Resource-dependent Communities Research Articles

Identifying a fly-in/fly-out source-hub community: The case of Deer Lake, Newfoundland and Labrador

Fly-in/Fly-out (FIFO) is a commuting arrangement involving the movement of employees to and from their place of work by airplane, often on a rotational basis. Extensive research on FIFO has been conducted in Australia where three community types have been identified: source (or home) communities, host (or work) communities, and hub communities (stop-over communities). An additional community type, the source-hub community, was identified in 2013. Though FIFO arrangements are important for facilitating intra- and inter-provincial ERGM, limited research on hub or source-hub communities has been conducted in Canada. Through a door-to-door census and key informant interviews, this study identified Deer Lake in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) as a FIFO source-hub community. While airport access was an important factor influencing Deer Lake's source-hub development, as was the case in Australia, other significant factors included proximity to friend and family connections and employment. Overall, it is suggested that factors influencing the development of FIFO source-hub communities may be context-specific. While more research is needed to understand the emergence of source-hub communities, these findings contribute to dialogues around the nature of resource-dependent communities, including the study of compound community types and the relationship between FIFO workers and the communities through which they travel.

The Goldilocks view: Support and skepticism of the impacts and pace of unconventional oil and gas development in the Bakken Shale of the United States

Residents of rural communities with histories of booms and busts in natural resource extraction often have divergent and simultaneously complex views on whether continued development of such industries is desirable. For instance, while many residents appreciate the economic benefits generated by these industries, some are also skeptical about disruptions resulting from expanding or continuing resource extraction. We use social representation theory and a mini-boom/bust framework to examine Bakken Shale residents’ perceptions of current and continued development of the oil and gas industry, including the role of industrial legacy and environmental concerns. Data from our 2016 survey indicates that about one in four residents see oil and gas development as positive for their community, but at the same time, felt relief that the most recent boom slowed in pace. We refer to this as the Goldilocks View of Development and see it as evidence of support for a mini-bust. In terms of continued development of the industry as represented by the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, we found a high level of support for construction, and that political party, belonging to a local organization, and trust in industry to address spills are key predictors of such support. As natural resource dependent communities such as those in the Bakken Shale continue to experience unconventional oil and gas development in a mini-boom/bust context, it is important to understand residents’ perceptions so that state and local governments can develop policies towards the industry that address local concerns.

Valuing shale gas development in resource-dependent communities

Technological advances in oil and gas drilling have enabled the productive extraction of natural gas in new regions. The benefits from employment and income opportunities can help stimulate economies and may be valued by local residents. At the same time, however, shale gas activity can alter natural landscapes and is associated with negative externalities, including potential groundwater contamination. While some previous research has examined the impact of shale development, our paper focuses on the local impacts in West Virginia, a state with a long history of resource-extraction and one whose economy has lagged the nation. Because of its history of resource extraction, communities in West Virginia who may have limited other economic prospects may value the activity differently. Additionally, most of the previous research used data during the initial boom, ignoring the slowdown that followed. Using the coarsened exact matching (CEM) technique, we match houses near producing wells with other similar houses, in order to examine how property values in West Virginia are affected by proximity to horizontal producing wells. This technique helps compensate for the relatively small number of housing transactions in West Virginia, ensuring we have a good counterfactual. After matching, we estimate the average capitalization effect of houses near producing shale wells. We find that the price of all houses (regardless of water source) decreases as the number of surrounding wells increases. However, we also find some evidence that this effect varies over time and that the negative capitalization effect attenuates over space.

Characterisation of ecosystem-based adaptations to drought in the central cattle corridor of Uganda

Ecosystems provide climate-change adaptation opportunities including ecosystem services, adaptation benefits and livelihood improvement especially for natural resource dependent communities. To contribute to the understanding of location specific adaptation processes of predominantly agro-pastoralists, a study was carried out in the central cattle corridor of Uganda to characterise ecosystem-based drought Adaptations. A cross sectional survey using semi-structured questionnaires, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were employed among 183 randomly selected households. The ecosystem-based adaptations (EbAs) to perceived drought impacts were characterised basing on ecosystem services, adaptation benefits to drought and livelihood improvement categories unveiling the different proportions of each EbA under each category. Water shortage and intense heat were the major perceived drought impacts. The use of drought resistant shade trees, water reservoirs and dams, and alternative ecosystem-based livelihoods were the majorly utilised EbAs. The alternative ecosystem-based livelihoods were the mostly used EbA dominating all the three categories. The utilisation of drought resistant shade trees dominated the ecosystem services and adaptation benefits categories, whereas the use of water reservoirs and dams were the mostly used EbA for livelihood improvement. These EbAs should be incorporated in climate-change adaptation policies and initiatives, while considering their subsequent dominating categories to enhance farmers’ resilience.

Perceptions of Local Vulnerability and the Relative Importance of Climate Change in Rural Ecuador

Rural, natural resource dependent communities are especially vulnerable to climate change, and their input is critical in developing solutions, but the study of risk perception within and among vulnerable communities remains underdeveloped. Our multi-disciplinary research team used a mixed-methods approach to document, analyze, and conceptualize the interacting factors that shape vulnerability and to explore community members’ perceptions of the role and relative importance of climate change compared to other factors in three rural communities in Ecuador. Economic instability, lack of access to basic services, and environmental degradation are perceived as greater threats to community well being than increasing seasonal variability and flooding. Programs and policies directed at climate change adaptation should integrate climate and non-climate related stressors. Our findings also point to a greater need for collaboration across public health, poverty alleviation, and environmental management fields through practical research targeting assistance to vulnerable populations.

The importance of cultural ecosystem services in natural resource-dependent communities: Implications for management

In defining cultural ecosystem services as the recreational, aesthetic, and spiritual benefits people obtain from ecosystems, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment conveyed a key aspect of nature-society relationships. Yet, it is reasonable to suppose that this aspect may apply more to to contexts where people enjoy more leisure time to admire a scenic vista or recreate in nature. How relevant is this aspect of nature-society relationships for people who rely more on natural resources, or provisioning ecosystem services, for livelihoods? We integrated qualitative and quantitative field research methods to examine how people in natural resource-dependent communities perceived the importance of different ecosystem services to wellbeing. We found that people with varying degrees of dependence on coastal, marine, and terrestrial provisioning ecosystem services perceived cultural ecosystem services—particularly scenic beauty, biodiversity, and space to recreate—as very important to wellbeing, and also perceived increases in wellbeing following interventions to foment small-scale tourism and conservation. In terms of global ecosystem management, our findings imply that (1) aesthetics and recreation matter, even if these cultural ecosystem services appear more often in the literature, (2) more efforts may be taken to make cultural ecosystem services more accessible, (3) small-scale tourism and conservation interventions may be reconsidered as potential means to increase wellbeing, and (4) reframing ecosystem management as explicit efforts to augment wellbeing may help to garner more widespread support and participation.

Ecological politics of water: the ramifications of tourism development in Yogyakarta

ABSTRACT In Yogyakarta, Indonesia, development in the tourism industry impacts the lives of local residents. Hotels, built in increasing numbers and grandiosity, place ever greater stress on a resource-dependent community with a declining water supply. Inevitably, conflict has arisen between locals and hotel corporations, with the local government playing the critical role of finding political solutions to the sustainability of residents’ daily lives and an active tourism sector. This study seeks to analyse the existing ecological politics of water as applied by the Yogyakarta government, and in particular to examine three questions: how water is used for daily consumption and tourism activities, what strategies the government has employed in authorizing the use of water, and how it controls water use while serving the public interest. Our findings show that residents and hotels differed in their usage of water. Hotels were found to violate several regulations regarding the sourcing of water and sustainable construction practices. Although the government has attempted to address the issue of water availability, its measures have not been carried out with the necessary forcefulness. As such, the government has not displayed the power to impose the rewards and punishments commonly delivered by governments that engage in ecological politics.

Development of an Interdisciplinary Master of Forestry Program Focused on Forest Management in a Changing Climate

Concerted efforts are required to achieve the essential UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. This concept paper is focused on the development of a new Master of Forestry (MF) degree program at our University of Applied Sciences (UAS). With this move, we want to outline how capacity building and valuable synergy effects can be obtained from close cooperation in teaching and research, in order to educate our scientifically trained and practice-oriented forestry students in applying new management responses to natural disturbance impacts and sustainable use of terrestrial natural resources for forest resource-dependent communities. Specifically, we show how the emergent issues of global warming and the associated increased vulnerability of temperate deciduous forests can be tackled. Actions to overcome knowledge transfer barriers will provide sound solutions for SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 13 (climate action), SDG 15 (life on land), and SDG 17 (partnerships to achieve the goal). Focusing on the Global Sustainable Development Goals can trigger intra and inter-faculty processes of cooperation, exchange programs, and optimized interfaces of previously separated disciplines that complement each other perfectly to form a knowledge hub.

Multiscale determinants of social adaptive capacity in small-scale fishing communities

Climate change is expected to reinforce undesirable social and ecological feedbacks between ecosystem degradation and poverty. This is particularly true for resource-dependent communities in the developing world such as coral reef fishing communities who will have to adapt to those new environmental conditions and novel ecosystems. It is therefore crucial to identify: i) multiscale characteristics that can influence social adaptive capacity of local communities to climate change, and ii) current and future social-ecological conditions related to climate change that might lead communities to experience unsustainable and undesirable states (i.e., “social-ecological traps”). Here, we investigated social adaptive capacity and the relationship to ecological conditions in 29 small-scale fishing communities in Madagascar and Kenya in the Western Indian Ocean. We found that isolation from a market and climate stress had a significant negative relationship with social adaptive capacity, while a higher level of education and the presence of market traders (middlemen) had a positive relationship. In general, resource management through marine protected areas and locally managed marine areas had a positive influence on ecological conditions. Combining social adaptive capacity and ecological conditions revealed that 80 % of fishers households surveyed were experiencing social-ecological states that could lead to unsustainable social-ecological conditions, while 10 % might already be experiencing social-ecological traps. Our findings reveal specific mechanisms by which conservation and development activities can increase social adaptive capacity in coastal communities, including but not limited to: increasing market access and education, and mitigating future climate exposure and unsustainable fishing through improved marine conservation and management.

An approach for assessing adaptive capacity to climate change in resource dependent communities in the Nikachu watershed, Bhutan

Vulnerability to climate change is a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Econometric and indicator-based approaches have been used to assess vulnerability at regional, national and global scales. However, these approaches often fail to capture how vulnerability varies within regions and communities. Within regions there is often little capacity to distinguish between exposure and sensitivity, while there is potentially considerable variability in adaptive capacity. This study presents a new approach for assessing adaptive capacity at household and village-levels by combining econometric data and landscape ecology measures to generate new types of indicators that provide new insights into local level adaptive capacity. Livelihood security is a key contributor to adaptation and we used the sustainable livelihood framework as a basis for analysis. We combined social survey information with spatial data on different livelihood capitals and integrated these using multivariate statistical methods to generate indicators of adaptive capacity for households and villages. A mixed method approach was used in two contrasting localities in the Nikachu watershed in central Bhutan to gather social and economic data and spatial data on landscape variables. A total of 144 households were selected through simple random sampling and were interviewed across 22 villages in the watershed. Indicators revealed a strong link between adaptive capacity and landscape position. Households at higher elevations generally had lower adaptive capacity, and therefore higher vulnerability to climate change, due to differences in physical, financial, natural and human capitals. These households and villages had lower diversity in income sources, greater dependence on natural resources, less education and training, less access to infrastructure (such as roads), and access to markets than households at lower elevations. Gender was also important, with female-headed households having lower adaptive capacity scores. However, some higher elevation households had higher adaptive capacity scores than others due to their capacity to collect the valuable insect fungus, Ophiocordyceps sinensis, from high altitude meadows. These new indicators provide insights into how adaptive capacity varies across scales. They can be used to identify policies and actions to improve adaptive capacity of vulnerable households and communities.

The Caiçara in Juatinga Ecological Reserve, Brazil: Landscape Ethnoecology of Cultural Products

Our research on Caicara ethnoecology in the Juatinga Ecological Reserve, in Paraty, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, focuses on basket, canoe, and paddle making to understand Caicara knowledge and stewardship of the landscape. Caicara differentiate individual plants within a given species to select suitable specimens for a specific cultural product. Choices are based on a combination of attributes such as length of roots, quality of fibers, and tree size and health. Resources are found in multiple ecotopes within a diversity of forest types; not all ecotopes produce suitable individuals for particular cultural products. Hence, people need access to areas of Juatinga Ecological Reserve beyond their community for their material and cultural needs. Our findings are of international significance in suggesting ways to make conservation and sustainable use compatible, since many resource-dependent communities are losing their resource rights in the face of increasing conservation pressures.

Following the fish inland: understanding fish distribution networks for rural development and nutrition security

In developing countries, small-scale fisheries are both a pivotal source of livelihood and essential for the nutritional intake of larger food insecure populations. Distribution networks that move fish from landing sites to coastal and inland consumers offer entry points to address livelihood enhancement and food security objectives of rural development initiatives. To be able to utilize fish distribution networks to address national development targets, a sound understanding of how local systems function and are organized is imperative. Here we present an in-depth examination of a domestic market chain in Timor-Leste that supplies small-pelagic fish to coastal and inland communities. We present the market chain’s different commodity flows and its distributive reach, and show how social organization strongly influences people’s access to fish, by determining availability and affordability. We suggest there is potential to advance Timor-Leste’s food and nutrition security targets by engaging with local influential actors and existing social relations across fish distribution networks. We argue that in addition to developing improvements to fish distribution infrastructure, utilizing existing or locally familiar practices, organization and social capital offers opportunity for long term self-sufficiency. Livelihood and food security improvement initiatives involving natural resource-dependent communities are more likely to succeed if they incorporate rural development perspectives, which frame directly targeted interventions (‘intentional’ development) within broader structural contexts (‘immanent’ development).

Community-Based Governance and Sustainability in the Paraguayan Pantanal

The megadiverse biome of the Paraguayan Pantanal is in danger due to the expansion of cattle ranching and agricultural frontiers that threaten not only the fragile equilibrium of natural resources, but also that of local governance and cultural identities. As a consequence, weak governance stresses the relations between natural resource-dependent communities, generating socio-environmental conflicts. This perception study seeks to find community-based governance models for sustainability in the context of Paraguayan wetlands. According to the organizational principles of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), we applied qualitative approaches with the use of the Governance Analytical Framework (GAF) to identify problems and social norms. Our findings suggest that the Yshiro indigenous self-organized group (Unión de las Comunidades Indígenas de la Nación Yshiro (UCINY)) can be considered as a model for community-based governance. Besides, we discovered that this specific governance model is highly threatened by the impact of the national neo-extractive economy.

New Modes of Environmental Governance in Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation in Oregon

Natural resource challenges often span administrative jurisdictions and include actors and processes operating at different spatial and political scales. We applied concepts of new environmental governance to analyze Oregon’s approach to greater sage-grouse conservation. Through one in-depth case study in Lake County, we traced features of new environmental governance (cross-scale interactions, decentralization, and capacities of actors) through different governance levels. Interviews and qualitative analysis revealed that decentralization of administrative functions facilitated cross-scale interactions and relied on intermediaries, gap-filling, and perceptions of legitimacy at lower levels. State and agency guidelines steered the effort and were accompanied by financial and technical resources from multiple arenas, which increased local capacity. This study adds to the understandings of environmental governance for implementing multi-actor, multi-level conservation arrangements in resource-dependent communities. Further exploration of connections between higher levels and local contexts will reveal important, new ways to link policies with on-the-ground outcomes.

The contribution of community forestry to climate change adaptive capacity in tropical dry forests: lessons from Myanmar

While community forestry (CF) is increasingly promoted as a climate change adaptation strategy, few analyses have examined the contribution of CF to adaptive capacity. We used a sustainable livelihood approach and Ostrom's design principles for managing commons, to assess how CF confers climate change adaptive capacity in two communities in Myanmar. Our findings indicate that CF provides tangible contributions to human and social capital, by increasing landless and female forest users' knowledge of forest management. However, CF has yet to enhance the physical, financial, and natural capital within these communities. The major challenges preventing the enhancement of socioeconomic benefits include limited community participation and weak institutional systems for monitoring and conflict resolution. We argue that CF increases community engagement in natural resource management, but in the absence of effective monitoring and decision-making, socioeconomic benefits to communities from CF programs may be limited. Our results elucidate important factors limiting the uptake and progress of CF as a viable climate change adaptation strategy in Southeast Asia, and indicate that comparative research is needed to better understand the factors that influence CF efficacy in forest- and natural resource-dependent communities globally.

Community development in the face of resource extraction in northern Minnesota, USA

The seven counties that make up northeastern Minnesota are known collectively as the “Arrowhead,” a region dominated by taconite mining, timber production, and tourism. Because of the Arrowhead’s long history of resource extraction and the boom-bust nature of resource dependence, there is recognition that to achieve long-term sustainability, economic diversification is critical. Complicating this narrative is upcoming decisions by the State of Minnesota to allow extraction of one of the largest undeveloped deposits of copper-nickel and precious metals worldwide; a decision that will determine the economic and environmental fate of the region for decades to come. The objective of this study was to determine how media coverage in six resource dependent communities in northeastern Minnesota perceived, prioritized and acted upon issues of community development and natural resource management, and how those perceptions and priorities differ spatially and temporally in the face of proposed copper-nickel and precious metal mining.

Regional economic transformation: Changing land and resource access on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island

The West Coast region of New Zealand has experienced significant structural economic changes since the 1980s. These changes have been a result of state imposed land use restrictions that limited productivist activities such as logging and mining, which in turn have been overlain by the effects of changes in national and global resource demand. This has led to both job loss and local resentment to what is seen to be external political and environmental interference in the region. Such changes overlay on-going boom-and-bust cycles experienced in the region’s resource dependent communities and the state’s pursuit of neo-liberalism from the 1980s, leading to the loss of state support and employment in the region. Regional path-dependence and ‘lock-in’ centred on productivist activities and the slow realisation of the need to diversify the economy have not helped. The region has under-performed in comparison with national trends economically and demographically reflecting and reinforcing local path dependence. The gradual growth of the service and tourism economies marks a new use for land resources and slow structural economic change. However, in the absence of governance processes that allow for collaborative planning to resolve conflicts over future trajectories for the region, conflicts over land uses, resources and access are likely to persist.

Children of Another Land: Social Disarticulation, Access to Natural Resources and the Reconfiguration of Authority in Post Resettlement

The breakdown of social order, social disarticulation, is a common impact of population resettlement. This article shows that social disarticulation results from the dissolution and reconstruction of authority through which people gain, maintain, and control access to essential resources in response to changes in the material conditions inherent in resettlement. Resource access—and the relations it implies—is required for long-term autonomy and security. When new patterns or hierarchies of resource control lead to some part of the group being disadvantaged via subordination to others or exclusion from resource enjoyment, resettled villages experience social disarticulation. We explore this access realignment and differentiation process in the case of the resettlement of two natural resource-dependent communities out of the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.

Views from the dock: Warming waters, adaptation, and the future of Maine's lobster fishery.

The ability of resource-dependent communities to adapt to climate change depends in part on their perceptions and prioritization of specific climate-related threats. In the Maine lobster fishery, which is highly vulnerable to warming water associated with climate change, we found a strong majority (84%) of fishers viewed warming water as a threat, but rank its impacts lower than other drivers of change (e.g., pollution). Two-thirds believed they will be personally affected by warming waters, but only half had plans to adapt. Those with adaptation plans demonstrated fundamentally different views of human agency in this system, observing greater anthropogenic threats, but also a greater ability to control thefishery through their own actions on the water and fisheries management processes. Lack of adaptation planning was linked to the view that warming waters result from natural cycles, and the expectation that technological advancements will help buffer the industry from warming waters.

Studying Resource-Dependent Communities Through a Social-Ecological Lens? Examining Complementarity with Existing Research Traditions in Canada

This article explores the suitability of Ostrom and colleagues' social-ecological systems framework (SESF) for the study of resource-dependent communities in Canada. Through a broad literature about resource-dependent communities in Canada, three main approaches are identified, named staples research, rural development, and sustainability studies. Each of these research traditions is analyzed with regards to a common set of criteria – focus, scale, methods, treatment of institutions, and treatment of environmental dimensions. Research in each category is compared and contrasted with the SESF approach, to identify areas of overlap and divergence. Results indicate that the SESF is unlikely to provide additional benefit in terms of in-depth of social analysis, however, it does provide a unique contribution in terms of its coupled approach to conceiving social and ecological systems and its ability to operationalize these relationships through structured variables.