Climate change is one of the potent challenges facing smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa in the recent past owing to the pattern and magnitude with which it presents the extreme events such as floods and drought.
Many commentators attest to a paradigm shift in biodiversity conservation, away from exclusive protected areas towards more people-centred or community-based conservation. This has been referred to as ‘new conservation’. However, new conservation could be thought of as an attempt to re-label and re-package conservation and to ‘get people on board’ existing strategies.
Effective responses to climate change require innovation. ► The concept of social innovation highlights collective action in local climate adaptation. ► Institutional and technological aspects of climate adaptation are inextricably interlinked. ► Individuals adapt and practice innovation through complex interactions between institutions and actors at multiple scales.