4.3.3.4. Adaptation and Vulnerability
Agriculture is an intrinsically adaptive activity. Farming in the region is
highly decentralized, technologically well-supported, and market-responsive
and routinely deals with variability on a variety of time scales, arising from
climatic, biological, and market factors. Operational decisions on the variety
of crop and animal options are made annually or more frequently; structural
investment decisions on the farm or orchard, and at processing plants, have
a currency of a decade or so. Although adjusting production systems to changing
climate will not be without cost and will require systematic awareness-raising
and information dissemination (Stafford Smith et al., 1994), it is very likely
to be a smaller and slower influence than changes arising from markets, prices,
and technology. Furthermore, gains in production in some areas may offset or
even exceed costs.
Adaptation options include plant breeding and cultivar choice, adjustment of
planting times to realign thermal and vernalization requirements, changes in
crop sequences, improved soil management, diversification of crops, adoption
of sustainable farming methods, monitoring and prediction of seasonal climate
and associated crop and pasture/livestock modeling, and regional monitoring
and management of drought (Gifford et al., 1996b). Adaptation strategies will
need to go hand in hand with mitigation strategies to reduce farm system emissions
of greenhouse gases where there may be significant opportunities to act as a
carbon sink (Ash et al., 1996) or reduce methane emissions (Howden et al., 1994).
In rangeland agriculture, more flexible management responses to enable adjustment
to fluctuating forage supplies would be required if there were changes in the
frequency or intensity of extreme events (McKeon et al., 1993). The resulting
land-use change may have considerable regional socioeconomic impacts-as well
as raising issues relating to sustainable use of land and water resources. Approaches
to soil erosion control, pest animal management, weed control, and tree-clearing
may have to be adjusted as climate changes. Seasonal to interannual climate
prediction, particularly of rainfall in the ENSO-affected agricultural areas,
is an adaptation option that offers increasing potential to manage climate variability.
Existing trends of diversification and specialization also provide a basis
for the development of adaptation strategies (Stafford Smith et al., 1994).
Many potential adaptation options already will exist in particular farming systems
or particular localities, but their widespread use may require further research
and coordination at different scales, from land managers to governments (McKeon
et al., 1993). Adaptations involving changes to crop types, farming systems,
and adjacent ecosystems may change vulnerability to biological risks; such risks
also may be minimized by the introduction of less vulnerable species or increased
diversification in farming systems.
The existing diversity of uses of Aboriginal land will provide resilience in
coping with change, though some traditional management approaches such as the
use of fire and harvesting of native foods may need to be modified. There will
be a need to develop awareness of climate change among Aboriginal managers,
and to learn from the traditional Aboriginal management, which has survived
past climatic changes (Stafford Smith et al., 1994).
Recent policy changes by the region's governments have shifted a greater part
of the responsibility for agricultural risk management to farmers and the private
sector. This shift was effected partly to cut the cost and overheads of government
payouts to farming communities during droughts and other weather-related disasters
and partly to promote more economically and environmentally rational decisions
in land use and farm investment; the goal was to encourage decisions that properly
account for the long-run risks involved. Although this approach is sound in
principle and should improve outcomes over the medium term, there probably will
be many individual farmers who will be unable to appraise, cost, or insure against
a widespread very extreme event, an increased frequency of extreme events, or
the generally uncertain effects of climate change. These risks inevitably become
shared by the whole community and so remain a responsibility for community cooperation
and government leadership. Few farmers in the region make use of commercial
crop insurance.
The capacity of the region's agricultural industry to adapt to climate change
will depend on the magnitude of change and hence the time frame. Over the next
few decades-when the warming will be relatively small and the rainfall perhaps
little changed-adaptation techniques are likely to be sufficient to cope without
great consequences, and vulnerability will be small. However, as the time horizon
extends and the climate changes become larger, there is likely to be a trend
toward reduced production and increasing aridity in many areas (mainly in Australia).
The greatest vulnerability appears to lie in the context of this long-term outlook,
in the uncertainty of possible changes in rainfall associated with synoptic
weather patterns and the ENSO phenomenon, and in possible external market responses
and biological risks.
The forestry industry has some degree of vulnerability to climate change but
may also gain from productivity increases. Greater attention to forest management-particularly
with respect to seedling establishment, soils, fire risk, and disease-may be
a required adaptation. In exotic production forestry, the multidecadal crop
cycle is still sufficiently short to allow some adaptation through choice of
species and of areas for planting.
The principal adaptation option for all categories of fisheries is integrated
management through international and national mechanisms as appropriate and
including consideration of habitat and all life-cycle stages. The greatest vulnerability
is expected for freshwater fisheries generally-owing to direct temperature and
hydrological effects and limited adaptation possibilities in the confines of
rivers and lakes-and for fisheries dependent on estuaries and mangroves that
may become subject to sea-level rise, flooding, and pollution by organisms,
chemicals, and sediment from runoff (IPCC 1996, WG II, Chapter 16).
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