Collaborating across borders: Placemaking and local climate adaptation in rural Nepal and the Philippines

This chapter introduces exploratory climate adaptation projects launched by Taiwanese organizations in two rural communities in Nepal and the Philippines. Due to increasing environmental risks, both communities have migrated and resettled in lowland areas. Marginalized households have been neglected after relocation and have experienced struggles to maintain their daily livelihood activities, as well as losses of their cultural identity. In the Nepalese project, flood-resistant bamboo housing construction was carried out to reduce the risks and to lessen losses from the annual monsoon floods. In the Philippines project, a community vegetable garden and a school flower garden were built to provide basic nutrition as well as to generate income for the households. The cross-border projects broke through the autocracy of localized politics and institutions; they also opened up opportunities for the community to dialogue with various stakeholders and to share their opinions regarding place-making. By working collectively from the ground up, in situ climate adaptation has been developed through field-based implementation. Local capacities were built up by cross-border knowledge exchanges and skill transferring processes. Results from both projects show what resilience means in different social and environmental contexts, and insights on resilience empowerment from the perspectives of place-making in displacement.