Approach

TroFCCA will not follow the traditional approach of climate change studies which were limited to the assessment of direct impacts of climate change over a defined system. Instead, this project will put forest ecosystems in the context of development policies. The assessment of vulnerability will, therefore, be directed at specific areas of development policy identified jointly by the project team and national actors (primarily government representatives, national research institutions and the private sector).

More specifically, the activities of TroFCCA will be directed at understanding how climate change impacts on forests may hinder development in the identified areas. To do this, the team will assess how climate change is likely to affect the provision of goods and services that support or contribute to specific development priorities.

TroFCCA believes that adaptation should be addressed in the context of sustainable development and related policies. For this reason, the project will have as a starting point the development priorities and policies in which forest ecosystems play a role either as adaptation options (e.g. how forests can contribute to reducing vulnerability) or as components of the vulnerability (e.g. how impacts on forests can undermine development efforts).

Box 1. Key areas/topics of work

To ensure the relevance of TroFCCA the project will have activities that will:

• Evaluate the impacts of climate change and climate variability on tropical forest ecosystems in selected sites.
• Develop and test a set of methods for the assessment of vulnerability of relevant development topics resulting from impacts of climate change over forest ecosystems.

Adaptation policy to climate change as part of development policy

This strategy takes into consideration the perspectives of policy actors beyond adaptation. It requires strengthening the policy-science dialogue through consultation, a process that will lead to the identification of the most important development issues for TroFCCA to focus on. Furthermore, departing from development norms is critical if we wish to mainstream adaptation into development policies.

Emphasis is on vulnerability assessment, not on impacts

The approach will allow an understanding of the system and its vulnerability in relation to climate. While the assessment of impacts is an important component of the work, it is not the focus. The assessment will focus on society and its dependence on forest ecosystems. Development of criteria and indicators of vulnerability to current and future climate change and climate variability will be developed given their policy relevance.

Landscape level focus

Forest patches in the context of landscape will be an important focus during the assessment of vulnerability. Adaptation strategies will be explored at the landscape level, recognizing the role of landscape heterogeneity in providing many environmental goods and services and the role of a variety of stakeholders, at multiple scales, in management.

Cross cutting interests

As cross-cutting interests, TroFCCA shall consider exploring the potential for innovative mechanisms to finance adaptation activities and compensate eventual trade-offs as a way to achieve sustainability of adaptation strategies.

In addition, the potential for synergy between international agreements like UNFCCC and CBD will be tested by developing methods for assessing the vulnerability of carbon storage and sequestration and biodiversity as services provided by forests.