What is resilience?
Resilience is the ability of people and nature to respond and adapt to external stressors. As the effects of the climate crisis intensify, especially across the global tropics, our ability to cope with and respond to global change becomes more and more essential to our survival.
What is the Adrienne Arsht Community-Based Resilience Solutions Initiative?
The Initiative is the starting point for connecting the Smithsonian’s science, culture, art, and history with key partnerships across the globe.
The initiative aims to support community-based solutions to the coupled climate, biodiversity, and social justice crises. It was launched in 2022 as a Smithsonian-wide Initiative, based at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, along with founding partner units, the Smithsonian’s Office of Digital Transformations, the National Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian Science Education Center. We are hoping to expand our collaborations with other Smithsonian units and external partners.
This Initiative represents our vision to unify efforts in support of community-based resilience solutions, under the umbrella of the Smithsonian’s Life on a Sustainable Planet initiative, with a focus on the theme of Adaptation as a pathway to resilience for people and nature. We will leverage this gift with the vision for building the Center for Resilience and Sustainability, which is structured around four overlapping pillars: Research, Training and Science Capacity, Community Engagement and Solutions.