Acronyms

Access

Logo

Contact

Project Leader	Dr. L. LEBEL Unit for Social and Environmental Research (USER) Faculty of Social Sciences Chiang Mai University Chiang Mai 50200 THAILAND Tel: +66-53-265-103 Fax: +66-53-263-215 Email: llebel@loxinfo.co.th
Funding	US$ 59,000
Participating countries	Participants from the following countries were funded: India, Indonesia(i), P. R. China, Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam. An additional grant for the Indian case study was made possible by the agreement of Chiang Mai University to a request to forego the administration fee to allow this very important additional case to be added in a parallel livelihood system in North India.  The overall scope of the project has thus become South and Southeast Asia.  Apart from these countries, participants from Lao PDR and Nepal will also attend the synthesis workshop from 11-15 February 2003.

Brief introduction and background
The mountain areas of South and Southeast Asia are very important for conservation of biodiversity as they are often the only places with significant areas of remaining forest vegetation. At the same time these upland areas are home to culturally diverse societies.  By conventional indicators many groups rank among the poorest in each country and remain politically marginalized.  Hence, they are potentially the most vulnerable to changes in ecosystem conditions, climate and socio-economic and political changes.

Through a series of comparative studies in five countries in Asia we addressed two questions:
(1) What impacts have livelihood activities and changes in livelihood strategies had on biodiversity?
(2) How have changes in biodiversity affected livelihoods?

We adopted a sustainable livelihoods approach to examine the interactions between people's activities, assets and rights, and the local landscape. Ultimately, we believe research of this type will be important in helping to resolve the policy dilemma of how best to combine conservation and production goals in upland (and lowland) landscapes.

Outline of activities conducted
The main activity carried out under this project was a set of case studies conducted by teams of researchers in each of the contributing countries. In June 2002 the team leaders from each of the groups met in Chiang Mai to agree on a research protocol, or "Case Study Guide", summarized in the form of a working paper. This formed the basis of the individual work between June 2002 and January 2003.

On the 11-15 February 2003, the teams and a few invited external reviewers and other research groups will meet in Chiang Mai again to critically review and synthesise the findings of the case studies.  At this meeting the final products will be drafted.  The results of this meeting will be documented in the final report to APN at the end of February 2003.
 
Outcomes and products
As originally proposed, the project will produce:

• A synthesis article in a peer-reviewed international journal on the relationships between biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods;
• A book with a similar title to that of the project and a thematic structure something like: Biodiversity and ecosystem functions in upland land-use systems in Northern Thailand; Northern Viet Nam; India,  Philippines, and Yunnan Province, P. R. China: Contribution of biodiversity to the resilience of livelihoods; and
• In each of the case studies a village-level follow-up activity will be initiated, the exact details of which vary among places.  A common format will be small one-day symposia, discussions, with local villagers, government officials and development agency workers.

The principle investigator, for example, has begun new collaborations with some leading theorists in the field on developing a set of papers on "resilient livelihoods" that should help span some of the gaps between the development and more environmentally-oriented literature.

As a group we also feel there is important follow-up work required on taking our combined findings into public policy arenas within each of the case studies.  Our preparatory discussions to the synthesis meeting suggest our findings will challenge several widely held assumptions about how best to manage biodiversity in areas being rapidly transformed by socio-economic development.