The importance of ecosystem services to smallholder farmers in climate change adaptation: learning from an ecosystem-based adaptation pilot in Vietnam

Abstract

Smallholder farmers strongly connect to their surrounding environment and depend on ecosystems for their daily subsistence and welfare. Different climate change phenomena in recent years have affected resilience of smallholder farmers in Vietnam and ecosystems where they live. The importance of ecosystem services in climate change adaptation was investigated in surveys, focus group discussions, meetings and interviews with key district and commune staff, male and female farmers of Son Tho commune in rural North Central Region of Vietnam. In conjunction with surveys an Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) pilot was conducted in 2016 and 2017 with a group of 26 smallholder households. All survey respondents acknowledged that they depend on ecosystems and services for their livelihoods. Extreme weather events are predicted to increase with climate change. Smallholder farmers and ecosystems were most vulnerable to the effects of droughts and heat waves that limited supplies of clean water and impacted crop harvests, and by storms, whirlwinds and cold spells. The EbA pilot identified that all ecological patches provided direct and indirect benefits through multiple goods and services generated for provision, regulation, supporting and cultural services. The pilot demonstrated that ecosystem services supported smallholder farmers to adapt to extreme events and climate change, in particular, by mitigating the effects of droughts. Management of ecosystem services can provide joint benefits for both climate change mitigation and adaptation, particularly where the spatial distributions of carbon, hydrological services or biodiversity are positively correlated.