The Ecosystems and Livelihoods Adaptation Network (ELAN) was initiated in 2009 as a partnership between IUCN and WWF, thanks to the generous financial support from the MacArthur Foundation. In 2010, CARE International joined as a core member to enhance the Network’s integrated environmental and development focus. The development and livelihoods focus was further enhanced by the addition of the International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED) as a fourth core member in February 2011.
ELAN is founded on a need for shared experiences, further research and increased capacity to implement innovative and practical ecosystem and livelihood solutions to adaptation and risk reduction. A key objective of ELAN is to enhance resilience of poor and marginalized people to the impacts of climate change by integrating ecosystem and right-based approaches into adaptation policies and practices.
A main message is the need to foster integrated adaptation that recognizes the dependencies of communities on their local environment. ELAN, therefore, seeks to enhance existing climate change networks and communities of practice around the combined role that sound ecosystem management and people-centred approaches can play in adaptation. More specifically, ELAN is linking social scientists and ecologists, conservation and development practitioners, and policymakers at all levels and is improving access to the best available climate adaptation science. ELAN is also working with these networks and communities of practice to generate and share knowledge on “how to” better integrate ecosystem and right-based adaptation efforts.
Our understanding about the interplay between ecosystem and right-based people-centred approaches to adaptation is still incomplete, scattered, and often difficult to access by practitioners and policy makers. To date, the lack of peer-reviewed literature on this subject and common misunderstandings of concepts such as community-based adaptation and ecosystem-based adaptation are presenting challenges for promoting this approach. Responding to this challenge, the four ELAN partners are jointly preparing a position paper to establish the foundation of such an “integrated approach” and to investigate misconceptions within both the development and environmental communities
(Tamara Plus - CARE International in Vietnam. Source: http://www.careclimatechange.org/adaptation-initiatives/elan [2])