THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY TRAN LE THU THAO VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE OF ETHNIC MINORITY WOMEN IN THANH VAN COMMUNE, CHO MOI DISTRICT, BAC KAN PROVINCE BACHELOR THESIS Study Mode : Full-time Major : Environmental Science and Management Faculty : International Programs Office Batch : 2013 – 2017 Thai Nguyen, September 2017 i c DOCUMENTATION PAGE WITH ABSTRACT Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry Degree program Bachelor of Environmental Science and Management Student name Tran Le Thu Thao Student ID DTN1353110242 Thesis title Vulnerability and adaption to climate change of ethnic minority women in Thanh Van commune, Cho Moi district, Bac Kan province Supervisor Dr. Ho Ngoc Son Abstract: Moving towards to 21st century, a controversial problem over the world is vulnerability and adaptation of women to climate change. Indeed, those are living in poverty, especially ethnic groups will be more vulnerable because they have less access to health service, clean environment, useful assets, good education and many other patterns. The goal of this study is to evaluate the vulnerability, adaptation of ethnic minority women and their resilience as well as suggest certain ways of addressing women’s difficulties in the context of climate change.
By using household survey, interview, group discussion methods, the thesis was carried out in Thanh Van commune, Cho Moi district, Bac Kan province where is one of the northern mountainous area heavily impacted by climate change. As a result, ethnic minority women in Thanh Van are very vulnerable to climate and non-climate stresses because of limited access to services. Although they have many difficulties in adaptation process, they adopted various adaptation strategies such as applying indigenous ii c knowledge in agriculture, using local cop species that are drought-tolerant…to adapt to climate risks. Hence, increasing adaptive capacity and reducing vulnerability of ethnic minority women are key factors to build their resilience to climate change.
Key words Climate change, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, resilience, ethnic minority women Number of pages 57 Date of submission 20/09/2017 Supervisor’s signature iii c ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the research process and completion of the thesis, I received a lot of help from my teachers, my university, my friends and my family. First and foremost, I would like to send my deep thanks to Dr. Ho Ngoc Son who provided comments and suggestions for the thesis to be completed and gave direct guidance during the research process and completion. Moreover, I would like to say thank with staffs of Agriculture & Forestry Research and Development Center for Mountainous Region (ADC) for providing me with useful materials and helping me during the time I stayed in Thanh Van commune.
I also thank the Tay women, local officials in Thanh Van commune who spent their time to share their experiences during the survey, interview, and activities of mine in the commune. Without their enthusiasm and effort, I could not finish my thesis. Last but not least, my sincere thanks also go to my family and all my classmates K45 – Advanced Education Program for their supporting, helping and loves throughout my study. iv c TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
iv LIST OF FIGURES. vii LIST OF TABLES. viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. Climate change in the world.
Climate change in Vietnam. Climate change in Bac Kan. Impacts of climate change in Bac Kan. Unequal impacts between women and men.
Responses of women. Some features about Thanh Van commune. Concepts of vulnerability, resilience and adaptation. Linkages of vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity.
Case study approach. Data collection methods. Focus group discussion. Data analysis methods.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Vulnerability of ethinic minority women in Thanh Van. Causes of vulnerability of ethinic minority women. Reasons of vulnerability of ethinic minority women.
How ethnic minorty women are vulnerable to climate change. Challenges of ethinic minority women in the context of climate change. Adaptation strategies of ethinic minority women. Building resilience to climate change.
Increasing adaptive capacity. 45 vi c LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3. A household survey with Tay women. Group discussion with hazard map making.
Group discussion with historical timeline making. Average temperature of 50 years in Bac Kan (1960-2010). Average rainfall of 50 years in Bac Kan (1956-2006). Hazard map of Thanh Van commune.
Historical timeline in Na Ray village, Thanh Van commune. 31 vii c LIST OF TABLES Table 4. Tay women's assessment about local weather changes in 10 recent years in Thanh Van commune. Tay women’s assessment about frequency of disasters in 10 recent years in Thanh Van commune.
Tay women’s assessment about intensity of disasters in 10 recent years in Thanh Van commune. List of diseases in plants and livestock in Thanh Van. Diseases on Tay women suffering from disasters, erractic weather. Historical timeline table in Na Ray.
Adaptation of Tay women in Thanh Van. Tay women use indigenous knowledge and modern method in agriculture 40 viii c LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ADC Agriculture & Forestry Research and Development Center for Mountainous Region CARE Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization INSPONRE Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration PRRS Porcine Reproductive & Respiratory Syndrome VSLA Village Savings and Loans Associations WBGU German Advisory Council on Global Change ix c PART I. Research rationale In the 21st century, climate change is one of the greatest challenges that have caused tremendous changes through extreme climatic events such as rising temperatures, strong storms, heavy rain, floods, droughts and rising sea levels for mankind. It is noteworthy that the impacts of climate change are significant and increasing, causing a considerable impact on the national economy, even more strongly on the livelihoods of the poorest groups living in countryside.
Vietnam is one of the countries most severely affected by the increasing manifestation of these phenomena. In addition to policies promulgated by the Government of Vietnam to adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the international community has been actively supporting the Government of Viet Nam in climate change response activities, towards sustainable development in localities, especially underdeveloped and poor areas. Generally, climate change becomes more serious and unpredicted in the Northern mountainous areas. In fact, climate change will cause serious consequences to these areas because the Northern mountainous areas have many factors creating vulnerability status easily such as high poverty rate, limited mitigation approaches, degraded ecology environment, complex terrain, many ethnic minorities, main works depending mainly on agriculture and forestry and the like, which are influenced greatly from natural disasters and weather.
However, it is inherently more vulnerable in some groups of people such as ethnic minorities, the very old or very young, the sick who have limited access to information, resources and services. Especially, 1 c women are often particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to few educational opportunities, spending more time and effort on care-giving to parents, children, and the sick, having limited voice in society, lacking of skills to survive from a disaster or extreme weather and many other reasons. In particular, with diverse, complex terrain, midlands and high mountains very steep slopes up to 20° (CARE, 2013), tropical monsoonal climate, plentiful river systems and low literacy level, financial woes, Bac Kan which is belonged the Northern mountainous areas is dealing with many difficulties about complicated happening of climate change, harmful effects and solutions. For the reasons mentioned above, this topic was chosen as “Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change of ethnic minority women in Thanh Van commune, Cho Moi district, Bac Kan province" to assess the impact of climate change on people's livelihoods, daily life, and the vulnerability of ethnic minority women in the context of climate change and its complexity.
This will provide the basis for proposing appropriate solutions and strategies to improve the livelihoods of households in the face of increasingly complex climate change and to help women raise their voice, improve adaptive capacity and reduce the vulnerability in the future. Research’s objective - To analyze impacts of climate change on ethnic minority women in Thanh Van and their adaptation strategies. - To assess how ethnic minority women are vulnerable. - To analyze how could they become more resilient.
2 c - To improve adaptive capacity to climate change in agriculture of Thanh Van ethnic minority women. - To find out policies and approaches that help ethnic minority women to adapt to climate change. Research questions - How are ethnic minority women in Thanh Van vulnerable to climate change? - How are they adapting to climate change impacts? - How could they become more resilient? 4. Limitations There was very few in-depth semi-structured interview results of local officials in Thanh Van commune.
Climate change in the world In the geological history of our planet, climate change has happened many times with cold and warm periods lasting thousands of years that we call ice ages and interglacial period. Last glacial period have occurred 10,000 years ago and now that is warming period of interglacial period. In terms of the causes of climate change, we can see the precession and tilt changing in the earth’s axis, changing the Earth's orbit around the sun, the position of continents and oceans, and especially changes in atmospheric composition. While the first causes are the cause of the planet, the final causes are the huge impacts of human that we call that it is heats the atmosphere or greenhouse gases.
It is understandable that: the average temperature of the earth's surface is determined by the balance between absorbed solar energy and heat returning to the universe. When the heat is retained more in the atmosphere, it will make the earth's temperature to rise. A big number of CO2 in the atmosphere will affect as a layer of glass to keep the heat radiating back into the Earth. Beside, there are some other gases are called collectively greenhouse gases such as NOx, CH4, CFCs…With the strong development of industrial production and the use of fossil fuels (oil, coal, .), the observational data indicate a global surface warming of 0.18 °C) since the late 19th century (NOAA, n.) In 2015, one billion people still lived in extreme poverty and many depended on their surrounding natural resources for survival.
Poverty and inequality, which we have been working to improve for decades, will only get worse with climate change 4 c because disadvantaged groups do not have the resources to cope with effects such as extreme flooding or droughts that may displace them or change their way of life (Rosaly Byrd, 2014). Many poor people live in regions that are susceptible to changes in the climate, for example drought-prone sub-Saharan Africa, or in marginal areas such as floodplains or unstable hillsides. As already poverty-stricken people lose what little economic stability they have and are unable to subsist, villages are abandoned and previously settled people become refugees. Poor families become trapped in poverty when they have limited or no access to resources, and no way to break the cycle.
According to the United Nations Development Program, developing countries suffer 99% of the casualties attributable to climate change (Global citizen, 2012). At the same time, the least 50 developed countries of the world account for a tiny, imbalanced, 1% contribution to the worldwide emissions of greenhouse gasses that create global warming. Climate change is hitting hardest on the poorest people and the poorest countries. Global climate change is a significant long-term challenge for the whole world.
Across the nations, individuals, businesses, and federal, state, and local governments are already consciously making decisions to respond to climate change. It is generally assumed that adaptation to changes in climate is not new.