Adaptation in a multi-stressor environment: perceptions and responses to climatic and economic risks by coffee growers in Mesoamerica

Variations in judgments of intentional action and moral evaluation across eight cultures

“…If it were just a semantic by-product in these small-scale societies, the difference found with commoners in both would be unlikely. Finally, a differential understanding of harm to the environment across culture cannot account for our results since we do not observe an inversion of the side-effect effect in the two Mexican cohorts or Costa Rican sample that all depend on natural resources and agriculture for their survival (Cusack & Dixon, 2006;Eakin et al, 2014;Jurjonas, Crossman, Solomon, & Baez, 2016;Moguel & Toledo, 1999).…”

Multiscale trends and precipitation extremes in the Central American Midsummer Drought

“…Highly variable precipitation is among the many challenges faced by the millions of families who rely directly on smallholder farming in Central America (PRESANCA-FAO 2011, Van der Zee Arias et al 2012) and is linked to both food insecurity and migration (Lobell et al 2008, Nawrotzki et al 2016. Recently, smallholder farmers have reported changes in the distribution and intensity of rainfall across Central America, resulting in crop losses and reductions in yields for those already contending with pervasive social and economic inequalities (Eakin et al 2014, Pons et al 2016, Hellin et al 2017, de Sousa et al 2018, Harvey et al 2018, Rice 2018, Bellante 2019. Farmers in the western highlands of Guatemala and the Chiapas lowlands of Mexico have specifically reported that the Central American Midsummer Drought (MSD) (Magaña et al 1999) is becoming more prolonged, increasingly variable, and harder to predict (Hellin et al 2017, Bellante 2019.…”

How do biosphere reserves influence local vulnerability and adaptation? Evidence from Latin America

“…These findings are not surprising since exposure to multiple stresses and the existence of varied perceptions of threats, including those related to conservation policies, have been documented elsewhere (O'Brien and Leichenko, 2000;Bunce et al, 2010;McDowell and Hess, 2012;Eakin et al, 2014). However, our findings are novel from the perspective of conservation governance since we have shown that the way in which biosphere reserves are established by national conservation policy, and their management rules negotiated and implemented, have influenced communities' perception of conservation as a stress and the role of these protected areas in undermining or enhancing local adaptation.…”

“…Adaptation responses are thus mediated by social circumstances and ecological factors at different and linked scales (Folke et al, 2005;Nelson et al, 2007). In the face of rainfall variability and economic pressures, Bolivian highland farmers have for example increased household investment in adaptation through increased use of water, labour and forms of social assets (McDowell and Hess, 2012), whereas coffee growers across Mesoamerica have developed adaptation actions consisting in adopting new crop varieties and management innovations (Eakin et al, 2014). Moreover, rural communities' capacity to adapt also depends on people's own skills and behaviour, mediated by cultural and psycho-social aspects, such as gender, values, beliefs, social status and attitudes to risk (Adger et al, 2009;Ribot and Peluso, 2003).…”