In goat we trust : an ethnographic case study on pastoralist livelihoods and climate resilience in the Makreri village community in India (original) (raw)

Understanding How Local-level Environment Stewardship Initiatives Increase Livelihood Resilience to Climate Change: Insights from Rajasthan, India

Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal, 2021

Common property resources (CPR) are central for the sustenance of biodiversity and rural communities in India. Weak institutional governance and the lack of tenure rights for local communities over CPRs is resulting in degradation and over-exploitation of resources making rural communities vulnerable across India. Climatic variabilities further exacerbate existing socio-ecological imbalances multifold. Within the broader area of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, this paper explores how restoration of CPRs through local environment stewardship initiatives contributes to the resilience of rural livelihoods in the face of climate change. A mixed-methods approach was employed to study this aspect in six villages in two districts in Rajasthan. It was found that secure property rights and collective management of CPRs enhances household resilience and improves ecological health. It concludes that processes supporting local self-governance need to be central to local adaptati...

Goat Farmers' Coping Strategy for Sustainable Livelihood Security in Arid Rajasthan: An Empirical Analysis

2009

Goat farmers' coping strategy under water scarcity and changing resource situations in the arid Rajasthan has been analyzed. Input-output model has been used to quantify the magnitude of linkages amongst different components of the farming system. The study is based on the primary data collected from randomly selected 60 goats-keeping households and 25 farm households without goats for the year 2004-2005 from the Nagaur district in arid Rajasthan. Instead of opting for transhumance system, the farmers have been found innovative in evolving a farming system that has allowed sustainable production of grains for family as well as feed and fodder for maintaining their small ruminants. Three farming systems, (I) Rain-fed goat-based farming system, (II) Partially irrigated goat-based farming system, and (III) Rain-fed crop-based farming system, have been delineated. In response to the emerging resource and environmental conditions, goat farmers have utilized the potential synergy of l...

Livelihood Change and Resilience Building: A Village Study from the Darjeeling Hills, Eastern Himalaya, India

2005

This study investigated ways in which communities may or may not increase their ability to deal with change and create sustainable livelihoods. Resilience is an important aspect of the dynamics of livelihood change and responses. Resilience building refers to increasing the ability of a social-ecological system to absorb perturbations, and, in response, to adjust, learn, self-organize and re-organize for sustainable livelihoods. Resilience building in a particular social-ecological system was investigated through documentation of livelihoods change over a 50-year period in the village of Yangkhoo, Darjeeling District, India. The objectives of the study were: (1) to describe and understand a livelihood system, (2) to identify key drivers of change and evaluate the impacts of these changes on a livelihood system, including institutional responses; and, (3) to derive policy lessons for managing resource-based livelihoods with regards to power relations, cross-scale linkages and resilience building. The village was selected by considering: the occurrence of past crises, shocks, and stresses to enable the study of change, the land ownership in order to examine the complexity of livelihood options and responses, and the openness of the village in order to examine the role of crossscale institutional linkages. Field data were collected from September 2004 to mid-January 2005, using Rapid Rural Appraisal and semi-structured interviews. In the village, a sample size of 36 households (53%) was obtained from a total of 68 households. Key informants outside the village (NGOs, governmental agencies and private sector) were also interviewed (n = 13). The villagers have faced a series of changes and demonstrated a profound capacity to adjust.

Understanding How Local-level Environment Stewardship Initiatives Increase Livelihood Resilience to Climate Change

2021

Common property resources (CPR) are central for the sustenance of biodiversity and rural communities in India. Weak institutional governance and the lack of tenure rights for local communities over CPRs is resulting in degradation and over-exploitation of resources making rural communities vulnerable across India. Climatic variabilities further exacerbate existing socio-ecological imbalances multifold. Within the broader area of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, this paper explores how restoration of CPRs through local environment stewardship initiatives contributes to the resilience of rural livelihoods in the face of climate change. A mixed-methods approach was employed to study this aspect in six villages in two districts in Rajasthan. It was found that secure property rights and collective management of CPRs enhances household resilience and improves ecological health. It concludes that processes supporting local self-governance need to be central to local adaptati...

Discovering the Cultures of Resilience. Promoting the contributions of traditional livelihoods to climate change mitigation and adaptation and global sustainable development

Impact World 2017 Conference. Climate Change Potsdam Institute. S2: Discovering the culture of resilience: The potential of traditional land-use practices in addressing the impacts of climate change and for reaching SDGs 2.4, 13.1 and 15, 2017

The objective of this briefing paper is to highlight the values, potential and needs as well as concerns and threats to the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities and their contributions to addressing the impacts of climate change and to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG targets 2.4, 13.1 and 15.2. The deliberations and exchange of experiences during a workshop on ‘Cultures of Resilience’ held in October 2017 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Centre for Rural Development (SLE), Germany, are reflected be-low. The paper does not claim to capture all of the complex realities of indigenous peoples and local communities practicing, developing and struggling to maintain their traditional livelihoods in the face of climate change and environmental degradation. Rather it focuses on what research and development partners should pay attention to while discovering cultures of resilience.

Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Comparative Study of Perceptions and Adaptive Capacities of Aurepalle and Shirapur Villages. Working Paper Series No. 43

2013

The threats related to climate change are apparent across the globe. This paper attempts to understand the perceptions of the farmers on climate change, the adaptation strategies and behavior that they are demonstrating based on their perceptions through a study done in the villages named Aurepalle and Shirapur, both of which belong to the semi-arid regions of India. The study shows that climate change/variability is becoming a major concern for the farming and non-farming community. As a result of their perceptions, they have been adapting and have developed coping strategies to shield themselves against climate uncertainties. Diversification into short duration crops and commercial crops along with experimenting with vegetable growing, local methods of soil conservation, the involvement of women in farm activities, and caste-based professions have emerged as effective strategies that have come to be accepted socially and culturally at the local level. At the institutional and the ...

Rural Farmers in a Changing Climate: Performative Integrated Adaptation Practices in Outer Terai of Nepal

Ars Artium, Vol. 10, 2022

This paper assesses how rural farmers in the Terai region of Nepal have experienced climate change and what strategies are adapted to mitigate the effects of climate change on agriculture and livelihoods. The farmers experienced climate change effects in the form of warming temperatures, loss of agro-biodiversity, decline in agricultural yields and upsurge in diseases that exerted negativities on agriculture and livelihoods. Endorsing collective experience and cultural frameworks, farmers have developed integrated adaptation strategies, updated indigenous practices, and diversified agricultural practices by conversion of farming period, application of alternative crops, hybrid farming, dairy cooperatives and micro-credit. The performative integrative adaptive practices entrenched in environmental anthropology envisioned on indigenous environmental knowledge, assessments, and cultural responses mediated the interactions with nature and shape the ways in which farmers observe, understand, experience and respond to climate change. It is imperative to recognize a locally applicable, temporally and spatially adaptive, culturally adaptive experiential model that is shaped into integrated implementation practices in climate change policies to develop cost-effective, participatory, sustainable and effective adaptation strategies in agriculture and livelihood.

Securing 'way of life': Local assets and indigenous coping strategies of Sauria Paharia tribe of Jharkhand.

Human security forms an important part of people’s well-being, and is therefore an important precondition for development. The UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report's definition of human security identifies seven areas viz. economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security those threaten human security. Being an inter-disciplinary concept, it has simultaneously people-centered, multi-sectoral, comprehensive, context-specific, prevention-oriented characteristics. The present study adopts the Department for International Development (DFID) model of livelihood analysis that identifies five capital assets viz. natural, social, financial, physical, and human for sustainable livelihood at the micro level. Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is a key element of the social capital of the eco-literate people and constitutes their main asset in their efforts to gain control of their own lives. The study highlights the livelihood framework of a village of Pakur district of Jharkhand in order to understand the role of the existing practices and assets in securing the way of life of this primitive tribal group. The survival strategy of the community touches the full spectrum of life including economic, ecological, social, health and tribal identity regardless of various extraneous forces.

Applying Socio-Ecological Perspective for Fostering Resilience in Rural Settlements—Melghat Region, India

Sustainability

At the brink of climate change, the perpetual human–nature links observed in remotely placed rural settlements, particularly those nested within ecological regions, are alleged to be deprecating. While the indigenous communities across protected forest areas depend on the surrounding environment for their livelihoods, the emerging climate discrepancies are posing serious concerns to their sustenance. To better understand the impacts of climate change on rural settlements, this research deliberates on the case of the Melghat region in central India, with a specific focus on the Lawada and Kotha settlements. At first, a methodical understanding of Socio-Ecological Systems (SESs) in Melghat is established by meticulously uncovering its social and ecological characteristics. Thereafter, to unearth the interdependencies between the two systems, an indicator-based framework is established. The SESs in the selected settlements are then analyzed based on the evaluation of community response...

Livelihood vulnerability to climate change in Rural Tripura, India: A Comparative Study of the Tribal and Non-Tribal Households

Ecology, Environment and Conservation

Climate change is a harsh reality that has a significant impact on livelihood strategies in general, and agricultural-based ones in particular. Agriculture is the principal source of livelihood in the majority of North Eastern states, including Tripura. In the absence of alternate employment opportunities and planned activities, people’s livelihoods are likely to suffer as a result of climatic variability. In this context, the LVIIPCC technique has been used to explain the extent of climate vulnerability among tribal viz-a-viz nontribal population of Tripura. A total of 400 respondents from 40 villages of two districts in Tripura are surveyed based on a combination of informal interviews, a questionnaire survey, and Focused Group Discussions (FGD). The findings suggested that tribal households were more exposed to climate change. Furthermore, because of their greater sensitivity and lesser adaptation capacity, they were more likely to be vulnerable to climate change than non tribal ...