Resource-dependent Communities Research Articles

Evolving Corporate Social Responsibility Practices and Their Impact on Social Conflict

This study investigates Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, emphasising the shift from a state-owned business (SOE) to a multinational corporation (MNC) and its impact on community relations and social conflict. The research employs the CSR 2.0 strategy, transitioning from conventional charity to partnership-oriented efforts, using qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders. The results indicate that while the multinational corporation has sought to enhance openness and community involvement, persistent concerns over environmental harm and unfulfilled development commitments continue to erode confidence and exacerbate social tensions. Moreover, the MNC's CSR initiatives often prioritise trained labour from external sources, resulting in local discontent and scepticism over the efficacy of CSR in addressing entrenched problems. Policy proposals emphasise the need for robust CSR rules, open reporting, and coordination among firms, governments, and civil society to facilitate sustainable community development. This study underscores that CSR programs must proactively confront historical challenges and be tailored to local situations. Additional study is required to investigate conflict-sensitive CSR strategies in diverse countries, with the objective of alleviating social tensions in resource-dependent communities and fostering more sustainable industrial practices.

Prevalence and determinants of vulnerability among Sundarbans mangrove forest resource-dependent communities in cyclone-prone southwestern coastal districts of Bangladesh

Vulnerability assessment is crucial for reducing the impact of natural disasters on marginalized coastal communities. In Bangladesh, studies have addressed the vulnerability of coastal populations, but they often overlook the Sundarbans mangrove forest resource-dependent communities (SMFRDCs). These marginalized groups, reliant on the forest, frequently face natural disasters such as cyclones, increasing their vulnerability. This study seeks to assess the extent of vulnerability among SMFRDCs and uncover the critical risk factors contributing to it. This cross-sectional survey was conducted in three southwestern coastal districts of Bangladesh: Satkhira, Khulna, and Bagerhat. Data were collected from 782 SMFRDCs in three Upazila (sub-district) of selected coastal districts using a structured interview schedule (SIS) and following a multistage stratified random sampling approach. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics v27 for Windows. A one-sample binomial test was performed to assess the prevalence of vulnerability. Additionally, bivariate analyses (Pearson’s Chi-square [χ2], Yates’s Correction for Continuity [χ2Yates], Phi [φ], and Cramer’s V [φc]), and multivariable binary logistic regression (MBLR) were conducted to identify the associated risk factors. The findings of the one-sample binomial indicate that among the coastal Upazila, the vulnerability prevalence was highest in Mongla (53.4 %; 95 % CI: 47.4 % - 59.3 %). Additionally, honey collectors were found to be more vulnerable to natural disasters, with a prevalence of 60.8 % (95 % CI: 52.7 % - 68.6 %) among the SMFRDCs. The MBLR findings indicate that SMFRDCs with over 31 years of experience and involvement in multiple occupations were less vulnerable to natural disasters. Likewise, SMFRDCs with better household materials, transport, and livestock assets were less vulnerable to natural disasters. In contrast, those with medium-to-high domestic assets were more at risk. Additionally, having land and access to loans reduced the likelihood of vulnerability. SMFRDCs with better natural, physical, and political capital were also less vulnerable. The findings show that vulnerability among SMFRDCs varied by geospatial location and occupation. Socio-demographics, household resources, and livelihood capitals were key predictors of the household vulnerability of SMFRDCs. To reduce this vulnerability, it is recommended that organizations – governmental and non-governmental – work together to create comprehensive plans involving SMFRDCs in both planning and implementing disaster risk reduction strategies by addressing individual and community-level factors.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of land use and land cover change around Volcanoes National Park and their implications for biodiversity conservation

ABSTRACT This study comprehensively analyses spatiotemporal land use/land cover (LULC) dynamics within a 10-km buffer zone surrounding Volcanoes National Park (VNP), Rwanda, from 2000 to 2019, integrating biophysical and socio-economic drivers. It aims to quantify LULC change extent, rate, and type around VNP and inside the park; identify socio-economic, demographic, and policy drivers of LULC change; and evaluate the impact of LULC changes on VNP’s biodiversity via habitat fragmentation, connectivity, and species diversity. Employing remote sensing, spatial modelling, and field data, we reveal profound transformations within the park’s periphery. Forests and woodlots have significantly declined, replaced by agriculture, grasslands, and built-up areas, particularly in the 5.1–10 km belt (92.29% forest loss). While reforestation efforts exist, they are outpaced by deforestation, creating a stark deforestation-to-reforestation ratio of 12:1 in the 5.1 10 km belt and 6:1 in the 0–5 km belt. This alarming trend threatens VNP’s biodiversity as resource dependent communities continue to extract firewood, construction materials, and beanpoles from the park. To mitigate these impacts, we propose integrated strategies encompassing strengthened law enforcement, sustainable land management practices, community-based conservation initiatives, and alternative livelihood development.

I Learned to Pick My Battles: Girls Dissenting in Oil Country

In this paper I explore how girls living in a community economically reliant on the extraction of fossil fuels navigate gender expectations, loyalties, ideologies and moralities within their family structures, their places of employment and their affective communities. I describe how girlhood(s) within resource dependent communities are composed of and configured through the social, political, and economic conditions of extractivism, and the social relations that exist within these material conditions. The meeting of the material conditions of resource extraction and the social relations that exist within these environments, can be understood as “zones of entanglement.” An exploration of girls’ lives within these zones of entanglement, highlights how girls maneuver within the processes of social acceptance, belonging and notions of the “good life” by engaging in various strategies that work to create opportunities, while also reinforce foreclosures. These strategies include moving between speech and silence, learning to pick their battles, taking up space, and engaging in care-work. Through engagement in various strategies girls learn to protect themselves while maintaining opportunities for hope, connection, and transformation in their own lives, and in their interdependent relationships and attachments.

Self-governance mediates small-scale fishing strategies, vulnerability and adaptive response

As global change accelerates, natural resource-dependent communities must respond and adapt. Small-scale fisheries, essential for coastal livelihoods and food security, are considered among the most vulnerable of these coupled social-ecological systems. While previous studies have examined vulnerability and adaptation in fisheries at the individual, household, and community level, these scales of organization are inconsistent with many of the legal and regulatory frameworks that function in practice to mediate behavior, decision-making, and adaptation. Here, we use cooperative- and privately-owned fishing enterprises in Northwest Mexico as a case study to examine how different forms of marine self-governance experience and respond to climate shocks. Leveraging social-ecological network methods to examine changes in fisheries participation and vulnerability during a recent period of pronounced regional oceanographic change, our analysis suggests that: 1) different forms of SSF self-governance (and the fishing strategies and harvest portfolios with which they are associated) help determine the impacts of and response to environmental change; and 2) that there may be important trade-offs between short-term responses which function to prevent or mitigate lost fishing revenue and long-term changes in climate vulnerability. In particular large fishing cooperatives, predicted to be highly vulnerable on the basis of network theoretic metrics, exceeded expectations (maintaining or increasing resource revenues) while demonstrating a degree of path dependency that may function to increase sensitivity and undermine resilience as climate change progresses. In providing an empirical evaluation of how self-governance arrangements characterized by different group sizes, access regimes and levels of cooperation respond to system perturbation, we aim to advance common pool resource theory while offering targeted guidance for the development of more nuanced and equitable climate adaptation policies.

COVID-19 transmission in a resource dependent community with heterogeneous populations: An agent-based modeling approach

Outbreaks of COVID-19 in crowded work locations led to mass infection events during the pandemic that stressed health capacity in rural communities. This led to disparate responses – either isolating and restricting workers to facilities and potentially amplifying spread between them, more intense community wide restrictions, or an acceptance of higher disease spread. An extreme case is the salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska, where fishermen, factory workers, and residents all interact during the summer fishing season. During the pandemic, policy measures were debated, including community mask mandates, restricting workers to their boats and factories, and even closing the valuable seasonal fishery. We develop an agent-based SIR model (ABM) to examine COVID-19 transmission in a resource-dependent community populated by distinct subgroups. The model includes a virus spreading within and between three heterogenous populations who interact with other members of their type in their home location, and with different types of agents when out in the community. We simulate various non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination rates across these groups. Results demonstrate the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccinations, as well as tradeoffs between duration and intensity and tradeoffs between groups impacted by the outbreak. This ABM demonstrates the impact of public policy mechanisms on health outcomes in resource-dependent communities with distinct populations.

The interactive effect of endogenous and exogenous institutions on forest use practices in socio-culturally diverse landscapes of Cameroon

AbstractIn resource-dependent communities of sub-Saharan Africa, it is widely held that endogenous institutions either countervail or complement exogenous institutions, indicating inconsistency in empirical evidence. This has re-ignited interest to establish the independent and/or interactive effect of both endogenous and exogenous institutional structures. This paper quantitatively analyses the independent and interactive effects of community-based (endogenous) and state-based (exogenous) forest management institutions (FMIs) on the exploitation of forest resources, drawing from a representative sample of 446 households from three socio-culturally diverse landscapes of Cameroon. The paper introduces a multiplicative interaction term and used the heteroscedasticity-based instrumental variables approach to estimate the direct and indirect effects of exogenous and endogenous institutions on the behaviour of users of forest-based resources. The results indicate that: (i) Both exogenous structures of FMIs and the interaction term significantly constrain the extractive behaviour of forest resource users; (ii) endogenous structures and not rules are vital in improving the role of exogenous structures in forest resource management; (iii) while traditional rules are less significant in shaping forest resource exploitation, their effectiveness is highly significant across the study sites and (iv) institutional compatibility and complementarity was observed in landscapes that were formerly shaped by British colonial influence (Bakossi and Kilum-Ijim). This paper does not only establish the relative influence of exogenous and endogenous FMIs, it also highlights future research pathways on institutional change in the context of environmental resource management in sub-Saharan Africa.

Incentives, Ecosystem and Communities: A Possible Incentive Mechanism for Mid Hills of Nepal

Payment for Ecosystem Service (PES) is one of the instruments increasingly used and recognized as a tool to sustaining ecosystem services flow while contributing to local livelihoods of the resource dependent communities. It is described as a free market-based approach to conservation where ecosystem service consumer pays to the producers/managers. However, a ‘’true PES’’ based on free market is either difficult to establish, or hardly existed in practice. Several arguments resonance against purely market-based PES schemes that commoditize ecosystem or nature under neoliberalism and does not necessarily benefit the poor. Our study in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, thus suggests to shift from a purely market-based mechanism to incentive-based mechanism for ensuring long term benefits to local mountain communities by rewarding their efforts on managing and restoring the ecosystems. We also argue that the concept of PES, if well integrated into the policy instrument could effectively ensure continued supply of ecosystem goods and services in Nepal Himalaya.

Spatial dynamics of Maine lobster landings in a changing coastal system

Continued warming of oceans has caused global shifts in marine species distributions. This can result in changes in the spatial distribution of landings and have distributional impacts on marine resource-dependent communities. We evaluated the spatial dynamics of American lobster (Homarus americanus) landings in coastal Maine, which supports one of the most valuable U.S. fisheries. We coupled a bioclimate envelope model and a generalized additive model to project spatial dynamics of lobster landings under possible climate scenarios. This coupled model was then used to forecast future lobster habitat suitability based on IPCC RCP climate scenarios and predict distributions of fishery landings from this projected lobster habitat suitability. The historical spatial distribution of fishery landings shows the highest proportional landings in Maine’s Southern (southwest) regions. The current distribution of landings shows higher proportional landings in Downeast (northeast) regions with the highest proportional landings in Midcoast (middle) regions. Our results suggest that while the proportion of landings in each zone will remain stable, changes in habitat suitability in the spring and fall will reduce total landings. Future habitat suitability is projected to decrease in spring but increase in fall in Downeast areas. Downeast landings are projected to decrease in the next 30 years, then increase over the subsequent 80 years, depending on RCP scenarios and abundance regimes. Midcoast landings are projected to decrease while Southcoast landings are expected to stay constant. This study develops an approach to link climate change effects to fishery landings. These findings have long-term implications for sustainable, localized management of the Maine lobster fishery in a changing climate.

Uncovering water quality and evaluating vulnerabilities of small-scale fisheries in Chilika Lagoon, India

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) play a strong role in sustaining millions of livelihoods, food security, nutrition, and income globally but the fishers engaged in this sector simultaneously experience high levels of vulnerability and processes of marginalisation. Several factors are attributed to the multidimensional vulnerabilities the small-scale fishers experience, spanning both natural (e.g., natural disasters, ecosystem change) and anthropogenic (e.g., policy change, hydrological interventions, aquaculture) pressures. While there is much literature on various natural and human drivers of vulnerability in small-scale fishery communities, an absence of research connecting vulnerability with water quality is evident. Fisher communities often talk about fish in relation to the health of their aquatic habitats wherein water quality is seen as a key parameter. The link between healthy fish and good quality water has significant implications for strong and viable fishing communities. This paper examines these links further by focusing on the nature of vulnerabilities caused by water quality changes in the small-scale fishery system of Chilika Lagoon in India. We undertake detailed analysis of the invasive shrimp aquaculture activities and hydrological interventions for opening of a lagoon inlet with the Bay of Bengal as two dominant drivers adversely impacting water quality and increasing vulnerabilities of the entire small-scale fisheries social-ecological system. Our analysis suggests that there are strong interconnections between changes in water quality and the levels of vulnerabilities in the SSFs of Chilika Lagoon. Pollutants such as pesticides, and organic compounds accumulate in fish tissues and affect their growth, reproduction, and overall health. This led to declines in fish populations, making it more difficult for fishers to make a living. In addition to direct impacts on fish populations, poor water quality also has indirect effects on the social and economic vulnerability of SSFs. For example, contamination of water sources led to the reduced number of fish species reducing the amount of time fishers can spend on fishing activities. This also affected the marketability of fish products, reduced income and increased poverty. To fully understand the interconnections between water quality and vulnerability in SSFs in Chilika Lagoon, it is important to consider both environmental and social factors, as well as the complex feedback loops between these factors. The study helps in bridging a crucial gap in our understanding of the role of water quality in vulnerability analysis within resource dependent communities. We conclude with key insights on possible coping responses and adaptive capacity necessary for the small-scale fisheries communities to transition toward viability.

Filling global gaps in monitoring data with local knowledge

Filling global gaps in monitoring data with local knowledge

Can commercialization of non-timber forest product (NTFP) reduce deforestation in Myanmar?

The relationship between non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and deforestation can determine the extent to which the livelihoods of individuals in resource-dependent communities can be sustained and the strategies to conserve the forest for sustainable utilization. Here, the relationship between deforestation and commercial production of the NTFPs from natural forests in Myanmar was examined. We performed multiple regression to predict the deforestation from different type of NTFPs and demographic factors. Population density is the most contributing factors to deforestation while fuel wood production and diversity of wood extractive NTFPs were significant among the different groups of NTFPs to predict deforestation (R2＝0.421, p<001). The commercial production of wood extracts was interestingly found as a promising factor that can reduce deforestation. Shifting the market demand to the extractive products from woody trees can maintain the forests for the sustainable use to secure the rural livelihood. Capacity building on the harvesting skill and processing of the wood extracts become crucial in conservation of the host trees. Market chain analysis of the products in optimizing commercial value of the products as well as information on the resource availability are not the least to be considered in NTFPs commercialization and sustainable forest management.

Path Dependence, Community Resilience, and Social Responses to the Implementation of Collaborative Forest Management in Ghana

The concept of community resilience has been receiving attention in recent decades as a framework for understanding the capacity of communities to respond to drivers of change while maintaining or enhancing their well-being. However, the process of community response to drivers of change and the factors influencing the change process remain poorly understood. In this study, the community resilience literature was applied in the analysis of community responses to the implementation of collaborative forest management (CFM) in Ghana. Qualitative data were generated from two forest-dependent communities in the Ashanti region of Ghana using key informant interviews and the review of documents. The results highlighted the role of drivers of change, institutions, capital assets, and arenas for interaction in shaping the awareness and motivation, as well as access to resources and opportunities for collective action in both communities. Importantly, community history and context helped explain differences in the responses of the two communities to the implementation of the CFM program. These findings highlight the need for greater recognition of path dependence and other attributes of complexity in resource-dependent communities in order to inform policies that contribute to enhancing community resilience.

Second impact syndrome: The influence of climate change and increased disaster frequency on livelihoods and adaptive capacity in rural Haiti

The frequency of disasters increases each decade to the point that compound disasters form and inflict devastating and sometimes permanent damage. Compound disaster research has focused primarily on damage to critical infrastructure in industrialized nations. Compound climate-related events in natural resource-dependent communities receive less scholarly attention. These events are increasing with climate change. We address this problem with a framework founded on a decade of collaboration with rural Haitian communities and a year of fieldwork. In Camp Perrin, Haiti, destruction from Hurricane Matthew was immediately followed by a months-long drought. The compound disaster that formed altered relationships between people and the environment and between one another. People could no longer rely on intergenerational knowledge of rainfall patterns, and their crops failed repeatedly, depleting household reserve. Our Second Impact Syndrome (SIS) framework traces the impacts of this and other compound climate-related disasters on adaptive capacity and livelihoods. Symptoms and processes seen in compound disasters parallel current understanding of repeat brain trauma from literature on SIS in neurological systems. In disasters, SIS alters human relationships with the landscape, produces uncertainty of what constitutes an adaptive strategy, increases dependence on outside intervention, and can cause lasting system transformation. This framework is readily applicable for disaster risk reduction through the identification of symptoms to address and potential solutions at the human-environmental interface. The SIS framework also forms a common platform upon which local communities and outside entities can better understand, discuss, and respond to compound disasters.

Breaking Down Barriers

In the Kootenay region of British Columbia (BC), mining has historically been a male dominated sector. Natural resource dependent communities, such as those found in the Kootenay region, have traditionally lacked employment opportunities for women. In addition, women choosing to pursue careers in the mining sector can face numerous challenges. As part of the larger Regional Workforce Development in Rural BC project, this research focuses on ways to build a more gender diverse mining workforce in the Kootenay region. Building connections to planning theory and practice in the region, the paper investigates the opportunities available to women in rural resource communities, and the challenges they face regarding employment in the mining sector. Results show that in the Kootenay region there may be a shift occurring in mining company culture. More progressive policies and respectful workplace culture, combined with gender-oriented planning initiatives, appear to create a more gender inclusive mining sector. The results also show significant challenges associated with social infrastructure and supports, specifically a lack of child care spots, high rental and real estate prices, and the lack of opportunities for further education for women who want to enter the Kootenay mining workforce.

The Zoom Where It Happens: Using a Virtual, Mixed-Methods Focus Group Approach to Assess Community Well-Being in Natural Resource Contexts

In response to the growing interest in the health of natural resource-dependent communities, numerous methods have been used to monitor community well-being. However, many existing approaches lack the ability to compare well-being metrics across space and over time while maintaining community voices and perspectives in their own well-being assessment. This manuscript describes the development and implementation of a virtual methodological approach to gathering both quantitative and qualitative data about community well-being in natural resource contexts. We demonstrate application of the approach with commercial fishing communities in relation to long-term socioeconomic monitoring of the California marine protected area network. The approach involved conducting focus groups with commercial fishing “community-experts” in eighteen major California ports. Due to pandemic conditions at the time of data collection, focus groups were held online over Zoom, but the method could also be conducted in-person when health and safety protocols allow. The focus groups were guided by a well-being assessment tool, which included quantitative questions where fishing community-experts were asked to rate their port along environmental, economic, and social aspects of community well-being. An open-ended qualitative discussion followed the rating exercise for each question, after which participants were asked to re-rate the question to produce deliberative, consensus-based ratings. We describe considerations of and insights from the implementation of this approach. Future researchers and practitioners may want to consider the benefits of this approach based on two factors: (1) the mixed-methods focus groups provided a means to develop quantitative well-being metrics comparable across communities and time and introduced rich qualitative information about the context of and conditions in communities across a large spatial area; and (2) the virtual format of the focus group led to lower research costs, offered greater flexibility in scheduling, and received positive feedback from participants who communicated the benefits of being able to participate in the research experience from the comfort and convenience of their own homes. Even as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, researchers and practitioners may want to consider keeping virtual engagement approaches as a tool in their methodological toolbox, which can open up new avenues for connection and understanding.

The Livelihoods Vulnerability of Farmers in Upstream and Downstream Areas in Facing Natural Disasters in South Kalimantan, Indonesia

This study applied the Livelihood Vulnerability Index to developing countries’ agricultural and natural resource-dependent communities. The index is involved in a comparative analysis of the vulnerability of upstream and downstream communities in Banjar District, which is expected to bear some of the most severe impacts of climate change in South Kalimantan. The major components indices […]

Farmers adapt to climate change irrespective of stated belief in climate change: a California case study

Farmers are front-line workers managing climatic change. As in many parts of the world, climate change in northern California is threatening natural resource-dependent communities by exacerbating droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires. This article draws on ethnographic methods, including 108 interviews with crop and livestock farmers and key informants, to query climate change experience, belief, and response in rural northeastern California. I find that farmers recognize and describe climate changes that match the meteorologic evidence of anthropogenic climate change, but attribute these changes to weather cycles and harsh geographies. However, irrespective of their belief in anthropogenic climate change, farmers implement climate adaptations—many of these practices with mitigation co-benefits, bolstering growing evidence that climate change belief and action are not tightly coupled. To accelerate farmer adaptation, this work suggests that policy and programming focus on actions and outcomes, rather than reshaping belief.

Between the commons and the cosmos: the sacred politics of the BRI in Southeast Asia and beyond

ABSTRACT This paper explores how political ecology can advance existing understandings of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its effects, and how the BRI can contribute to recent shifts in the study of political ecology. It argues that the idea of infrastructural overlap can sensitize discourse to the ways in which the materializations of the BRI, as a series of infrastructural megaprojects, intersect with other infrastructural formations, such as the environment and religion. By focusing on the effects of the BRI on resource-dependent communities located between the ‘commons’ and the ‘cosmos’ we can appreciate the sense of existential crisis that is triggered and exacerbated by China’s world-building agenda in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Beyond Morality: The Moral Economy Framework and the Fisheries in Mumbai

The notion of the moral economy has shifted widely in interpretation over the years. Beginning as a concept to understand shifts in political economy, it has increasingly focused on the role that morality and values play in non-capitalist economies. Resource-dependent communities are viewed as exemplifying moral economies, embodying morals that are based on notions of equality and reciprocity and thus seen to be the anti-thesis of modern capitalist societies. Such a formulation shifts the focus from social change—the foundation of the earlier moral economy framework—to a focus on morality and participants in ‘moral’ economies. This article argues for a return to the older conceptualization of the ‘moral economy’ where class remains an important determinant of action such that different political economic regimes represent different kinds of moral economies. Based on a study of the Koli caste community of fishers in Mumbai, this article explores the messy ways in which community and class identities intersect in response to a capitalist transformation. A return to the older moral economy framework offers an opportunity to critically analyse community values and class politics and the role they play in shaping collective action without reducing capitalism as the ‘amoral’ other to older livelihood practices.