scholarly journals Measuring Peripherality as a Proxy for Autonomous Community Coping Capacity: A Case Study from Bua Province, Fiji Islands, for Improving Climate Change Adaptation

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nunn ◽  
Kumar

Over the past thirty years, externally-driven interventions for climate-change adaptation in rural Pacific Island contexts have largely failed to be effective or sustained. One reason is that traditional (culturally-grounded) autonomous community coping capacity has been overlooked, many external agencies viewing all such communities as both homogenous and helpless. A community’s autonomous coping capacity can be proxied by peripherality, a measure of the degree to which a particular community in archipelagic (island) countries engages with core agendas. In order to gauge the depth, breadth and efficacy of autonomous coping capacity, three indices of community peripherality were developed from research within thirteen communities in (peripheral-biased) Bua Province in Fiji. Index 1 concerns geography (travel time/cost to town), Index 2 concerns population and employment (community size, age distribution, employment), and Index 3 concerns tradition and global awareness (mobile phones per capita, traditional/western healthcare preferences, inherent coping capacity, diet, water and energy security). Mapping of Indices 1–3 allows the nature of community peripherality in Bua to be captured using a readily-reproducible tool for rapid assessment in similar contexts. It is demonstrated that an understanding of peripherality (as a proxy for autonomous community coping capacity) can inform the design of future interventions for climate-change adaptation.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Ofuoku ◽  
Davina Okompu

Abstract Objective: The study has the purpose of evaluating the nexus between climate change and migration of farmers in Delta State, Nigeria. The influence exerted by cognitive situations and climate – driven stress on farmers’ decisions to migrate and the socioeconomic attributes of migrating and non-migrating farm families are examined. The emphasis is the function of migration in accessing climate and agricultural extension services as well as the contribution made by migration to promote farmers’ climate change coping capacity.Methodology: Survey was articulated using farming households in three agricultural zones of Delta State, Nigeria. Perceptions of farmers about alterations in climate were examined with the use of mental map technique. Binary logistic regression model was applied to assess the function of socioeconomic attributes of farm families while descriptive statistics was employed in evaluating the adaptive capacities of the migrating farming households.Findings: Climate – driven livelihood variables form part of the main propellers of migration among farmers. Migration as well as the socioeconomic attributes are influenced by perception of farmers about climate change. These appears significant difference between migrating and non-migrating farm families with respect to utilization of information, technology and knowledge emanating from agricultural and climate extension services. The gains from remittances, knowledge and social networks from host communities or zones raises migrating farm families capacity to adapt to climate change.Theoretical Implications: This paper contributes to the progressively dynamic body of knowledge by pointing out migration as an alternative climate change adaptation strategy to promote agriculture food security in any part of the world.Originality/Value: Micro – evidence is offered by this study with respect to contribution made by migration to adaptive capacity of farmers and their ability to have access to agricultural and climate extension services. This will be useful in the analysis of climate – driven migration in other nations that are agricultural economies. Insight is also offered regarding policy needs for the scaling down of farmers’ vulnerability to climate change.


2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-198
Author(s):  
Yongjoon Kim ◽  
Sung-Eun Yoo ◽  
Ji Won Bang ◽  
Kwansoo Kim ◽  
Donghwan An

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karla Diana Infante Ramírez ◽  
Ana Minerva Arce Ibarra

The main objective of this study was to analyze local perceptions of climate variability and the different adaptation strategies of four communities in the southern Yucatán Peninsula, using the Social-Ecological System (SES) approach. Four SESs were considered: two in the coastal zone and two in the tropical forest zone. Data were collected using different qualitative methodological tools (interviews, participant observation, and focal groups) and the information collected from each site was triangulated. In all four sites, changes in climate variability were perceived as “less rain and more heat”. In the tropical forest (or Maya) zone, an ancestral indigenous weather forecasting system, known as “Xook k’íin” (or “las cabañuelas”), was recorded and the main activity affected by climate variability was found to be slash-and burn farming or the milpa. In the coastal zone, the main activities affected are fishing and tourism. In all the cases analyzed, local climate change adaptation strategies include undertaking alternative work, and changing the calendar of daily, seasonal and annual labor and seasonal migration. The population of all four SESs displayed concern and uncertainty as regards dealing with these changes and possible changes in the future.


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