Nature conservation, rural livelihoods, and territorial control in Andean Ecuador

The Ecuadorian sierra, or Andean region, has during recent decades witnessed a marked expansion of nature conservation initiatives. This paper explores the relations and tensions between this proliferation of conservation interventions and the struggles of rural Andean communities to assert territorial authority and to consolidate their livelihoods. Through an analysis of three rounds of conservation initiatives in an indigenous campesino cooperative in the south-central sierra, I argue for a conceptualization of the outcomes and trajectories of conservation as coproduced through histories of interaction between conservation actors and rural resource users. Within this analytical framework, I underscore the importance of taking into account the agency of rural communities, their historical landscape claims, and the dynamism of their livelihood interests.     

Farming as a livelihood source for the urban poor of Nakuru, Kenya

Farming among urban dwellers in Sub-Saharan Africa is a common phenomenon. The present study, carried out in a medium-sized town in Kenya, not only confirmed this but also showed that farming by urban dwellers in the rural areas was even more important for these households’ livelihoods than farming in town. However, those who could benefit most from farming, i.e. the urban poor, appeared to be underrepresented among urban farming households and those urban poor who did farm, either in urban or in rural areas, performed worse than the farming non-poor. The importance of farming as a livelihood source is illustrated by the fact that in years with very little or no harvest due to drought, many of the poor farming households faced food shortages.     

Fighting Over Forest: Toward a Shared Analysis of Livelihood Conflicts and Conflict Management in Ghana

Conflicts undermine forest-based livelihoods for the rural poor. Conflict management is key to preventing such conflicts. This article analyzes actor perceptions of forest- and tree-related conflicts and conflict management in Ghana's high forest zone. It also assesses a phased methodology that promotes shared problem definition and ownership of recommendations on conflict resolution strategies through the presentation and discussion of findings from document analysis, surveys, interviews, and focus-group discussions at a workshop with forest professionals held in Kumasi, Ghana. The study found that conflicts are inherent in forest-based livelihoods due to policy and legislative failures and institutional deficiencies, perceived goal incompatibility, opportunities for interfering with the attainment of one another's goals, and environmental scarcity. Ongoing forest governance reforms in Ghana should consider the stepwise conflict management model developed by the workshop participants involved in this study, but expand it to include the views of other stakeholder groups.     

‘Rising Waters Don't Lift All Boats’: a sustainable livelihood analysis of recursive cycles of vulnerability and maladaptation to flood risk in rural Bihar,India

ABSTRACT

Bihar, in the central Gangetic Basin, is simultaneously India's poorest and most flood-prone State. Climate change models currently identify a heightening of Bihar's flood risk, as rainfall patterns become more intense and Himalayan glaciers recede. During the past half century, the major strategy deployed by the State and national governments to address the risk of floods has involved the construction of embankments: raised areas of land that seek to control river flow and provide temporary sanctuaries for flood-affected populations. In this article, qualitative data from interviews with flood-affected villagers and policy makers at local, district and State levels are used to assess the social implications of embankments as an adaptive response to flood risk. Evidence from these testimonies leads us to conceptualise embankments as contributing to recursive cycles of vulnerability, in which women, children and poorer social segments have been unwitting bearers. Hence, reliance on embankments is a maladaptation that perpetuates, if not exacerbates, the severe manifestations of social and economic inequality that continue to plague rural Bihar. Perhaps not surprisingly, the voices of those whose lives have been made more difficult by embankments are heard all too infrequently in policy debates. This emphasises the need for climate adaptation initiatives to be anchored in a sustainable livelihood approach, for which the prime analytical objective is to understand the factors that enable or constrain the abilities of people, especially those who are most vulnerable, to make decisions about their lives.     

Domesticating neo-liberalism: Everyday lives and the geographies of post-socialist transformations

This paper examines the ways in which neo-liberalism is both constructed and made ‘more tolerable’ through everyday practices and livelihoods in post-socialist cities. It argues that existing conceptualisations of neo-liberalism centre too fully on the role of powerful global forces and institutions in constructing marketisation processes, and consequently neglect the ways in which everyday lives are embroiled in the formation of neo-liberal worlds. Through an exploration of the experience of neo-liberalism in the Slovak Republic and drawing upon research with households in one large housing estate in Bratislava, the paper examines the ways in which everyday lives construct neo-liberal possibilities in the attempt to make them ‘more tolerable’. In particular, the paper explores the postponement of the future by some members of the middle-aged generation failing to reap the benefits of economic reform, the role of economic practices ‘outside’ of market-based capitalist relations in constructing engagements with the formal market, and the role of domestic food production in sustaining household networks and social reproduction for some of the most marginal households in the context of low-wage employment and state benefit reductions.     

Integration of smallholder wetland aquaculture–agriculture systems (fingerponds) into riparian farming systems on the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya: socio-economics and livelihoods

This paper presents the results of experimental fingerponds: an integrated flood recession aquaculture–agriculture production system in the Lake Victoria wetlands in Kenya. The overall aim of the study is to assess the potential of fingerponds as a sustainable wetland farming system for improving food security at the subsistence level and within the context of the existing livelihood activities. The contribution of this new activity to rural household livelihoods is evaluated. Since it is a sustainable technology, based on natural events, the production level is intermediate and the benefits may not be high in the short term. Economic analysis shows that the gross margin and net income of fingerponds is about 752 and 197 Euros per hectare per year, respectively. This is about an 11% increase in the annual gross margin of an average rural household around Lake Victoria. The additional per capita fish supply is 3 kg per season or more from a 192 m² pond. The potential fish protein supply of 200 kg/ha is high compared with most existing terrestrial protein production systems. Fingerponds have the potential to contribute to household food security and to improve livelihoods. Sensitivity analysis indicates that biophysical variations, which may occur from one wetland to another, have implications for the functioning, and consequently the economic performance, of fingerponds. This reinforces the need for the integration of these systems into other household activities to buffer the household against potential risk.     

西秦岭地区农户生计改变对生态建设的影响——以甘肃省陇南市为例

以西秦岭典型地区甘肃省陇南市为案例区,分析了农户生计改变与生态文明建设的关系,探讨了以农户生计改善为目标的生态文明建设思路。在揭示陇南市生态文明建设面临生产和生活空间不足、生态环境脆弱、农村贫困面大和传统资源利用模式普遍等主要难点的基础上,利用第六次人口普查和陇南市武都区农户问卷调查数据,分析了1999年退耕还林以来在农户生计五大资本方面发生的变化,以及农户生计改变对生态文明建设的影响。研究认为,理想状态下,农户生计能力的提升对提高国土空间利用效率、促进资源利用节约、改善生态环境有益。但陇南市因自然环境困境,在农户生计能力提升的同时,也存在一些阶段性的问题。针对这些问题,陇南市应树立以生态促发展、以农业促发展的思路,努力提升农户生计水平,为构筑有效率的空间结构,建立资源节约型社会体系提供支撑。     

Climate adaptation,local institutions,and rural livelihoods: A comparative study of herder communities in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia,China

Climate variability has been evident on the Mongolian plateau in recent decades. Livelihood adaptation to climate variability is important for local sustainable development. This paper applies an analytical framework focused on adaptation, institutions, and livelihoods to study climate adaptation in the Mongolian grasslands. A household survey was designed and implemented in each of three broad vegetation types in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. The analytical results show that livelihood adaptation strategies of herders vary greatly across the border between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China. Local institutions played important roles in shaping and facilitating livelihood adaptation strategies of herders. Mobility and communal pooling were the two key categories of adaptation strategies in Mongolia, and they were shaped and facilitated by local communal institutions. Storage, livelihood diversification, and market exchange were the three key categories of adaptation strategies in Inner Mongolia, and they were mainly shaped and facilitated by local government and market institutions. Local institutions enhanced but also at times undermined adaptive capacity of herder communities in the two countries, but in different ways. Sedentary grazing has increased livelihood vulnerability of herders to climate variability and change. With grazing sedentarization, the purchase and storage of forage has become an important strategy of herders to adapt to the highly variable climate. The multilevel statistical models of forage purchasing behaviors show that the strategies of livestock management, household financial capital, environmental (i.e., precipitation and vegetation growth) variability, and the status of pasture degradation were the major determinants of this adaptation strategy.     

Small‐Scale Enterprise Livelihoods and Social Capital in Eastern Indonesia: Ethnic Embeddedness and Exclusion*

This article explores the importance of specific forms of social capital for small‐scale enterprises while highlighting that such analyses must incorporate local sociocultural complexities. In Eastern Indonesia, small‐scale entrepreneurs in Makassar city rely heavily on informal networks, linkages, and trust relationships for their livelihoods. This dependence reflects different social capital forms, embedded in local ethnic and social relations that are inclusionary for some, yet exclusionary for others. Findings show that although bonding social capital is prevalent, albeit with diverse implications, bridging social capital is less so, and linking social capital is virtually absent. A lack of the latter, combined with widespread corruption in the city, hinders livelihood progress for many local entrepreneurs.     

Institutional change and natural resource use in coastal Vietnam

Vietnam is currently undergoing a rapid economic and social transition involving the dismantling of the co-operative system and the official embracing of a market economy. The paper uses an institutional approach to examine adaptation to such changes in two coastal communes in mangrove forest areas. Having provided the historical and policy context of reforms which have taken place in Vietnam in the area of resource management, the paper goes on to discuss changes currently taking place in access to resources. The complexity of property rights regimes are then examined in the light of such changes, with particular focus on the effects of privatisation and the increased effects of integration with external markets. Using livelihood diversification as a key concept for understanding local adaptation to such changes, the paper concludes with discussion of the socially differentiated impacts of the process and the implications for future livelihoods. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.