Research Themes

Livelihood strategies and human population dynamics that drive resource exploitation

The evolution of biodiversity and ecological systems in regions such as NW Yunnan hinge on the natural resource use decisions that humans make. The task of the livelihoods researchers is not only to describe the patterns of natural resource use among the local people but also to understand the factors that shape them (Ives and Messerli, 1989). Generally, in diverse and remote ecological settings, the livelihood strategies (activities and investments) of rural people tend to be highly heterogeneous within and across villages (Coomes, Barham, and Takasaki, 2003). These livelihood strategies depend on a number of factors including natural resource endowment, household wealth, family labor resources, social capital, community institutions, and social and cultural norms (Shouying, Carter and Yao, 1998;). While most economic activities leave a mark of some kind on the landscape, the severity of these impacts can vary dramatically in terms of their implications for key conservation objectives. Thus, the challenge in areas of conservation interest, where exclusion is not viable, is to analyze: (i) the underlying logic of livelihood strategies especially those that make heavy use of land and natural resources; (ii) the link between these activities and investment choices, and key human and environmental outcomes; and, (iii) the types of technologies, policies, programs, and incentives that might assist in the adoption of improved livelihood and resource management strategies, ones that address both conservation and development objectives.

Issue 1. The biological, social and economic logic of traditional livelihood systems . Understanding forces affecting traditional livelihood systems will be especially challenging in NW Yunnan because of the major transformations that are underway in a region that was relatively isolated for, literally, thousands of years. Currently, Yunnan is home to 26 distinctive ethnic minorities totaling some 5 million people. Most of them pursue economic activities that for centuries have maintained a relatively stable balance with the local ecology, which is why a relatively densely populated, mountainous region still has a rich base of biodiversity. One core dimension of the research project will be learning the lessons offered by these cultures about how people have worked with the fragile resource base that surrounds them to earn their livelihoods (Berkes, 1999).

Work on local livelihoods will provide two types of benchmarks for the IGERT team, one related to the lessons about what types of practices and approaches have proven to be sustainable in diverse ecological settings of the region and the other related to the underlying biology of these systems. This second issue is a crucial one given the tremendous ecological diversity present in this mountainous region and the concomitant disparate farming systems.

Issue 2 . Sustainable development strategies and policy interventions . Household livelihood strategies are inextricably linked to wealth, natural resource endowment, family labor resources, social capital, and social and cultural norms. The tight linkages among these forces result in heterogeneous behavior both in terms of how households exploit their economic and natural environments at any given point in time, and how they accumulate assets to exploit them in the future (Zimmerman and Carter, 2003). Understanding such heterogeneous behavior requires a theoretically informed vision of the constraints that underlie human decisions, and empirical methods that are in turn consistent with the theoretical vision (Carter and Yao, 2002). Matching this analytical challenge is the policy challenge of designing incentives and mechanisms that will enhance the preservation of biodiversity across a range of households that are pursuing strategies that degrade the resource base to a greater or lesser extent in response to a variety of constraints.

Issue 3. The effects of the regional economy on local livelihood strategies. Major changes are beginning to take place in NW Yunnan with the establishment of more bioreserves, construction of hydroelectric dams, and the promotion of tourism. As well as affecting local biodiversity, all the changes can fundamentally transform livelihood strategies of the local people, as the opportunities and constraints on traditional activities change and the incentives to pursue new ones increase (Buck et al, 2001). The regional economic changes could also lead to fundamental shifts in population, significant changes in land tenure relations and local management regimes, as government policies supplant traditional arrangements (Meinzen-Dick, et al., 2002). Among the key issues that the UW-CAS team want to investigate include: 1) the key influences on demographic changes that affect the way lands and resources are used; 2) the role changing land tenure relations play in the land and natural resource management strategies of households; and 3) how might current economic activities be made more environmentally sustainable given the increased attention to and investment in eco-tourism?