Where the sea meets the land: Coastal heritage, community resilience and inclusion in a changing landscape

A third of West Africans live on the coast, where people and ecosystems have interacted over centuries, connecting food and livelihoods across lagoons, rivers and the sea. The coast accounts for over half of GDP and supplies up to two thirds of protein to human diets. Yet this land is under threat from overharvesting of shellfish, mangroves and endangered species. Meanwhile, coastal boundaries are continuously being reshaped by erosion, soil fertility loss, flooding, changing rainfall and heat waves. The costs of flooding in the rapidly growing cities are estimated to rise to over USD11 billion (approximately CAD16 billion) per year by the 2050s.

This project aims to better understand how coastal communities’ sense of place, heritage and cultural identity, when valued by local stakeholders and decision-makers, can strengthen agency towards climate action and increase resilience in coastal Benin. The research will engage with communities, governments, coastal development private sector actors and non-governmental organizations. Data will be collected over a 15-month period, in parallel with key informants’ interviews, in-depth interviews, educational activities with children and teachers, and a series of stakeholder engagement meetings. The project will also combine experiences and transdisciplinary research knowledge with culturally sensitive methods — including via citizen-led curation of heritage sites.

This work will inform policy and plans on local coastal development by placing emphasis on how local and scientific knowledge can be integrated at the community level. The project can benefit up to 8,500 people directly and up to 150,000 indirectly. It will also position the approach for out-scaling to other countries in the region.

The project is part of the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) initiative, a UK-Canada framework research program aiming to enable socially inclusive and sustainable action to build resilience to climate change and natural hazards in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.