Extended deadline call for presentations NVAS Africa day 2018: Responding to climate change in Africa

The NVAS Africa Day 2018 will take place on 20 October and is co-organised with the World Wildlife Fund Netherlands (WNF). The conference will take place in the WWF Netherlands head office in Zeist.

 

Indeed, ‘no continent will be struck as severely by the impacts of climate change as Africa’, the United Nations Environment Program states. Africa is often characterized as a generally poor continent with many disaster prone areas due to its geographical location. The increasing frequency of (natural) disasters has been taken by some as evidence of the assumed limited adaptive capacity when it comes to mediating the impacts of climate change. The fact that many Africans depend on (rain-fed) subsistence agriculture to survive, further exacerbates this image of a passive, disaster struck continent, that is unable to respond to climate change. Yet, frugal (technological) innovations, such as weather stations, are mushrooming and most of the energy produced on the continent comes from renewable sources. Also, conservationists increasingly design and apply climate-adaptation in conservation planning. In addition, migration, urbanization and the growing urban youth bulge hold many promises for future responses to the effects of climate change, while rural livelihood strategies have always already been adapted to climate variability.

 

Four panels will be organised:

Panel 2: Rural communities and livelihoods (Professor Marja Spierenburg – Radboud University)

Panel 3: Urban sustainability and migration (Professor Ton Dietz – Leiden University)

Panel 4: Nature conservation (Dr. Nikhil Advani – WWF-US)

Read more about the panels and how to submit presentations on the NVAS website.