Climate-related disaster opens a window of opportunity for rural poor in northeastern Honduras

Abstract

Two distinct views are evident in research on how rural communities in developing countries cope with extreme weather events brought by climate change: ( i ) that the resource-reliant poor are acutely vulnerable and need external assistance to prepare for such events, and ( ii ) that climate-related shocks can offer windows of opportunity in which latent local adaptive capacities are triggered, leading to systemic improvement. Results from a longitudinal study in a Tawahka community in Honduras before and after Hurricane Mitch (1994–2002) indicate that residents were highly vulnerable to the hurricane—due in part to previous development assistance—and that the poorest households were the hardest hit. Surprisingly, however, the disaster enabled the poor to initiate an institutional change that led to more equitable land distribution, slowed primary forest conversion, and positioned the community well to cope with comparable flooding occurring 10 y later. The study provides compelling evidence that communities can seize on the window of opportunity created by climate-induced shocks to generate sustained social-ecological improvement, and suggests that future interventions should foster local capacities for endogenous institutional change to enhance community resilience to climate shocks.

Vulnerability and adaptive capacity of community food systems in the Peruvian Amazon: a case study from Panaillo

“…Frequent and severe climatic events may trigger positive changes in adaptive strategies, leading to increased resilience for future climatic events, for example, by planting hazard-resistant seeds or increasing livelihood diversification (Adger et al, 2007). Several studies have documented how extreme events may lead to a "window of opportunity" by catalyzing profound social, economic, policy and legal changes due to the vulnerabilities that are exposed as a result of the climatic event (Kates et al, 2010;Travis, 2012;McSweeney & Coomes, 2011). Whether these transformational changes occur is dependent upon the frequency and severity of the extreme event and the decisionmaking context (Yohe & Tol, 2002;Kates et al, 2010).…”

“…Migration is another common ex-post adaptive strategy in floodprone areas to avoid flood impacts and generate an alternative source of income (Hofmeijer et al, 2012;Lopez-Marrero, 2010;McSweeney, 2005;McSweeney & Coomes, 2011). Food aid can also provide an important safety net for vulnerable areas, although several case studies have criticized food aid for its poor timing, inequitable distribution and inability to meet nutritional needs (Eriksen & Silva, 2009;Lopez-Marrero, 2010;Devereux, 2007).…”

“…Since projections of climate change indicate an increase in the frequency and intensity of climatic hazards like flooding and droughts, it is increasingly important to understand communities' adaptive capacity to extreme hydrological events (Verner, 2010). The impact of climatic hazards is place-and contextdependent (Verner, 2010;McSweeney & Coomes, 2011). Climatic hazards interact with pre-existing socioeconomic and political conditions to make some individuals, households, groups and communities more vulnerable to climatic hazards than others (Ford et al, 2010a;O'Brien et al, 2007;.…”

“…Climatic hazards interact with pre-existing socioeconomic and political conditions to make some individuals, households, groups and communities more vulnerable to climatic hazards than others (Ford et al, 2010a;O'Brien et al, 2007;. Depending on the nature of the hydrological event and community context, a drought or flood may devastate a community, have minimal impact, or trigger positive change and innovation (Nyong et al, 2007; McSweeney & Coomes, 2011).…”

Reconnecting to the Biosphere

“…The resilience lens has been applied to understand social-ecological dynamics in different parts of the world (Walker et al 2006;Chapin et al 2009), in developed and developing regions, in traditional societies, among vulnerable peoples or for combating poverty, for example, in shifting from dryland poverty traps into improved livelihoods (Enfors and Gordon 2008), in dealing with disasters among rural communities in developing countries (McSweeney and Coomes 2011), in growing the wealth of the poor (WRI 2008) or in livelihood and land-use choices among farmers in Latin America in relation to the sensitivity to future market and environmental shocks (Eakin and Wehbe 2009). Footnote 3 continued periods of gradual and rapid change, feedbacks and non-linear dynamics, thresholds, tipping points and shifts (transitions) between pathways, and how such dynamics interacts across temporal and spatial scales.…”