Nukuoro Agroforestry Reclamation and Adaptation to Climate Change - Micronesia

This activity is designed to alleviate the negatives of salt water direct intrusion into atoll island food crops farmlands through traditional and scientific analysis.

Fast facts:

This activity is providing technical skills and knowledge to atoll communities in alternate subsistence food crop developments and livelihood sustainability in times of disaster impacts;
The project designed and constructed a retaining wall to protect the remaining food crops and a dike to separate raw sea water from reaching the wall.

The problem

Climate change is now severely affecting small, low islands in the Pacific. These small Pacific islands are prone to high tide surges, which has affected the community’s taro crop plantation. Only about ten percent of the taro food crops survived.

The solution

Researchers throughout the Micronesian regions in the Pacific are designing and developing mitigation methods to tackle the effects of climate change on these small islands. This activity is providing technical skills and knowledge to atoll communities in alternate subsistence food crop developments and livelihood sustainability in times of disaster impacts. The project designed and constructed a retaining wall to protect the remaining food crops and a dike to separate raw sea water from reaching the wall.

Helping the planet

This activity is collaborating with the community and the government in developing an integrated shoreline protection mechanism that utilizes various island available plants that plays a vital role in protecting the soil from erosion while also providing necessary nutrients to other food crops plants throughout the islands.

Scaling Up

With the first retaining wall completed, the recovery of the adjacent plantation areas have been improving significantly and results are showing positive recovery for the food crops.