Seeing What We Usually Miss: Rethinking Climate Adaptation

We often talk about climate adaptation as if it is something designed elsewhere and delivered to people. Plans are written, models are built, and solutions are proposed. But there is a quiet problem in this approach: it assumes that those most affected are waiting to be told what to do.

The recent HOISA roundtable on locally led visual methods challenged this assumption in a subtle but powerful way. It asked a simple question: what if adaptation begins not with plans, but with how people already see and live risk? 

This question changes everything.

In many places, people are already observing, interpreting, and responding to climate change every day. A fisher notices the shifting shoreline. A street vendor adjusts her work hours because of rising heat. A farmer reads the land through cracks, colour, and moisture. These are not just reactions—they are forms of knowledge.

But this knowledge is rarely taken seriously.

Why? Because it is not always written in reports or measured in numbers. It is often visual, intuitive, and lived. And because of that, it is often overlooked.

The roundtable made it clear that visual methods—such as mapping, drawing, photographing, or simply observing—are not just ways of showing information. They are ways of thinking. They help people express what they know, even when words fall short.

More importantly, they help others see what was invisible before.

This matters because much of climate risk is not easily visible. It builds slowly. It overlaps with other stresses. It hides in daily routines. When people create visual representations of their experiences, they bring these hidden layers into view. Suddenly, risk is no longer abstract—it is real, shared, and discussable.

And once something is visible, it becomes harder to ignore.

But the conversation did not stop there. It also raised a more uncomfortable question: what do we call adaptation? One example discussed was bamboo fencing, often promoted as a climate adaptation measure. But some participants questioned this. Is it truly adaptation? Or is it simply a way of coping with limited choices?

This is not just a technical debate. It is about honesty.

If we call everything adaptation, we risk hiding the deeper problem—that many people are not adapting by choice, but by necessity. They are managing risk with whatever they have, often without support. Recognising this difference is important, because it shifts the focus from celebrating small adjustments to addressing larger inequalities.

Visual methods can help here too. They do not just show what people do—they show why they do it. They reveal the conditions behind actions.

At the same time, there is a warning.

Visual methods can be misused. It is easy to collect images, stories, and maps, and present them as evidence of participation. But if this process does not change who decides, who benefits, and who is heard, then it becomes extractive. It takes from communities without giving them real influence.

The roundtable reminded us that the value of visual methods is not in the tool itself, but in the process. When people are involved in creating and interpreting these visuals, they are not just sharing—they are shaping decisions.

This is where a shift begins.

Instead of seeing communities as sources of data, we begin to see them as partners in understanding and action. Instead of treating knowledge as something to be transferred, we begin to see it as something to be co-created.

This shift is not easy. It requires time, trust, and a willingness to let go of control. But it is necessary if adaptation is to be meaningful.

In the end, the discussion returned to a simple but powerful idea: climate adaptation is about visibility.

Not just the visibility of risks, but the visibility of voices. Not just the visibility of impacts, but the visibility of knowledge and action.

When people can see their own realities reflected—and when others can see them too—something changes. Decisions become more grounded. Responses become more relevant. And adaptation becomes something people do with each other, not something done to them.

Perhaps the real challenge is not that we lack solutions.

Perhaps it is that we are not looking carefully enough at what is already there.

From conversations between Dr. Juan Ricardo Aparicio, Niti Mishra, Agrippina Nandjaa, Hyeoggeun Ji, Mihir Bhatt, and Khayal Trivedi