This Bachelor‟s thesis aims at explaining the relationship between forests and climate change, a subject that has been given a lot of attention in environmental discussions in recent years, particularly because forests are a source of carbon dioxide emissions and in the same time have the potential to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration. However, with the importance of mitigation as a background, the focus of this study is on adaptation. The purpose is to identify mutual benefits from the diverse forest ecosystems, and examine the possible benefits from forests to the rural poor population in Tanzania, in a future scenario of increased vulnerability to climate change. The methodology for the study can be divided into two parts, one qualitative literature study and one field study in Babati District northern Tanzania, limited to interviews and excursions. This thesis gives details about the scientific projections and local perceptions of climate change and the effects of climate change. The results of the thesis highlights the importance of sustainably managed forests and agroforestry systems, which have been successful in Babati through local participation; economic incentives such as carbon credit and other payments for ecosystem services, which is a possible future extension of forestry activities; and increased integration between sectors, which make sure that adaptation within different sectors can be done simultaneously.

Forced resettlement is an issue of great humanitarian concern. The disruption it brings to the lives of the people it affects cannot be fully expressed. Many of such people lose the ability of restoring their lives, never to regain it till they die. What is more alarming is when forced resettlement is not caused by conflict or natural disaster but rather conscious development projects like dams, where it is expected that great energy will be channelled towards reducing and if possible avoid the adverse impacts of such forceful resettlement as a matter of human and citizenship right. Sadly, in many instances this never happen. The aim of this study is to find out how the lessons learnt from the Akosombo forced resettlement in Ghana has been used in planning and implementing the on-going Bui forced resettlement also in Ghana. This study also tries to investigate the impacts of the planning and implementation process of the resettlement on the affected communities and households. In order to achieve the above goals, qualitative research methods were employed. The study used in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, direct and participatory observation techniques in accessing the experiences and feelings of the people involved. The informants include the institutions and professionals which undertook the forced resettlement and the affected people. The modernisation and alternative development theories were reviewed to determine which of these approaches is in practice. However, since Ghana claims it is using the World Bank Operational Policy (4.12), which is following an alternative development approach, concepts such as participation and rights are used. Additionally, concepts such as compensation and forced resettlement are also reviewed. It is discovered that, although many lessons have been learnt from the Akosombo forced resettlement, these lessons have not been effectively translated into action plans in order to undertake successful forced resettlement in Ghana. The challenges and errors in planning the Bui resettlement have therefore marred its successful implementation. This has resulted in more adverse impacts on the affected people than good ones such as infertile lands, low farm yield, poor housing structures and total ban on fishing in the Black Volta without alternative fishing grounds.

This dissertation explores the sustainability of the pugkêenga system of household cooperation as practiced by Mossi rural producers on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso. Consistent with the sustainable livelihoods framework, this dissertation systematically compares the assets of two different types of domestic organization found among Mossi domestic groups today: extended and nuclear households. Similar studies in contemporary West Africa and other parts of the world suggest that globalization and modernization make extended forms of household organization unsustainable and impractical in the face of changing ecologies and the penetration of capitalist modes of production. This study challenges such assertions and contends that the material and moral configurations of extended households actually enhances their sustainability in the face of environmental and social change. The Sahel region, in which the fieldwork took place, has undergone a period of prolonged desiccation. The Central Plateau is also one of the most densely populated areas within the Sahel. These factors contribute to the high rate of migration for which the Mossi and Central Plateau are well-known. This research investigates these dynamics with ethnographic fieldwork, statistical analyses, and agent based modeling. The results of these analyses demonstrate that the pugkêenga system of household cooperation enhances the household livelihood sustainability under increased climate variability, population pressure, and migration.

Efforts to alleviate poverty and conserve biodiversity require reliable methods to monitor and assess changes in conservation and development status. Projects intended to achieve biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation objectives often fall short of their goal. Considering the investments made to support these efforts, this is a real concern to society. Evaluating the effectiveness of these efforts is crucial to receive ongoing support and to learn what’s working, what’s not and how it can be improved. This research examines current M&E and impact assessment practices and systems at conservation and development organizations garnered through a survey and interviews and documents opinions, experiences and lessons learned from key informants. Organizations are facing common barriers but share opportunities to improving M&E. Embracing a culture of learning, synthesizing a common vocabulary and implementing organizational change are important steps in improving M&E practice to provide information and data for better M&E and impact assessment.

Change has become a ubiquitous force in a highly globalized and interconnected world. Coastal systems are being restructured by overfishing, globalization, climate change and other factors. Further, social and ecological changes in coastal systems interact across spatial and temporal scales creating challenges that are complex, nonlinear and often difficult to predict. These new challenges have the potential to push social-ecological systems past their experienced range of variability and thus have immense consequences for the both the health of marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people who depend on marine resources for their survival. Addressing these challenges will require collaborative efforts informed by site-specific research on the dynamics of social-ecological systems. Ultimately, this dissertation aims to contribute to efforts towards social-ecological system sustainability. Specifically, the purpose of the research is to improve our understanding of how small-scale fishers in Mozambique have adapted over time to cope with a particular set of challenges and how likely fishers are to cope effectively with future changes in their complex social-ecological systems. The dissertation is organized around four research chapters, each of which addresses a specific research objective. Detailed knowledge of historical social-ecological conditions is a critical entry point for understanding small-scale fisheries systems. While fisheries landings data are often the primary source for historical reconstructions of fisheries, reliance on data of a single type and/or from a single-scale can lead to incomplete or misleading conclusions. Moreover, in the case of many small-scale fisheries landings statistics are often incomplete and/or inaccurate. Therefore, Chapter 2 combines data from multiple sources and scales to reconstruct historical social-ecological system dynamics along the Mozambican coast. At the national scale, my analysis points towards trends of fishing intensification and decline in targeted species, and highlights the significant impact of small-scale fisheries on marine stocks. At the local scale, fishers are experiencing changes in fish abundance and distribution, as well as in their physical, social and cultural environments and have responded by increasing their fishing effort. In the context of multiple drivers of change, it has become increasingly important to identify how communities are responding to livelihood stressors. In Chapter 3, I examine how fishers are adapting to social-ecological change, and identify factors that facilitate adaptation and factors that inhibit adaptation. Primarily, fishers are adapting through intensifying their fishing efforts or by diversifying their livelihoods. Adaptation is facilitated by fishers’ groups, occupational pride and family networks. It is inhibited by limited assets, adaptive actions with negative social and ecological impacts, competition over declining resources and pervasive poverty. My data suggest that it is not the poorest fishers who are least able to adapt to change, but fishers who are locked into a declining fishery. I argue that adaptations are spatially and social differentiated and place-specific. Therefore, future adaptation initiatives aimed at strengthening the capacity of threatened communities to respond to livelihood stressors need to explicitly consider this complexity. Millions of people around the world depend on shrimp aquaculture for their income and livelihood. Yet, the phenomenal growth of shrimp aquaculture during the last two decades has given rise to considerable environmental damage and social disruption at the local level. In Chapter 4, I analyze the impacts of employment at an export-oriented shrimp farm in central Mozambique on livelihood vulnerability of farm and non-farm employees. My data indicate that shrimp farm employees are less vulnerable to chronic stressors, such a pervasive poverty, than non-farm employees, but more vulnerable to acute shocks, such as the White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV), associated with shrimp production than non-farm employees. I argue that future vulnerability research will need to account for this duality as aquaculture development spreads along the Western Indian Ocean. In response to the speed and magnitude of contemporary change, understanding how much disturbance communities will absorb, where social thresholds lie and what coastal community systems might look like after a threshold is crossed are critical research questions. Chapter 5 evaluates the resilience of two fishing communities in central Mozambique and forecasts the outcome of moving past socially defined thresholds. My results indicate that coastal communities are continuously absorbing multiple sources of disturbance without shifting into different states. However, a 90% decline in catch rates would represent a threshold for both communities. At Zalala Beach, fishers would respond by permanently moving to another location whereas in Inhangome, fishers would respond by changing their professions. These results contribute to our understanding of social resilience. Deliberate progress towards the goal of long-term sustainability depends on understanding the dynamics of social-ecological systems. Therefore, this dissertation aims to contribute to a growing body of theory and empirical evidence on how fishers negotiate livelihoods under conditions of rapid change and increasing vulnerability. The dissertation concludes by summarizing seven key research findings and by discussion some of the theoretical, methodological and policy contributions of my research to the literature. / Graduate / 0366

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This thesis investigates the effects of change and modernization on rural women’s livelihoods in northern India. Infrastructural development projects have been identified by research agencies and scholars as beneficial to people in rural areas. I reconceptualize infrastructural development – which here consists of a road, electricity, and irrigation – to act as a lens in which to define and understand the processes of change and modernization. Grounded in feminist methodology, this research is based on interviews with fifty women from six different villages in Tehri-Garwhal, India. I found that while infrastructural development did increase the quality of life for women, women did not experience empowerment. Rather, I argue that the changes brought upon by infrastructural development restructure and redefine the gender inequalities that exist in a region. Infrastructure development acts as a catalyst in a liminal space.

For the past three decades, policy-makers in Santiago, Chile, have pushed laissez-faire free-market reforms on most sectors of the Chilean economy. On the Archipelago of Chiloe in southern Chile, these reforms have had the effect of introducing wage labor, on a massive scale, to communities that once relied primarily on collective practices of unpaid, reciprocal labor (mingas). My research examines the role of these changing labor practices and livelihoods in the shaping of local identities. I argue that while the Chilean government's neoliberal policies have brought increased commerce to Chiloe through the introduction of export-oriented fishing and aquaculture industries, the accompanying erosion of mingas and rural livelihoods has triggered a pronounced intergenerational shift in collective identity: whereas older islanders today bemoan the disappearance of an ethos of reciprocity, solidarity, and mutual assistance, younger islanders express an explicitly critical view of Chilote history while upholding select values of old.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Since the earlier 1970s the government of Mozambique has been carrying out legal, political, economic and institutional reforms which are culminating in the establishment of the current fisheries governance systems. An important achievement of these reforms is the political recognition the government has given to the importance of subsistence fishing and its incorporation into policy instruments such as the Fisheries Master Plan II (2014-2019) and the Artisanal Fisheries Development Strategy (2009-2015). In these policy documents, fisheries authorities put subsistence fisheries on top of priorities. However, the practice in Mozambique’s fisheries is indicating that, despite this recognition, subsistence fishers remain amongst the most vulnerable groups, particularly at district and village levels. The objective of this study is to understand the patterns of inclusion and exclusion of subsistence fishers from the fisheries governance spaces in Mozambique with particular emphasis on Palma district (Cabo Delgado province). The study uses the concept of Action Spaces to situate the nature of opportunities that are being created under these reforms. A critical finding of this study is that, the institutions for fisheries governance being created by the government at district and community levels are not creating a functional mechanism for subsistence fishers to participate, access opportunities, and bring their voices into decision-making systems. As a result, subsistence fishers are creating their own spaces which are based on informal structures and relations to sustain their livelihoods. The study resorts to the institutional governance insights to understand the factors that may determine the interactions between the formal and informal action spaces while improving the contribution of subsistence fisheries to the livelihoods and food security of the vulnerable groups.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / This thesis examines how recent South African government fisheries policies have affected the livelihoods and food security of small-scale fishers, using the Kalk Bay fishing community in Cape Town, South Africa, as a case study. Fish has for generations provided food security for the fishers of Kalk Bay and their families. This food security has been both through catching fish for direct consumption and selling fish for income. Fish is an excellent source of nutrition, supplying easily digestible protein, as well as vital macro and micro nutrients essential for development and growth, thereby providing nutritional security. In South Africa, the right to food has been identified by the South African government as a primary policy objective. The Constitution of South Africa also guarantees access to food for citizens of the country primarily through providing access to food sources and livelihoods. This mini-thesis argues that despite the stated objectives of the government, the development and implementation of policy in the fisheries sector has not supported the right to food. Research was conducted through in-depth interviews with government representatives, fishing activists and fishers with a direct interest in Kalk Bay, as well as a survey completed in the Kalk Bay fishing community. The findings were examined through a sustainable livelihoods perspective, with a focus on access rights as a necessity to access livelihoods. The results clearly indicate that households in Kalk Bay who have traditionally pursued livelihoods and food security through fishing are often no longer able to do so. Small-scale fishers were completely omitted from the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998. This has resulted in the removal of access rights to marine resources which has led to these traditional fishers no longer being able to access their historical livelihoods and provide food security. These fishers have experienced further disenfranchisement from policies that were promised to empower the citizens of South Africa at the beginning of the new democracy in South Africa. As a result of a loss of access to livelihoods, small-scale fishers in South Africa launched a class action against the government. This legal action was won by the fishers and a judgement was given that the government was to amend the Marine Living Resources Act (1998), and a fisheries policy ensuring the inclusion of small-scale fishers was to be written. This thesis also addresses the attitudes towards and challenges of the newly adopted “Policy for small-scale fisheries in South Africa” of the fishing community of Kalk Bay. The evidence suggests that although small-scale fishers are now included, there are still notable challenges that could derail its successful implementation. A key challenge is the uncertainty by any parties about the quantity and value of marine resources to be allocated to the small-scale sector. It is unclear how much, if any, of the allocation is coming from the large scale industrial sector. This could result in continued challenges to the small-scale sector in terms of being able to access livelihoods and maintain food security.