Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

The pandemic has demonstrated how human health and environmental health are intertwined. Eco-system based strategies combine ‘natural resource management approaches and disaster risk reduction methods (e.g. early warning systems)’ to improve prevention and preparedness, reduce disaster impacts on communities and support recovery from disasters. Local governments can identify ecosystems and increase understanding of their potential role in reducing disaster impacts (e.g. coastal wetlands/floodplains) and their ‘contribution to climate change mitigation and adaption’. In India, ‘Wetlands International’ works with civil society partners and communities on strategies to reduce disaster risk, e.g. restoring wetlands so that they can act as a natural buffer to floods. Consider:

• Update and collate information on local natural areas (e.g. peatlands/wet grasslands) and their current and potential uses for climate change mitigation
• Assess the condition of local eco-systems to determine if actions are required to restore them as degraded environments can drive disaster risk and negatively impact recovery efforts
• When designing community development plans, ensure they consider the potential negative effects on local natural resources
• In Myanmar, a local-level disaster risk reduction policy and planning framework sets out how communities follow ‘structural (resilient infrastructure/homes), non-structural (land use planning that integrates ecosystem protection measures) and ecosystem-based (natural resource management) measures, at the household and community level’, to reduce disaster risk
• Develop solutions to address current and future environmental risks, such as maintenance of green and blue infrastructure through nature-based solutions or protection of the ecosystems (e.g. forest conservation)
• Protect and restore ecosystems to the extent that they offer sufficient adaption and mitigation benefits to current and future risks