also be problematic once yields are affected by climate. In addition to natural disasters caused by extreme weather that may occur more frequently in the future, the long-term trend of climate change will also reshuffle the development of suitable agriculture and fisheries in various regions, and the industrial model used to in the past is bound to be adjusted to varying degrees in the light of environmental conditions.