Ecosystems and Natural Resource Management
Community-driven natural resource management builds resilience by restoring degraded agricultural land and mitigating effects of climate and weather shocks.

Natural resources are an essential part of reducing threats from drought, erosion, flooding, and tsunamis and storm surges. But they are threatened by increasing population, climate variability, and poor management. And natural resource environments are complex. New approaches are needed to address environments in the context of a broader systems approach.
Approach
Evaluations show how to mitigate the effects of climate change and strengthen resilience. One approach is through devolved responsibility for managing natural resources. Another is an agro-ecological approach that integrates natural resource management (NMR) with agriculture. This is called farmer-managed natural resource management (FMNR).
These practices improve soil health and productivity, reduce malnutrition, and strengthen capacities to cope with drought. They also reduce women’s burden for gathering wood and mitigate the impact of climate change through carbon sequestration. Integrating natural resource management and local governance has especially strong impacts on women’s empowerment.
Evidence
In Niger and Senegal, FMNR (and other community empowerment approaches to NRM) positively impacted land use and poverty reduction. In Niger, FMNR restored 5 million hectares of landscape threatened by severe desertification into productive agroforestry land. In Senegal, NRM partnerships between citizen working groups and local governments reduced poverty across 800,000 households.
Featured Resources
Resource
This brief examines what is required to integrate a resilience approach to Climate and Ecosystems-Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (CEDRR). This...
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This article examines the community response to Cyclone Haruna in Madagascar, and how this response was strengthened by a community-level population, health, and environment program in the affected regions.
Climate Change AdaptationHealthEvidence and AnalysisSocial CapitalEcosystems and Natural Resource ManagementMadagascar -
Event
In late 2018, the Climate Economic Analysis for Development, Investment, and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) ...
Climate Change AdaptationAgricultureEcosystems and Natural Resource ManagementEthiopiaKenya -
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This brief examines what is required to integrate a resilience approach to Climate and Ecosystems-Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (CEDRR). This approach to promoting climate and environmental sensitivity, risk reduction, and resilience capacity-building works best when applied equally to...
Climate Change AdaptationEcosystems and Natural Resource Management -
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The evidence, and the resulting discussion, presented during the 2017 Resilience Evidence Forum — hosted in Washington D.C. by the USAID Center for Resilience — are presented in the Resilience Evidence Forum Report.
Conflict and FragilityUrban ContextCollaboration and Collective ImpactValue for MoneySustainable Poverty EscapesDiversify Livelihood RisksSocial ProtectionGraduationSocial CapitalFinancial InclusionHuman CapitalAspirationsGender EquitySocial InclusionEcosystems and Natural Resource Management -
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Conservation agriculture is widely viewed as an important strategy for maintaining healthy soils and improving long-term agricultural productivity, but also has the potential to help in managing waterways that generate a region’s hydropower. However, the adoption of conservation agriculture...
Ecosystems and Natural Resource Management -
Training
Improve the results of your development work by building your skills in collaborating, learning and adapting (CLA)—USAID's approach to organizational learning and adaptive management in the Program Cycle. Particularly useful for those new to CLA, this introductory, online course will introduce...
Collaboration and Collective ImpactSocial CapitalAspirationsEcosystems and Natural Resource Management