© National Geographic/Randy Olson

BOGOR, Indonesia (28 May, 2011)_A decision by UNFCCC’s Adaptation Fund to finance a major project in Honduras—one of the first to be approved by the Fund—shows how CIFOR is influencing the allocation of resources to climate change adaptation.

A study by CIFOR and CATIE was cited in a successful proposal to the Adaptation Fund on climate change risks for water resources in Honduras. The US$5.6 million project will be implemented by the United Nations Development Programme and the Secretariat for Natural Resources and Environment in Honduras.

The earlier study was carried out under the Tropical Forests and Climate Change Adaptation project (TroFCCA), a 4-year initiative by CIFOR and CATIE aimed at defining the impacts of climate change on tropical forests and the role that forests play in helping societies adapt. The project covered seven countries, including Honduras.

According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2010, Honduras has been hit harder by extreme weather events than almost any other country. Yet adaptation to climate change has not been mainstreamed into development actions and related policies.

For this reason, the TroFCCA project emphasised improving institutional capacity to support local activities on climate change. In Honduras, this included training programmes for graduate students and scientists, project workshops, field days and policy dialogues with government officials.

Although the goal of the project financed by the Adaptation Fund is to decrease the threat of water shortages for the poor in Tegucigalpa, it pays significant attention to the role of forests, including how they capture mist from the atmosphere and the negative impacts of deforestation in water catchment areas.