We are in desperate need of more integrated approaches that recognize our interdependent place in the natural world. Strengthening interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration will encourage a paradigm-shift towards integration, as will the sharing of knowledge between people with different worldviews.
This year, Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 29, the earliest date yet, which tells us that we have prematurely exhausted Earth's resources beyond what can be regenerated. To move back the date, we are working with farmers to test new practices to halt environmental degradation and make food production more sustainable.
Climate change has a direct impact on Guatemalan small-scale farmers, leading to loss of crops, increased malnutrition and migration flows. Public institutions are critical to improving climate change adaptation strategies, but an agrarian-systems diagnosis carried out by SIC4Change in the Guatemalan dry corridor found some shortcomings with the approach taken by the rural extension services – and suggested some ways these could be corrected.
