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Participatory 3D modeling for community-based climate change adaptation in BoeBoe community, Choiseul, Solomon Islands.

In the Solomon Islands, the BoeBoe community is utilizing a participatory 3D modeling tool to help spur discussions on possible climate change issues.
man standing over 3D model

This video has kindly been released with the approval of the BoeBoe community. It shows some of the process and learning through the participatory 3D modeling activity carried out in BoeBoe village, Solomon Islands. It shows how the community came together and how the model acted as a focus, a catalyst for discussion on possible climate change issues. It shows how the tool allowed all members of the community to interact and contribute to a living picture of their lands and resources. It also highlights how the tool allowed external data, science and information to be assimilated into local perception, knowledge and understanding of the landscape.

Thanks to all who participated in the event, and in the film, especially to chief David for allowing the video to be made and shared publicly.

The team, led by Kenn Mondiai of Partners With Melanesians, and the Solomon Islands’ TNC staff and local partners, were able to hand over a vibrant, illustrated, ‘living’ and accurately-scaled model of the community customary lands and waters, at a ceremony involving Boe Boe village and neighboring communities.

The model took teams of students and volunteers 3 days to build, and then community members added the detail – from their own houses, their gardens, their route through the mangroves, forest paths, conservation areas, and anything else they reckoned important to note.

At the same time, climate vulnerability and adaptive capacity surveys with households, led by Esther Ririmae and Gideon Solo, and follow-up work by the team with community members on a range of key issues, allowed the modeling exercise to focus on community perspectives of climate change impacts, and the villagers’ collective ability to respond to these and other development pressures.

Of real interest, digital and ‘scientific’ modeling provided by TNC GIS folks (Nate Peterson, Seno Mauli) and Javier Leon of University of Wollongong, was seamlessly integrated into the mapping exercise and gave the community additional perspectives on their local knowledge, to aid decision-making.

The exercise has given all those involved, and all the partners in the Australian Government / AusAID supported project ‘Building the Resilience of Communities and their Ecosystems to the Impacts of Climate Change’, a chance to explore how local communities can assess potential climate impacts, be aware of their own capacities and vulnerabilities, and make decisions going forward.

Please find the attached initial write-up of the activity in the ‘files’ section at this link http://community.eld… , along with some resources on conducting P3DM. More detailed reports will follow from Partners With Melanesians and other papers on the lessons learned from the exercise.

The guru of P3DM, Giacomo Rambaldi, based at the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation (CTA) in the Netherlands, has worked with both Kenn and myself before on the tool, and has an online resource kit available at http://pgis-tk-en.ct.

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