Variation in perception of environmental change in nine Solomon Islands communities: implications for securing fairness in community-based adaptation

Community-based approaches are pursued in recognition of the need for place-based responses to environmental change that integrate local understandings of risk and vulnerability. Yet the potential for fair adaptation is intimately linked to how variations in perceptions of environmental change and risk are treated. There is, however, little empirical evidence of the extent and nature of variations in risk perception in and between multiple community settings. Here, we rely on data from 231 semi-structured interviews conducted in nine communities in Western Province, Solomon Islands, to statistically model different perceptions of risk and change within and between communities. Overall, people were found to be less likely to perceive environmental changes in the marine environment than they were for terrestrial systems. The distance to the nearest market town (which may be a proxy for exposure to commercial logging and degree of involvement with the market economy), and gender had the greatest overall statistical effects on perceptions of risk. Yet, we also find that significant environmental change is underreported in communities, while variations in perception are not always easily related to commonly assumed fault lines of vulnerability. The findings suggest that there is an urgent need for methods that engage with the drivers of perceptions as part of community-based approaches. In particular, it is important to explicitly account for place, complexity and diversity of environmental risk perceptions, and we reinforce calls to engage seriously with underlying questions of power, culture, identity and practice that influence adaptive capacity and risk perception.

     

Assessing the effects of changing demographic and consumption patterns on sea tenure regimes in the Roviana Lagoon,Solomon Islands

This paper investigates how sea tenure institutions in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands, mediate among population, consumption, and the environment. The focus is on explaining how growth in population and consumption alter sea tenure regimes, and the factors that shape either their institutional robustness or vulnerability. The paper also addresses the regional differences among sea tenure institutional arrangements, the processes that are producing them, and the social and environmental outcomes of these institutions as they engage external forces and internal changes. A major question is how existing forms of sea tenure respond comparatively when faced with parallel demographic and economic transformations? Two villages representing different sea tenure arrangements within the Roviana Lagoon are compared. Results show that inhabitants in these villages perceive their systems of sea tenure governance similarly; yet their managerial responses to changes brought about by growth in population and consumption differ, and the responses produce contrasting environmental effects.     

人口学和消费形式的变化对所罗门群岛罗维安纳泻湖海洋保有权制度影响评价

本文探讨了所罗门群岛罗维安纳泻湖海洋保有权制度如何调解人口、消费和环境之间的相互关系.焦点在于解释人口和消费的增长如何改变海洋保有权制度以及形成其健全或脆弱的制度的诸因素.本文还论述了海洋保有权制度安排之间的区域性差异,产生这些差异的过程和当这些制度约束外部力量和内部变化时这些制度的社会和环境后果.主要问题是现有的海洋保有权形式当面对并行的人口学转型和经济转型时如何作出相对的反应.在罗维安纳泻湖区域内代表不同的海洋保有权安排的两个村庄作了比较.结果表明,这些村庄的居民发觉他们的海洋保有权统治体系相似,而他们对由于人口和消费的增长所带来的变化在管理上的反应却不同,这些反应产生了截然不同的环境影响.     

Simulation of Potential Oyster Density with Variable Freshwater Inflow (1965–2000) to the Caloosahatchee River Estuary, Southwest Florida, USA

Oyster beds are disappearing worldwide through a combination of over-harvesting, diseases, and salinity alterations in the coastal zone. Sensitivity of oysters to variable discharge and salinity is particularly acute in small sub-tropical estuaries subject to regulated freshwater releases. South Florida has sub-tropical estuaries where watershed flood control sometimes results in excessive freshwater inflow to estuaries during the wet season (May–Oct) and reduced discharge and increased salinities in the dry season (Nov–Apr). The potential to reserve freshwater accumulated during the wet season could offer the capacity to regulate freshwater at different temporal scales, thus optimizing salinity conditions for estuarine biota. The goal of this study was to use simulation modeling to explore the effects of freshwater inflows and salinity on adult oyster survival in the Caloosahatchee River Estuary (CRE) in southwest Florida. Water managers derived three different freshwater inflow scenarios for the CRE based on historical and modified watershed attributes for the time period of 1965–2000. Three different salinity time series were generated from the inflow scenarios at each of three sites in the lower CRE and used to conduct nine different oyster simulations. Overall, the predicted densities of adult oysters in the upstream site were 3–4 times greater in seasons that experienced reduced freshwater inflow (e.g., increased salinity) with oyster density in the lower estuary much less influenced by the inflows. Potential storage of freshwater reduced the frequency of extreme flows in the wet season and helped to maintain minimum inflow in the dry season near the estuarine mouth. Analyses of inflows indicated that discharges ranging from 0 to 1,500 cfs could promote favorable salinities of 10–25 in the lower CRE depending on wet versus dry season climatic conditions. This range of inflows is similar to that derived in other studies of the CRE and emphasizes the value of simulation models to help prescribe freshwater releases which benefit estuarine biota.     

Indigenous Knowledge and Long-term Ecological Change: Detection, Interpretation, and Responses to Changing Ecological Conditions in Pacific Island Communities

When local resource users detect, understand, and respond to environmental change they can more effectively manage environmental resources. This article assesses these abilities among artisanal fishers in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. In a comparison of two villages, it documents local resource users’ abilities to monitor long-term ecological change occurring to seagrass meadows near their communities, their understandings of the drivers of change, and their conceptualizations of seagrass ecology. Local observations of ecological change are compared with historical aerial photography and IKONOS satellite images that show 56 years of actual changes in seagrass meadows from 1947 to 2003. Results suggest that villagers detect long-term changes in the spatial cover of rapidly expanding seagrass meadows. However, for seagrass meadows that showed no long-term expansion or contraction in spatial cover over one-third of respondents incorrectly assumed changes had occurred. Examples from a community-based management initiative designed around indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure governance show how local observations of ecological change shape marine resource use and practices which, in turn, can increase the management adaptability of indigenous or hybrid governance systems.