Community-empowered adaptation for self-reliance

This paper describes the integration of social-ecological science with traditional knowledge to address global-change challenges faced by indigenous communities in rural Alaska. The Community Partnership for Self-Reliance is a novel boundary organization that uses community visions for self-reliance, based on local and traditional knowledge, to link bottom-up with top-down adaptation planning. We suggest that similar boundary strategies can improve the communication of adaptation needs and opportunities across scales, empowering local communities to select adaptation choices that fit their own goals. This would facilitate regional experimentation and diffusion of innovative solutions to address rapid and heterogeneous environmental and socioeconomic change.