Facilitating a dialogue on climate change in Venezuela

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Bringing together different perspectives for climate change planning for the Parque Nacional Canaima

September 13, 2016

This project aims to engage government authorities, scientists and Indigenous leaders to integrate community owned solutions for mitigating and adapting to climate change in the Parque Nacional Canaima, Venezuela

As a post Paris agreement, the UK set the objective to support the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s), which are put into practice through mitigation and adaptation plans. The role of science research in each country in modelling these plans is vital, as is supporting Venezuela’s lead science institution, namely Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC), in its task as advisor of climate change plans, as well as in fulfilling its responsibilities to the United Nations IPCC.

As much as 17-34% of the global greenhouse gas cuts required by 2030 could be achieved by halting and reversing tropical deforestation. Indigenous lands are increasingly recognised by the United Nations Environment Programme and global climate change scientists, to significantly contribute to maintaining carbon stocks and enhancing biodiversity. Although national programs in Venezuela have promoted research on Indigenous traditional knowledge, there still exists a gap between policy and practical integrated plans. This is primarily as a result of a lack of cultural understandings and modes of communication between Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives.

In this context, we aim to engage Venezuelan government authorities, scientists and Indigenous leaders to integrate community owned solutions for mitigating and adapting to climate change in the Parque Nacional Canaima into national plans. The Parque Nacional Canaima is located in the Caroní Basin, and is critical as it produces 80% of Venezuela’s electricity and contains the majority of standing forest. We will explore how different climate change scenarios will affect current community owned solutions, consider how existing national policies could support resilient strategies, and develop integrated action plans for local level climate change mitigation and adaptation.

This project is funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office through the British Embassy in Caracas and builds on previous collaboration between Universidad Simón Bolívar (Venezuela), Royal Holloway University of London and the Cobra Collective (UK).

Follow Jay Mistry:

Professor of Geography - Royal Holloway University of London

Jay has more than 22 years’ experience in teaching, researching and building capacity for natural resource management with local communities. Her particular interests include supporting local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation, local environmental governance, action research using participatory video and capacity building for natural resource management.