Risk, Livelihood Decisions, and Resilience in the Greater Virunga Transboundary Landscape
Open Access
- Author:
- Bernhard, Katie
- Graduate Program:
- Recreation, Park and Tourism Management
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 01, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Derrick Taff, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies
Edwin Sabuhoro, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Erica Smithwick, Outside Field Member
Katherine Zipp, Outside Unit Member
Carter Hunt, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor - Keywords:
- conservation social science
park-adjacent communities
tropics
East Africa
household resilience
conservation social science
risk preferences
decision making
survey methods
East Africa
mixed methods
livelihoods
tropics - Abstract:
- How an individual makes decisions in the face of risk can influence socioeconomic outcomes both for the individual and for their household, with potential implications for the household’s resilience and ability to overcome shocks. Risk preferences (e.g., loss aversion and risk tolerance) are well-studied in behavioral economics and human behavioral ecology to explain risky decision-making. However, the mechanisms through which risk preferences and subsequent livelihoods decisions result in different household outcomes are not well known in contexts of multidimensional poverty or multifunctional landscapes involving natural resource management and conservation, such as communities adjacent to protected areas. To address limitations in current understanding of linkages between individual risk preferences and household resilience for communities adjacent to protected areas, this dissertation is guided by an overarching question: How do individual and household decisions made in negotiation of risks influence livelihoods outcomes? This research question is answered using three studies in the context of Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda, which is situated in the Greater Virunga Transboundary Landscape, a protected areas complex between Rwanda, Uganda, and Democratic Republic of Congo. To understand the relationship between risk preferences and household outcomes, subjective resilience is operationalized as the outcome measure, to reconcile tradeoffs between resilience, wellbeing, and individuals’ power and agency within broader socioecological systems. Additionally, the dissertation research is transdisciplinary, with each study co-designed with local partners including community members, organizations, and research institutions. Chapter 1 introduces the theory and literature underlying risk and resilience concepts and draws theoretical and conceptual threads between three main article-chapters. Chapter 2 asks how households in park-adjacent communities define and conceptualize resilience from their own perspective, emphasizing resilience tradeoffs and the role of agency, using a qualitative study consisting of in-depth interviews (n=24) with individuals residing in villages bordering Volcanoes National Park. The study finds that community members conceptualize their subjective resilience as regenerative potential, or perceived capacity not just to recover following a shock but to improve upon their psychosocial and socioeconomic conditions. Then, Chapter 3 draws on this community-defined conceptualization of subjective resilience to quantitatively link socioeconomic status, risk preferences, and subjective resilience in park-adjacent communities using a four-part analysis of household survey data (n=1,369). Among risk- and resilience-specific findings, the results suggest that personal capabilities drive both socioeconomic status and selected risk preference profiles. Socioeconomic status appears to mediate the relationship between risk preference and subjective resilience. Chapter 4 then asks how interventions can be prioritized to improve household outcomes like subjective resilience, employing geospatial techniques to analyze the household survey data relative to incidents of poaching snares and unauthorized water collection inside the park, along with access to basic services infrastructure. Low self-perception of resilience to economic, climate, and park-related shocks is evident across the landscape. However, bivariate spatial associations are evident between higher subjective household resilience and access to water infrastructure. Finally, Chapter 5 summarizes and integrates the findings of the three studies presented in Chapters 2-4 to draw conclusions and identify directions for future research and practical implications of the three studies for communities, conservation organizations, government, and other stakeholders across the Volcanoes National Park and Greater Virunga Transboundary Landscapes.