Daniel Morchain's research while affiliated with The Nature Conservancy and other places

... An alternative framing offered by Hulme would focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is also recognized as important policy framing IPCC, (2018 In a similar vein, it is important that knowledge production in the Anthropocene not be narrowed. The Anthropocene arguably engenders an opening of climate science, consistent with transformations that advance plural knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge (Lam et al., 2020) and knowledge expansion or greater time, spatial, and social scales, rejecting technocratic closure (Few et al., 2017). If narrowing and limiting social and policy problems occurs, then there will be a narrowing of climate projects; if there is only tokenistic participation there is risk of mere "performative pathways". ...

... Underemphasis on culture in the 2017 Master Plan is furthermore not new and exists in previous versions of the document, as other research has noted that the State of Louisiana emphasised employing technical fixes to environmental change in the 2012 Master Plan (Gotham, 2016). The lack of socio-economic and cultural considerations present in the Master Plan neglects the importance of holistic, context-specific adaptation strategies which would support the inclusion of vulnerable populations and increase community resilience, equity, and justice (see Byskov et al., 2021;Coggins et al., 2021;Eriksen et al., 2015;Nightingale, 2014;Pelling & High, 2005;Ribot, 2011;Singh et al., 2022). ...

... The VRA methodology was developed by Oxfam to enable a range of stakeholders from different sectors and scales to gain a better understanding of a socio-ecological landscape and the communities that depend on it. 13 Through a participatory process, stakeholders identify and prioritise current and future vulnerabilities, risks, capacities and ambitions, while proactively proposing ways to move forward. The methodology aims to foster a sense of empowerment and collaboration among stakeholders. ...

... Based on a partial sampling of activities, the summative evaluation identified that CARIAA contributed to the development of over 20 local or national plans and strategies, and to over a dozen policies in 11 countries that now are using research and credible evidence for decision making (Lafontaine et al 2018). Meanwhile, programme staff compiled a list of over forty outcomes, including: piloting adaptation technologies such as flood-resistant housing, informing the Bangladesh delta plan 2100, enhancing the capacity for vulnerability and risk assessment at the district level in Botswana, identifying investments to improve climate-resilience in livestock value chains, and distinguishing the different impacts of +1.5C and +2C warming in hotspots (see Prakash et al. 2019). ...

... Several authors, however, provide more hopeful expositions of how researchers and consultants can center local knowledge in resilience research and interventions. Morchain et al. (2019), for example, illustrate how Oxfam's approach to assessing vulnerability and risk to climate impacts in the Global South provides a voice to otherwise marginalized groups and individuals through cross-scalar and cross-cultural collaboration. Other studies highlight the role of researchers in paving new ways to include local perspectives in resilience knowledge building, in particular through participation and co-development (Bremer et al., 2017;Grabowskia et al., 2019;Kmoch et al., 2018). ...

... Esto requiere cruzar las fronteras políticas nacionales y estatales, además de integrar el conocimiento en las disciplinas sociales, biofísicas, económicas y de ingeniería. Estas colaboraciones cientí cas transfronterizas y transdisciplinarias son sumamente complejas y desa antes (Cundill et al. 2018;Mathieu et al. 2019;Steger et al. 2021). Este artículo informa sobre un esfuerzo de investigación cientí ca colaborativa de seis años, nanciado por el Departamento de Agricultura de EE. ...

... Pelling (2011) argues for a more radical, progressive and political interpretation of climate change adaptation, contending that so far 'Adaptation has been framed in terms of identifying what is to be preserved and what is expendable, rather than what can be reformed or gained' (p. 1). While coping strategies and incremental adaptations are focused on altering current systems to accommodate future change, the kind of transformational adaptation that Pelling (2011) and others (see for example Abel et al., 2016;Few et al., 2017;O'Brien, 2012;Rickards and Howden, 2012) call for is in Fedele et al.'s (2019) words 'restructuring, path-shifting, innovative, multiscale, systemwide, and persistent' (p. 116). ...

... This is especially relevant in the selected study region of Pakistan's Punjab, where a substantial amount of the population engages in farming and agro-pastoral activities (Ishaq & Memon, 2016). The analysis of this study revealed climate vulnerabilities for both gender (men and women) and this was also indicated in world literature that climate change has gender differentiated vulnerabilities and impacts on communities (Babugura, 2010;Dankelman et al., 2008;Goh, 2012;Gurung et al., 2010;Habib et al., 2022;Morchain et al., 2015). Furthermore, the rain-fed context not only in Pakistan but across all Africa and Asia presenting this great diversity of environmental changes (Dasgupta et al., 2014). ...