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Climate Change Adaptation in Developed Nations pp 423–438Cite as

Coordinating Environmental Protection and Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Resource-Dependent Communities: A Case Study from the Tibetan Plateau

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Part of the book series: Advances in Global Change Research ((AGLO,volume 42))

Abstract

Resource-dependent communities are likely to be disproportionately affected by climate change. Yet, natural resource management policies continue to be developed and implemented without considering climate change adaptation. We highlight that this lack of coordination is potentially harmful to natural resources and resource-dependent communities with an example from the Tibetan Plateau, a region where climate is changing rapidly. Tibetan pastoralists inhabit rangelands that are the focus of recent development and management policies that promote fencing, sedentarization, individual rangeland use rights, and the elimination of grazing in some areas. These policies may have a negative effect on herders’ ability to adapt to climate change. China’s National Climate Change Programme lists controlling or eliminating grazing in some areas as key for adaptation to climate change, but experimental results indicate that grazing may buffer the rangelands from the negative effects of warming. These findings indicate that policies that support the well-developed strategies of resource-dependent communities for living in uncertain and variable environments can also enhance adaptation of these social and ecological systems to climate change. We conclude that management and environmental protection policies developed separately from climate change policy face increased failure potential and may decrease the ability of natural resources and the communities that depend upon them to successfully adapt to climate change.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Stewardship, College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Campus Delivery 1472, Fort Collins, CO, 80523–1472, USA

    Julia A. Klein, Joseph Bump & Kelly Hopping

  2. Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Emily Yeh & Yonten Nyima

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  1. Julia A. Klein
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  2. Emily Yeh
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  3. Joseph Bump
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  4. Yonten Nyima
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  5. Kelly Hopping
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Correspondence to Julia A. Klein .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Geography, McGill University, Sherbrooke Street West 805, Montreal, H3A 2R6, Québec, Canada

    James D. Ford

  2. , Department of Geography, McGill University, Sherbrooke Street West 805, Montreal, H3A 2R6, Québec, Canada

    Lea Berrang-Ford

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Klein, J.A., Yeh, E., Bump, J., Nyima, Y., Hopping, K. (2011). Coordinating Environmental Protection and Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Resource-Dependent Communities: A Case Study from the Tibetan Plateau. In: Ford, J., Berrang-Ford, L. (eds) Climate Change Adaptation in Developed Nations. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 42. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0567-8_31

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