Natural Resource-based Livelihoods Research Articles

A pragmatic analysis of water supply and demand, and adaptive capacity in rural areas: development of Rural Water Insecurity Index

Aggregating measures that capture multiple aspects of water security in a single or small number of indices can act as a powerful tool to identify areas susceptible to water insecurity. Proposed Rural Water Insecurity Index is based on water supply and demand dimensions, and adaptive capacity to assess the ability of communities to cope with prevailing water insecurity. Spatial distribution of water insecurity presents wide variability across the district and demonstrates how factors like surface water supply distribution, groundwater withdrawal, sanitation, irrigation coverage, asset ownership influence water security of a particular rural area at a specific time. The insecurity matrix reveals that the scale of adaptive capacity plays a vital role in shifting the scale of water insecurity by negating the impacts of supply- and demand-driven insecurity. The impacts are found to be severe for the poor who live in vulnerable areas including mountains and forests, are dependent on natural resource-based livelihood and groundwater to meet basic needs, own little land or other physical assets and have low education and skills. The present study offers valuable guidance to the policymakers, providing insights as to where more targeted research or policy interventions can address current water insecurity challenges and reduce future risks.

Reframing the concept of alternative livelihoods.

Alternative livelihood project (ALP) is a widely used term for interventions that aim to reduce the prevalence of activities deemed to be environmentally damaging by substituting them with lower impact livelihood activities that provide at least equivalent benefits. ALPs are widely implemented in conservation, but in 2012, an International Union for Conservation of Nature resolution called for a critical review of such projects based on concern that their effectiveness was unproven. We focused on the conceptual design of ALPs by considering their underlying assumptions. We placed ALPs within a broad category of livelihood‐focused interventions to better understand their role in conservation and their intended impacts. We dissected 3 flawed assumptions about ALPs based on the notions of substitution, the homogenous community, and impact scalability. Interventions based on flawed assumptions about people's needs, aspirations, and the factors that influence livelihood choice are unlikely to achieve conservation objectives. We therefore recommend use of a sustainable livelihoods approach to understand the role and function of environmentally damaging behaviors within livelihood strategies; differentiate between households in a community that have the greatest environmental impact and those most vulnerable to resource access restrictions to improve intervention targeting; and learn more about the social–ecological system within which household livelihood strategies are embedded. Rather than using livelihood‐focused interventions as a direct behavior‐change tool, it may be more appropriate to focus on either enhancing the existing livelihood strategies of those most vulnerable to conservation‐imposed resource access restrictions or on use of livelihood‐focused interventions that establish a clear link to conservation as a means of building good community relations. However, we recommend that the term ALP be replaced by the broader term livelihood‐focused intervention. This avoids the implicit assumption that alternatives can fully substitute for natural resource‐based livelihood activities.

Locking in and locking out: a critical analysis of the governance of reindeer husbandry in Sweden

Drawing on an interactive governance framework, this article provides a critical analysis of the governing system (GS) of Sami reindeer husbandry in Sweden, an indigenous natural resource-based livelihood. Situated against a historical contextualization, and focusing on the relationship between governing images, instruments and action, the study explores how reindeer husbandry is currently governed and how governing has changed over time. In contrast to well-established narratives of increased participation and indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, this study demonstrates that the governing of Sami reindeer husbandry remains mainly hierarchical and is characterized by inconsistencies. The GS’s elements are poorly fitted internally, there are large differences in understanding between key actors and, over time, only marginal change – in governing structures and meta-images – has occurred. Thus, reindeer husbandry actors appear to be locked out of essential governing functions and locked into a system that is proving hard to change.

Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change Impacts in Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam: An Analysis at the Commune and Household Level

The study takes on the framework that vulnerability to climate change depends on the interrelationship of key elements of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (Adger, 2006). The general objective of the study is to arrive at an understanding of the community and household vulnerability in three study areas: Kampong Speu in Cambodia, Laguna province in the Philippines, and Thua Thien Hue in Vietnam. Specifically, it aims 1) to measure communes’/ barangays’ relative vulnerability in the selected study sites; 2) to analyze social vulnerability of local communities in terms of underlying problems; and, 3) to measure and explain the vulnerability of households in relation to their economic and demographic features. Community level and household level surveys were conducted to gather data for the vulnerability analysis, in combination with qualitative data gathering tools such as key informant and in-depth interviews and focused group discussions. About two thirds of communes/barangays in the studies sites were identified as highly vulnerable. These are mostly communities in lowland and coastal areas; especially communes/barangays with relatively high incidence of poverty, with large areas devoted for agricultural activitiesand with poor infrastructure facilities. On the other hand, household characteristics found to be related to vulnerability to climate-related risks and hazards include household income, types of livelihood, family size, education of the household head, and the level of exposure to identified hazards. Households living on natural resource-based livelihood are likely to be more vulnerable as these livelihoods are more exposed to and more sensitive to climate hazards. Most poor households are found to be vulnerable. Low adaptive capacity was found to be a key determinant of household vulnerability to climate change across countries. Women were found to be more vulnerable to climatic hazard than men due to limitation in skills and opportunitiesbut they were given more responsibilities in taking care of family member during risk hazard response and rehabilitation periods. An over representation of women during response and rehabilitation periods was found across the study sites.

Three Interwoven Dimensions of Natural Resource Use: Quantity, Quality and Access in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area

Quality and quantity of natural resources are often studied in isolation from access. We question the usefulness of this separation for resolving conflicts over natural resources and present an approach that facilitates a deeper understanding of natural resource use through a joint analysis of quantity of, quality of and access to resources. The approach was developed as part of an in-depth case study of resettlement in southern Mozambique in which newly resettled residents struggled to reestablish their livelihoods. We estimated the quality and quantity of, and investigated rules and norms of access to four key natural resources: water, agricultural fields, grazing, and forest resources in both pre- and post-resettlement. We then contrast this with the actual access that resettled residents gained to these resources in practice, what we call ‘accessing.’ Our analysis suggests that locally-specific, dynamic relationships among quality, quantity and access are critically important for understanding human-environment interactions and natural resource-based livelihoods.

When a Good Business Model is Not Enough: Land Transactions and Gendered Livelihood Prospects in Rural Ghana

Recent large-scale commercial agriculture projects in developing countries have raised concerns about the effects on natural resource-based livelihood activities of local people. A significant weakness in the emerging literature is the lack of a gender perspective on implications for agrarian livelihoods. This article explores the gendered aspects of land transactions on livelihood prospects in the Northern Region of Ghana. Drawing on qualitative research from two commercial agriculture projects, the article examines how pre-existing gender inequalities in agrarian production systems, as well as gender biases in project design, are implicated in post-project livelihood activities. The article concludes that a good business model of a land deal, even one that includes local communities in production and profit sharing, is not sufficient to protect women's livelihood prospects if projects ignore pre-existing gender inequalities and biases, which limit access to opportunities.

An assessment of adaptation planning for flood variability in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

In the Okavango Delta, Botswana, household adaptation to climatic variability hinges upon access to wetland resources. Household adaptation may be effective for current flood variability, but inadequate for future climate variability. Government interventions through adaptation planning for flood variability may also be inadequate. This study aimed to improve knowledge on adaptation planning in the Okavango Delta and similar areas in the world. The specific objectives were to determine household exposure, adaptive capacity and sensitivity to flood-related shocks, identify and assess government interventions for flood variability, and determine the effect of these interventions on household adaptation to flood variability in the Okavango Delta. Informed by the institutional analysis and development framework, the study used data from a survey of 623 households in five villages, some qualitative methods and secondary data sources. The results indicate that households are inherently sensitive to shocks, due to their dependence on natural resource-based livelihood activities, and that most households had sick members (53 %), and were food insecure (74 %). More households were more affected by river desiccation (84 %) than by flooding (23 %). Adaptation planning was implicitly undertaken in the form of disaster risk reduction, and mainstream development and poverty reduction programmes. These effectively contributed to household adaptation to flood variability but inhibited local institutional learning and innovation. Moreover, they were neither participatory nor conformant to local norms and therefore not sustainable in the long term. There is a need to adopt explicit, flexible and participatory approaches to planning to promote autonomous adaptation to flood variability in the Okavango Delta.

Work, education and out-migration among children and youth in upland Asia: changing patterns of labour and ecological knowledge in an era of globalisation

In the context of ecological and economic change, this paper identifies the impact of ongoing transformations in young people's labour contribution in four natural resource-dependent regions in India, Vietnam and China. Children's work is important to maximise household labour productivity, while also endowing them with the ecological knowledge necessary to sustain key productive livelihood activities. However, today, an increased emphasis on education and the out-migration of youth is reducing their labour contribution, particularly in the more economically developed case study communities in Northern Vietnam and China. While selective in its extent, these changes have increased the labour burden of older household members and women, while the economic opportunities young people aspire to following schooling or migration frequently prove elusive in a competitive liberalised economy. Another implication of young people diverting their labour and learning away from traditional natural resource-based livelihood activities is the loss of valuable ecological knowledge.

To Fish or Not to Fish: Factors at Multiple Scales Affecting Artisanal Fishers' Readiness to Exit a Declining Fishery

Globally, fisheries are challenged by the combined impacts of overfishing, degradation of ecosystems and impacts of climate change, while fisheries livelihoods are further pressured by conservation policy imperatives. Fishers' adaptive responses to these pressures, such as exiting from a fishery to pursue alternative livelihoods, determine their own vulnerability, as well as the potential for reducing fishing effort and sustaining fisheries. The willingness and ability to make particular adaptations in response to change, such as exiting from a declining fishery, is influenced by economic, cultural and institutional factors operating at scales from individual fishers to national economies. Previous studies of exit from fisheries at single or few sites, offer limited insight into the relative importance of individual and larger-scale social and economic factors. We asked 599 fishers how they would respond to hypothetical scenarios of catch declines in 28 sites in five western Indian Ocean countries. We investigated how socioeconomic variables at the individual-, household- and site-scale affected whether they would exit fisheries. Site-level factors had the greatest influence on readiness to exit, but these relationships were contrary to common predictions. Specifically, higher levels of infrastructure development and economic vitality - expected to promote exit from fisheries - were associated with less readiness to exit. This may be due to site level histories of exit from fisheries, greater specialisation of fishing households, or higher rewards from fishing in more economically developed sites due to technology, market access, catch value and government subsidies. At the individual and household scale, fishers from households with more livelihood activities, and fishers with lower catch value were more willing to exit. These results demonstrate empirically how adaptive responses to change are influenced by factors at multiple scales, and highlight the importance of understanding natural resource-based livelihoods in the context of the wider economy and society.

Return migration and the reiteration of gender norms in water management politics: Insights from a Chinese village

Recent work on return migration in China suggests return migrants bring with them new knowledge, skills, and potentially beneficial relationships accumulated during their sojourns, enabling them to introduce new forms of leadership and community action. Social remittances of this kind could be read as carrying the potential to enhance collective action in support of sustainable local natural resource-based livelihoods. This study of the links between return migration, leadership and collective action in water management sounds a more cautionary note, demonstrating that home communities may respond to return migrants in ways that repeatedly mark and reiterate gender and kinship norms, reiterating gender, generational and clan-based social hierarchies. The paper draws on and contributes to recent feminist political ecology approaches to show how migrant returnees’ ’social remittances’ translate into leadership in collective action in a rural Chinese village in ways that reinforce existing gender hierarchies and social positions within the community, thus questioning the extent to which any influx of new ideas, relationships and practices acquired from migrant experiences necessarily destabilizes power and authority in the village in any meaningful way.

Goodbye to natural resource-based livelihoods? Crossing the rural/urban divide

Life in proximity to a growing city can be especially difficult for those rural people who are poor. Findings from sustained research around three cities of the South illustrate how peri-urban conditions can create pressure for livelihood change. People were pressed further into a cash-based economy for which they were ill prepared. Surprisingly, agriculture remained important, even though urban expansion changed natural resource-based livelihoods, especially by taking land. The inevitable livelihood transitions were easier if there was support for both familiar and new natural resource-based activities, orienting production towards urban markets. Successful change was associated with greater diversification of income strands, rapid cash returns and bridging opportunities. Participatory planning of livelihood changes and local NGO inputs were advantageous. These findings are important for pro-poor development policy affecting peri-urban populations and may inform rural to urban migration policy.