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Ecosystem Based Adaptation Activities to
Climate Change for Sustainable Agriculture
representative of this perception (UNFCCC, 2011). Adoption of Ecosystem
Based Adaptation (EBA) approach constitutes a multi-purpose instrument
that reinforces the means of livelihood, as well as ensure the sustainability of
them. In the agricultural sector, EBA is defined as agricultural management
practices that help to increase the ability of agricultural products or living
animals to adapt to the effects of climate change by using or benefiting
from biodiversity, ecosystem services or processes, while maintaining basic
ecosystem services (UNFCCC, 2011).
The concept of EBA is based on the close connection between the health
of ecosystems and people’s adaptation capacities in human-environmental
interaction, or socio-ecological systems. The concept represents the
interdependence of healthy ecosystems and human well-being, and that the
adaptation capacity and flexibility of human society are linked to the provision
of ecosystem services in this dependence (UNFCCC, 2011). In other words,
human crises may not always result in environmental crises while environmental
crises almost always result in humanitarian crises (WWF, 2013).
Ecosystem-Based Adaptation covers agricultural management practices
that benefit from biological diversity, ecosystem services, processes that will
increase the ability of crops and livestock to adapt to climate change and
variability while performing ecosystem functions in the agricultural sector at
many levels (such as field, farm, landscape, ecosystem level).
1. Ecosystem and Ecosystem Services
None of the living creatures can live alone. They interact with living and
non-living beings in order to meet their reproductive and nutritional needs
(Hacettepe University, 2018).
According to Lo, (2016), ”ecosystem-based adaptation is the use of
biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an entire adaptation strategy
that will help people adapt to the negative effects of climate change”. It is
also an approach that integrates biodiversity and ecosystem services into this
overall strategy to help people cope with the adverse effects of climate change.
Sustainable management helps people adapt to both climate change and
climate variability by ensuring the protection and improvement of ecosystems.
Ecosystem-based adaptation provides benefits for reducing sensitivity and
increasing resilience to both climate-related and non-climate risks.
An ecosystem is a living space with a defined boundaries where living and
non-living beings are present, maintain their lives and interact with each other,
and it consists of living and non-living beings. “Biological environment (living
being=biotic) is defined as the environment consisting of human beings,
animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms together with water and soil in the
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