Abstract
Tourism is an important source of income for many mountain communities in Nepal. However, the tourism industry is highly vulnerable to a variety of natural hazards. The ability of local people to proactively prepare, protect, and support prevention activities against natural hazards drives a mountain community's resilience. Research on whether and to what extent people have adopted such proactive behaviors has shown that human action is determined not only by sociodemographic and socioeconomic conditions—such as age, gender, or income—but also by values and worldviews. In this paper, we present data from a 2-phased survey of 160 lodge owners conducted in 2017 and 2018 in Mustang, Nepal, focusing on lodge owners' activities in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and their values and worldviews. Classifying the preparedness and support for prevention (PSP) activities of lodge owners, we found 3 different PSP types. In a second step, these PSP types were contrasted with values and worldviews held by the lodge owners, as well as sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors. This revealed strong correlations between the lodge owners' values and their PSP type. These results indicate that when trying to explain an actor's DRR activities, his or her values might be as important as commonly used sociodemographic and socioeconomic indicators. We argue that a holistic concept of resilience—combining actors' values and worldviews as well as their sociodemographic and socioeconomic status—can strengthen efforts to build resilience.
Highlights
Mountain communities in the Nepalese Himalayas face great challenges because of their remoteness, inaccessibility, and limited economic opportunities (Jaquet et al 2016)
We address the 2 research questions with regard to mountain tourism and natural hazards in Nepal: 1. What different behavior types based on preparedness and support for prevention (PSP) activities can be distinguished among touristic entrepreneurs in Nepal?
Members of this group were the only ones who attended meetings on natural hazards planning (21%) or participated in a first aid or emergency training (18%). Another group of lodge owners, which we labeled the progressive communitarians (n 1⁄4 57), formed the second-largest segment (37% of all respondents). They were not engaged in many PSP activities (86% performed 5 actions), all members of this group were involved in community work and were willing to support the organization of construction and clearance equipment and rescue teams
Summary
Mountain communities in the Nepalese Himalayas face great challenges because of their remoteness, inaccessibility, and limited economic opportunities (Jaquet et al 2016). Limited space for settlement, intensified land use, and poor hazard prevention, disaster preparedness, and management practices are further development challenges (Gardner and Dekens 2007). The ability of local people to anticipate, cope with, and recover from natural hazards is a major focus of sustainable mountain development (UNDRR 2002). This is especially relevant in countries with weak institutional power and insufficient capital-intensive ‘‘hard’’ measures to protect communities and local livelihoods at risk (Kuhlicke et al 2011)
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