Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140

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Global Environmental Change

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloenvcha

Vulnerability and resilience of remote rural communities to shocks and

global changes: Empirical analysis from Solomon Islands
Anne-Maree Schwarz a,*, Christophe Bene b,1, Gregory Bennett c, Delvene Boso a, Zelda Hilly c,
Chris Paul a, Ronnie Posala c, Stephen Sibiti c, Neil Andrew b
a
The WorldFish Center, P.O. Box 438, Honiara, Solomon Islands
b
The WorldFish Center, P.O. Box 500 GPO, 10670 Penang, Malaysia
c
The WorldFish Center, P.O. Box 77, Gizo, Solomon Islands

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Successful management of socio-ecological systems not only requires the development and eld-testing
Received 29 October 2010 of robust and measurable indices of vulnerability and resilience but also improved understanding of the
Received in revised form 28 April 2011 contextual factors that inuence societal capacity to adapt to change. We present the results of an
Accepted 28 April 2011
analysis conducted in three coastal communities in Solomon Islands. An integrated assessment map was
Available online 8 June 2011
used to systematically scan the communities multiple dimensions of vulnerability and to identify
factors affecting households perception about their capacity to cope with shocks (resilience). A
Keywords:
multivariate probit approach was used to explore relationships amongst factors. Social processes such as
Adaptation
Climate change
community cohesion, good leadership, and individual support to collective action were critical factors
Perception inuencing the perception that people had about their communitys ability to build resilience and cope
Social cohesion with change. The analysis also suggests a growing concern for a combination of local (internal) and more
Governance global (external) contingencies and shocks, such as the erosion of social values and fear of climate
Fishing community change.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction literature on vulnerability and resilience). Many denitions and

It is now widely recognized that shocks, uncertainty, and local
and global changes are inherent in the dynamics of social-
ecological systems. In that context, a new consensus has emerged
in the literature which highlights the importance of concepts such
as resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation for the understanding of
these socio-ecological systems (e.g. Walker et al., 2002; Janssen
and Ostrom, 2006; Miller et al., 2010). It is suggested, in particular,
that managing for resilience might become a central objective for
planning and management, since it is expected to enhance the
likelihood of sustaining desirable pathways for development in an
environment where the future is recognized to be unpredictable
and surprises are expected to occur (Walker et al., 2004, 2010;
Adger et al., 2005). In that context, the integration of activities
geared towards the improvement of community resilience is
[becoming] of utmost priority (FAO, 2009, p. 1).
This research agenda is not, however, without challenge (see
Adger (2006) and Folke (2006) for reviews of the theoretical
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +677 25090; fax: +677 23296.
E-mail address: a.schwarz@cgiar.org (A.-M. Schwarz).
1
Present address: The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) University of
Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RE, United Kingdom.
frameworks have been proposed (Janssen and Ostrom, 2006) and
even within specic elds or disciplines, competing denitions and
approaches have often made the situation relatively complex.
Cutter (1996), for example, identied more than 18 denitions of
vulnerability in the hazards literature alone. This situation has
slowed the development of common methods and as a result there
are too few empirical studies to provide a solid foundation for
further theoretical work.
Beyond these conceptual challenges of language and generic
denitions, vulnerability, resilience and adaptation are notoriously
difcult to measure quantitatively. Resilience for instance is
recognized to be complex, context specic, and highly dynamic
qualities that make it hard to measure through simple proxies
(Berkes and Folke, 1998; Walker et al., 2002; Kallstrom and Ljung,
2005). As a result, despite the apparent appeal of resilience and
vulnerability as useful concepts to better understand human-
environment relations (Holling, 1973; Gunderson and Holling,
2002; Smit and Wandel, 2006), natural resource managers have
found it difcult to dene and use these concepts on the ground
(Adger, 2000; Folke, 2003; Colding et al., 2003; Olsson et al., 2005;
Mills et al., 2011). The danger is that these concepts remain largely
academic and theoretical, and not of a great help in improving the
way natural resources are managed. In order to avoid this shortfall,
more and different research is needed to develop and eld-test

0959-3780/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.04.011
 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140
approaches that enhance our capacity to use these concepts in
planning and management (Thomas et al., 2007; Turner et al.,
2007; Osbahr et al., 2008).
Successful management of socio-ecological systems requires
not only the development and eld-testing of robust and
measurable indices of resilience or vulnerability but also a
better understanding of the social and economic mechanisms
that make people vulnerable, and of contextual factors that drive
changes in resource-use patterns and inuence societal capacity
to adapt to change (Turner et al., 2007; Ayers and Forsyth, 2009).
This in turn requires a better understanding of the knowledge,
perceptions and motivations of resource users in order to
identify factors that inuence their behaviors and decisions
(Coulthard et al., 2011). The idea is therefore to expand
vulnerability and resilience analysis beyond the initial assess-
ment of the degree of exposure to risks and/or frequency and
severity of unexpected contingencies, to include the individual
and collective processes and mechanisms that mediate peoples
agency to respond and adapt.
Although shocks, unforeseen events, and changes affecting
peoples lives and livelihood are part of an objective reality,
individual and collective responses and adaptation are also
inuenced by the subjective perceptions people have about reality
(Cameld and McGregor, 2005; McLaughlin and Dietz, 2007;
Devine et al., 2008; Weber, 2010). In these circumstances, it
becomes as important to try and understand peoples perceptions
about a particular event (e.g. a cyclone) as it is to assess the actual
impacts of that particular event. Understanding such perceptions is
complicated by the fact that communities are not homogenous,
either in terms of exposure to threats or in peoples individual
resilience and ability to adapt. For example, in the face of covariate
events such as climate impacts or economic crises, or idiosyncratic
shocks such as illness or loss of employment, people respond in
different ways. Whether small or large, communities are highly
differentiated in terms of access to resources and factors such as
age, gender, class and ethnicity. These differences are highly
signicant to the vulnerability and adaptive capacity (resilience) of
particular individuals.
In this study we worked with communities living in rural
coastal areas in Solomon Islands. These remote and economically
less developed communities face the classic challenge of
sustaining rapidly growing populations in the context of limited
agricultural land and natural resources (see e.g. Reenberg et al.,
2008), as well as more recently emerging modern problems
related to their increasing exposure to the global economy (Nunn,
2003, 2004). Macintyre and Foale (2004) highlight for instance
how gold, timber and tuna extracted from these islands since the
1970s have been increasingly incorporated into the worlds market
economy, and describe the impacts that these changes have had on
local economies in increasing demand for cash and ination in
prices for basic necessities. In addition, the islands of the Pacic
region are vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise
(Brookeld, 1989; Nurse et al., 1998). Although scenarios for
future climate change in the region are still relatively uncertain
(Bengtsson et al., 1996; Knutson and Tuleya, 2004), there is now a
consensus that Pacic Islands will be particularly exposed to
increased risks of extreme events (Hay and Mimura, 2006).
This paper describes research that aims to expand vulnerability
and resilience analysis beyond the metrics of exposure to risk and
unexpected contingencies. The main objective is to develop and
eld-test methods that enable the identication of the different
sources of vulnerability affecting a specic community, and to
better understand the contextual factors and processes that can
mediate (positively or negatively) households perception about
resilience through the effects that these factors have on individual
and collective capacities and incentives to adapt to change. To
1129
provide context, we rst summarize some recent events that have
affected Solomon Islands.
2. Recent shocks and crises in Solomon Islands
More than 80% of Solomon Islanders live in rural areas where
they rely primarily on root crops (e.g. tapioca, sweet potato) or
imported foods (e.g. rice) for their subsistence. Marine resources
provide almost all the protein in peoples diets (Aswani, 2002; Bell
et al., 2009). In recent years economic development and the need
for cash have in some places eroded local subsistence activities,
although the rural economy remains based upon the production
and marketing of a small number of commoditiesfood crops and
fresh fruit, coconut, cocoa, timber, sh and marine products, oil
palm and livestock (ARDS, 2007). Wage income through direct
employment accounts for about 26% of the household income
nationally, rising to 48% in urban areas (GoSI, 2006).
In Solomon Islands, as elsewhere in the Pacic region,
customary marine tenure and a body of traditional ecological
knowledge are associated with a high dependence on marine
resources (Ruddle et al., 1992; Veitayaki, 1997; Aswani and
Hamilton, 2004), reecting the historical importance of sh as a
reliable source of protein. Solomon Islands coral reefs support high
levels of marine biodiversity (Green et al., 2006) and the marine
eco-region contains areas of global signicance (Veron et al., 2009).
There is however evidence of localized depletion in nsh in many
parts of the archipelago (Green et al., 2006; Brewer et al., 2009) and
in December 2005, the commercial beche-de-mer shery, a major
shery exploited by rural shers for cash (Sulu et al., 2000), was
closed by the government following evidence of overshing and
the expected collapse of the stock (Nash and Ramofaa, 2006).
In recent times, two shocks in particular have traumatized
Solomon Islands society. The serious political unrest which broke
out across the Solomon Islands in the late 1990s had major impacts
on the economy of the country and displaced many people. Of
particular note was an exodus of people from the capital Honiara
back to their provinces of origin. This crisis, while often presented
as an ethnic conict, has been described as being initially triggered
by a combination of factors (Dinnen, 2002) including some that
were linked to rapid population growth, such as unemployment,
limited economic opportunities and divisions over distribution of
resources.
Secondly, in April 2007 an earthquake of magnitude 8.1 on the
Richter scale, followed by a tsunami, struck the western provinces
of the country (USGS, 2007). The earthquake and tsunami killed 52
people and caused substantial destruction to villages and coastal
habitats, severely disrupting livelihoods (Schwarz et al., 2007;
Prange et al., 2009). Many shers homes close to sea were
destroyed and their shing gear, including canoes, totally lost.
Coral reefs sustained severe earthquake damage in some locations.
3. Methods
Three clusters of rural communities with varying, but high,
degrees of reliance on sheries (Molea and Vuki, 2008; Prange
et al., 2009) were used as case studies for the empirical work. These
are located in the Dovele Region of Vella Lavella Island and Toumoa
on the island of Fauro; both in the Western Province, and within
Lau Lagoon in Malaita Province (Fig. 1). All communities are part of
a wider WorldFish programme which began in 2008, aiming to test
a conceptual scheme for the diagnosis and management of small-
scale sheries (Andrew et al., 2007), and are involved in
implementing community based adaptive management for their
marine resources.
The approach we used drew on a livelihood vulnerability
assessment method developed and recently eld-tested in shing
1130 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140

Fig. 1. Solomon Islands and the location of the three community clusters where the research was undertaken.

communities in developing countries (Bene et al., 2008; Garcia
et al., 2008; Mills et al., 2011). The objective was to identify key
threats and resilience indicators specic to a social-ecological
system. A 3608 integrated assessment map was used to guide
researchers to systematically scan multiple dimensions of the
social-ecological system being considered while developing a
household questionnaire (Fig. 2). Four generic domains were
included in the integrated assessment: (i) the natural system, (ii)
people and livelihoods, (iii) institutions and governance, and (iv)
external drivers, that is, those factors and trends originating
outside the control of the local community and originate usually
from distant events and/or processes. Paying explicit attention to
external drivers acknowledges that many issues impacting on
sheries systems and sheries-dependent people are beyond their
control and originate from sources outside the focal scale.
Questionnaires sought information on the general demographic
characteristics of households (number of persons, ethnic group,
age, etc.), their assets and livelihood strategies (on-farm and off-
farm activities), and their perceptions of governance and social
cohesion characterizing their communities. A section of the
questionnaire focused events that respondents had experienced
in the past and perceived as potentially affecting household
livelihoods; the capacity of the community to cope with past and
future threats; the barriers to successful natural resource
management; and ways to reduce threats and improve livelihoods
through individual and collective action. Finally, because these
communities are strongly dependent on shing activities, identi-
cation of issues related to marine resource management and
business development opportunities were also incorporated in the
questionnaire. The terms vulnerability and resilience were not
explicitly mentioned.
Each of the three clusters had a different local language. Many
of the respondents also understood English but the common
language amongst all three clusters was Solomon Islands Pidgin.
Some of the older respondents were comfortable conversing only
in their local language. The questionnaire was written in English
then tested and modied by local researchers uent in English and
Pidgin to clarify any ambiguities. Interviews were conducted in

Fig. 2. A generic 3608 integrated assessment map used to structure the vulnerability assessment.
 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140 1131

Pidgin or, if researchers were from the study area, in local language.
If necessary, translation to local language was assisted by a village
volunteer.
Trained project staff completed the eldwork between January
and May 2009 in Toumoa (one community), Dovele (three
communities) and Lau Lagoon (two main community groupings
based on tribal afliations). Household questionnaires were
administered to sub-samples of 14, 32 and 21 households
respectively that were randomly selected within each cluster of
communities (representing 25% of those communities respective
populations), making a combined total of 67 households. In each
household, the male household head or his wife was interviewed
or, if both were absent, the eldest member of the household
present. Interviews were conducted during the day or night to t
around the communitys livelihood activities and typically took
from 30 to 50 min to complete.
A multivariate probit approach (Maddala, 1992) was used to
explore relationships amongst answers. The analysis estimated
relationships between binary or ordinal/categorical dependent
variables and independent (explanatory) variables. The analyses
were done using Stata Statistical Software (Release 10.0, Stata
Corp., College Station, TX). Because of our focus on vulnerability
and resilience, we investigated whether specic institutional and
governance conditions could have mediated the capacity of
communities to cope with shocks. For this we used three indicators
that were evaluated through the interviews: participation,
support and leadership. Participation refers to the level of
involvement of the villages households in communal activities;
support refers to the level of respect accorded to local leaders and
community support for implementing leaders decisions; and
leadership refers to the (perceived) strength of leadership.
Additional variables were included to control for factors such as
geographical location; age, and gender of respondent, wealth, and
occupation; and types and nature of the shocks or threats (Table 1).
As a proxy for wealth we used an index combining the number and
type of housing (semi-permanent, permanent) owned by the
respondent (variable housing in Table 1). We used this index,
rather than income because the latter is often problematic for
households heavily engaged in subsistence-based activities. The
variable occupation corresponded to the main activity of the
household head: farming, shing, small trading business, and so
forth. The variable type (type of contingency) corresponded to
generic categories used to distinguish categories of threat or shock
identied by the respondents (see Table 1 for detail); The binary

Table 1
The list of variables used in the resilience analysis.

Variable N Description

Tsunamia 67 Community affected by the tsunami = 1; not affected = 0

Age 67 Age of the respondent (in years)
Gender 67 Gender of the respondent (female = 1; male = 0)
Naturea 67 Idiosyncratic shock = 1; covariate shock = 0
Past_copeda 67 Coped with past contingencies: strongly agree or agree = 1; otherwise = 0
Better_equippeda 67 Learned from past and better equipped for future contingencies: strongly agree or agree = 1; otherwise = 0
Community_Ca 67 Community No. C = 1; other communities = 0, C = 1,2,. . .,6
Housing_0a 67 No habitable house = 1; otherwise = 0
Housing_1a 67 One semi-permanent house = 1; otherwise = 0
Housing_2a 67 One permanent house = 1; otherwise = 0
Housing_3a 67 Two houses, one of which at least is permanent = 1; otherwise = 0
Housing_4a 67 Three houses, one of which at least is permanent = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_1a 66 Milling as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_2a 66 Builder/carpenter/carving as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_3a 66 Small business as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_4a 66 Copra as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_5a 66 Waged employment as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_6a 66 Fishing as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_7a 66 Agriculture/gardening/farming as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_8a 66 Pastor as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Occupation_9a 66 Student as primary occupation = 1; otherwise = 0
Support_1a 67 The community supports the leaders initiatives: strongly disagree = 1; otherwise = 0
Support_2a 67 The community supports the leaders initiatives: disagree = 1; otherwise = 0
Support_3a 67 The community supports the leaders initiatives: no opinion = 1; otherwise = 0
Support_4a 67 The community supports the leaders initiatives: agree = 1; otherwise = 0
Support_5a 67 The community supports the leaders initiatives: strongly agree = 1; otherwise = 0
Leadership_1a 67 Level of leadership of the community is very weak = 1; otherwise = 0
Leadership_2a 67 Level of leadership of the community is weak = 1; otherwise = 0
Leadership_3a 67 No opinion of the respondent about the level of leadership = 1; otherwise = 0
Leadership_4a 67 Level of leadership of the community is strong = 1; otherwise = 0
Leadership_5a 67 Level of leadership of the community is very strong = 1; otherwise = 0
Participation_1a 67 Level of participation of the community is very week = 1; otherwise = 0
Participation_2a 67 Level of participation of the community is week = 1; otherwise = 0
Participation_3a 67 No opinion of the respondent about level of participation = 1; otherwise = 0
Participation_4a 67 Level of participation of the community is strong = 1; otherwise = 0
Participation_5a 67 Level of participation of the community is very strong = 1; otherwise = 0
Help_0a 67 Type of major help received: no help = 1; otherwise = 0
Help_1a 67 Type of major help received: external help = 1; otherwise = 0
Help_2a 67 Type of major help received: self- help = 1; otherwise = 0
Type_1a 67 Type of contingency: Extreme climatic events = 1; otherwise = 0
Type_2a 67 Type of contingency: Community conict and ethnic tensions = 1; otherwise = 0
Type_3a 67 Type of contingency: Fisheries-related issues = 1; otherwise = 0
Type_4a 67 Type of contingency: Local Economy crisis = 1; otherwise = 0
Type_5a 67 Type of contingency: Household-level issues = 1; otherwise = 0
Type_6a 67 Type of contingency: None = 1; otherwise = 0
Type_7a 67 No opinion about the type of contingency = 1; otherwise = 0
a
Indicates dummy variables constructed from the range of respondents answers.
1132 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140

Past threats (N=134)

2007 earthquake/tsunami

Local economic crisis

Climate-related changes + natural disasters

Household-level issue

Community conict and ethnic tensions

Fisheries-related issues
Dovele
No threat Lau Lagoon

No answer Toumoa

0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30

Proporon of total responses

Fig. 3. Threats that respondents had experienced, identied during the vulnerability analysis.

variable nature distinguished between idiosyncratic (=1) threats unique to communities or even households, some were common
that affected individual households and covariate threats (=0) that across several communities, such as the economic crisis that
affected the entire community. The dummy variable tsunami followed the global fuel and food crises during 20082009 and was
allowed communities affected by the 2007 earthquake and perceived as the major past threat across the three clusters (Fig. 3,
tsunami to be differentiated from those that were not (Lau Lagoon, Table 2). The April 2007 earthquake that severely affected Dovele
for example, is on the north eastern side of Malaita and was not and Toumoa was identied as a major past threat by the
affected). Note that, because respondents were allowed to identify households of those two clusters.
more than one threat (or positive event) and all answers were Next, but with a much lower score, were categories of threat
recorded, the total number of answers was greater than the total grouped as climate-related change and natural disaster (e.g. king
number of respondents (67). Respondents provided 134 answers tides, a term referring to any high tide well above average height,
for the question on past threats, 145 for future threats, and 122 for cyclones, droughts and oods). Lesser threats were perceived to
positive past events. come from smaller-scale events, comprising a suite of chronic
To make the results of the analysis more illustrative, we threats and acute events that affected some households but not
computed not only the standard z statistics and p > jzj, but also the others, such as illness, family conict or, for example, rats eating
marginal effect (dF/dx) of each explanatory variable on the garden crops.
probability of success of the dependent variable. This marginal Following this category is the community conict and ethnic
effect illustrates how the probability that the respondents answer tensions category, which included not only the political unrest
positively to any of the dependent variables changes if there is a that broke out in the late 1990s and continued over the 2000s, but
one-unit change in the explanatory variable. For illustration, if the
marginal effect dF/dx of an explanatory variable X on the
Table 2
dependent variable Y is, say, 68%, it means that the probability that Previous threats identied by the respondents.
Y = 1 (positive answer) is increased by 68%. Pearson x2 goodness-
Generic category Detail of the types of answers included in the
of-t tests were used to verify the statistical validity of the models.
generic categories
We hypothesized that the ability of a household to cope with
contingencies was inuenced by its wealth: better-off households Earthquake/tsunami April 2007 earthquake and associated tsunami
Local economic crisis Fuel price rise/rice price rise/store goods price
were expected to be more able to respond and adapt after a shock rise/food price expensive/high community
than poorer households. We also hypothesized that the level of store prices
social cohesion and governance within communities inuenced Climate-related Cyclone/drought/ood/high tide/king tide
the ability of the community to cope with contingencies. Strong changes and natural
disasters
leadership by the local customary authority, high participation in
Household-level issues Garden food eaten by rats/pigs destroyed
collective action by the community, or a strong sense of support to garden/illness/family conict/garden food
the leaders were hypothesized to positively affect resilience and stolen
adaptive capacity. Finally, we investigated whether the nature of Community conict Church destroyed during tension/Bougainville
the threat itself (i.e. idiosyncratic shock as opposed to an event and ethnic tensions crisisa/ethnic tension/land dispute/youth
disturbance/drunken people
affecting the entire community covariate shock) would inuence Fisheries-related issues Failure of government sheries projects/
the respondents answers. stealing reef resources/closing of the beche-
de-mer shery
4. Results No threat Respondents considered that no threat affected
their community
No answer No answer given by respondents
4.1. Sources of vulnerability
a
Between 1988 and 1990 internal conict on the island of Bougainville caused
around 20,000 lives to be lost and the destruction of infrastructure and law and
The rst part of the analysis focused on past events that order. With only a short distance separating Bougainville from the Shortland Islands
households had experienced and were perceived to have been in Western Province, many western Solomon Islanders were affected by the
major threats to their livelihoods. Although many threats were protracted emergence from that conict.
 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140
Future threats (N=145)
Climate-related changes + natural disasters
Malthusian scenario
Social cohesion erosion
Land dispute and inter-community conict
over resources
Local economic crisis
Household-level issues
No answer/don't know
Fisheries-related issues
Fig. 4. Future threats, identied by the respondents during the vulnerability analysis.
also some intra-community conicts regarding access to land or
events perceived as social disruptions (e.g. youth misbehavior,
public drunkenness, etc.). Issues related to sheries were ranked
relatively low by all the households across the three clusters,
despite the fact that shing is a central element in the livelihood of
these populations and that the local beche-de-mer shery had
been closed via a national export ban, thereby removing one of the
few regular sources of cash.
The second part of the analysis consisted of identifying the
future sources of threat as perceived by the local population. The
aggregated results of this analysis are displayed in Fig. 4 for the
three clusters, while the disaggregated information is shown in
Table 3.
At a household scale, perceptions about future risks of
sheries-related and household-level issues were relatively
similar to recollections of past threats. Also consistent with the
past vulnerability analysis was the fact that risks associated with
climate and natural disasters (including earthquakes, storms, king
tides, and cyclones) were identied as a major source of future
vulnerability. The fact that local economic crises still appeared in
the analysis but with a lower score than for the past vulnerability
analysis may reect peoples expectation that the aftermath of the
world fuel and food crises will fade in the future. In contrast,
respondents believed that community conicts and tensions (in
particular regarding land disputes) were not going to disappear.
Instead they projected that these types of conicts would increase
- as conrmed by the emergence of two new sources of
vulnerability: social cohesion erosion (including issues such as
community collapsing, selshness, disobedience and disre-
Table 3
Future threats identied by the respondents.
Generic category
Climate-related changes and natural disasters
Malthusian scenario
Social cohesion erosion
Land dispute and inter-community
conict over resources
Local economic crisis
Household-level issues
No answer
Fisheries-related issues
1133
Dovele
Lau Lagoon
Toumoa
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
Proporon of total responses
spect), and a Malthusian narrative threat (referring to issues
worded by people as population increase etc.). These new
sources of perceived vulnerability were characterized by high
scores, the Malthusian narrative being identied as the second
major source of future vulnerability by the communities, just after
climate-related and natural disasters. If land dispute and inter-
community conict over resources was considered a subset of this
Malthusian scenario, then the aggregated category would become
the main perceived source of threat.
4.2. Sources of resilience
Our analysis of resilience was done in two stages: First, past
positive events that respondents had experienced were identied
using the same method as for the negative events. Second, for
each of the past threats identied, respondents were asked to
agree/disagree whether or not the community coped well with
this particular event at the time; and whether or not the
community has learnt from these experiences and can now cope
better in the future. In using these variables as proxies of
resilience, we assume that part of the ability of households and
communities to adapt to change, and respond so as to retain their
essential structure, is conditioned by subjective elements in the
same way that risk aversion has been recognized to be a critical
element affecting household decisions on investment and liveli-
hood strategies (e.g. Dercon, 2004; Adger et al., 2009).
As a counterpoint to the important negative perception of the
2007 earthquake/tsunami, respondents in Western Province
commonly identied the post-disaster aid received in its aftermath
Detail of the types of answers included in the generic categories
Natural disasters/sea level rise/high tide
Population increase/young mother with 24 children/population control
Community collapse/alcohol and drug consumption/disobedience/independency of young/
selshness/disrespect/culture degrading/
Outsiders Bougainville disturbance/land dispute/land shortage/unresolved conict/gold
mining negative effects
Price increase/lack of money/poverty/high food prices
Wild pig/illness/pigs destroying food gardens/crop not growing well
No answer given by respondents
Less sh/reef resources/marine resource shortage
1134 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140
Posive events (N=122)
External post-disaster help
Intra and inter-community acvies
Fisheries opportunies
None
No answer
Economic opportunies
Church acvies
Miscellaneous
Government social intervenons
0.00
Fig. 5. Positive events that respondents had experienced, identied during the resilience analysis.
as a positive event (Fig. 5). This assistance took the form of
provision of signicant infrastructure including dugout canoes,
clinics, schools and water supplies. In some instances such
infrastructure had not existed prior to the earthquake/tsunami,
or had been in very poor condition beforehand. The second major
thread of positive events was intra and/or inter-community
initiatives, mainly in the form of social events (e.g. sport carnivals,
memorial feasts) or collective actions (participation in voluntary
work, co-operation between community members). Beyond
these two positive eventswhich represented in aggregate more
than 60% of the answers, the next answer was sheries
opportunities referring to positive (individual or collective)
actions or situations related to the sheries (e.g. community
organized to manage marine resources, shing income).
None, meaning that respondents could not recall any particular
positive event came next with slightly less than 10% of the answers
(Fig. 5).
Slightly more than half of respondents (56%) disagreed or
strongly disagreed that their community had coped well with past
shocks (Fig. 6). This in itself may not necessarily be surprising
especially when we keep in mind that most shocks came from
external sources and so households and communities had very
limited control over these events. Interestingly, more than half
(57%) of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their
communities had learned from past shocks and would be in a
better position to cope with shocks in the future (Fig. 7). In
contrast, only 38% of household thought the communities had
dealt well with them at the time (Fig. 6).
4.3. Probit analysis
The rst probit model investigated the factors and contextual
variables that may have inuenced the capacity of communities to
cope with past contingencies. For this, the binary variable
past_coped was used as the dependent variable while other
variables were used as explanatory variables. The goodness-of-t
test conrms the statistical validity of the model. Some interesting
points emerge from this analysis (Table 4). First, in line with the
earlier identication of the 2007 earthquake/tsunami as a common
past threat for many communities (cf. Fig. 3), the probit model
indicated a signicant negative effect of the tsunami variable on
the respondents answer. In fact the dF/dx gure suggests that a
change from 0 to 1 for this variable increases by 81% the chance
that the respondent answered did not cope (=1) to the question
Dovele
Lau Lagoon
Toumoa
0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50
Proporon of total responses
about the communities capacity to cope with past contingencies.
This contrasts with the absence of signicant correlation between
the respondents answers and the extreme climatic events
variable (Table 4). Indeed, none of the dummy variables
corresponding to the different types of threat appeared signicant.
Likewise, geographical location had little effect on respondents
perceptions: households from community No. 5 (part of the Lau
Lagoon cluster) were the only ones that indicated a statistically
signicant coefcient in that case, negative.
More critical is the observation that the group characterized by
the higher wealth indicator (housing_4) appeared to have a
relatively high marginal effect (61%) although not signicant at
5% on the dependent variable (Table 4). If this interpretation is
correct it suggests that wealth may positively inuence the
perception people have about their capacity to cope with
uncertainty. In particular, the better-off households felt their
communities had been able to cope relatively well with the
contingencies they faced in the past.
The main economic activities in which households were
engaged affected their perceptions about the ability of their
community to cope with past threats. This variable was signicant
for two groups: the households who produced copra (occupa-
tion_4) had a signicant negative perception about the ability of
No opinion/no
Strongly disagree
answer
3%
6%
Strongly agree
8%
Agree
Disagree
30%
53%
Fig. 6. Respondents answers to the question: Do you think that your community
has coped well with contingencies in the past?.
 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140 1135

No opinion/no Strongly disagree

answer 4%
16%

Disagree
Strongly agree
23%
7%

Agree
50%
Fig. 7. Respondents answer to the question: Do you think that your community has learnt from past contingencies is are now better equipped to deal with future
contingencies?.

the community to deal with past contingencies; and shing
households (occupation_6) had a strong positive view (p < 0.01).
The marginal effect for this latter group was large (79%). Using
cyclones as an example, a plausible explanation for this result
could be that crop-based occupations such as copra will be
severely disrupted for months or even years as coconut trees re-
grow. In contrast, in the absence of damage to reefs, shers are able
to resume their activities soon after the cyclone has passed.
Finally, a high level of leadership (leadership_4) had a
signicant positive effect on respondents answers. Households

Table 4
Probit model for the capacity of communities to cope with past contingencies (dependent variable: past_coped see Table 3 for variable denition).

Explanatory variables dF/dx Std. err. z p>z [95% C.I.]

Age 0.005 0.006 0.830 0.405 0.017 0.007

Tsunamia 0.814 0.193 2.360 0.018* 1.186 0.403
Community_1a 0.537 0.301 1.530 0.125 0.073 1.121
Community_2a 0.078 0.308 0.240 0.813 0.672 0.511
Community_4a 0.571 0.315 1.50 0.132 0.084 1.147
Community_5a 0.558 0.116 2.690 0.007** 0.781 0.325
Housing_0a 0.352 0.543 0.640 0.520 0.431 1.326
Housing_2a 0.165 0.240 0.620 0.533 0.626 0.317
Housing_3a 0.221 0.191 0.830 0.409 0.596 0.169
Housing_4a 0.612 0.307 1.390 0.163 0.032 1.207
Occupation_1a 0.200 0.277 0.50 0.620 0.783 0.432
Occupation_2a 0.161 0.260 0.510 0.612 0.659 0.318
Occupation_4a 0.469 0.090 2.540 0.011* 0.646 0.292
Occupation_5a 0.252 0.359 0.730 0.467 0.428 0.964
Occupation_6a 0.798 0.134 3.420 0.001*** 0.525 1.059
Support_2a 0.297 0.134 1.110 0.266 0.567 0.013
Support_4a 0.347 0.339 0.940 0.350 1.008 0.318
Support_5a 0.476 0.303 1.370 0.169 1.079 0.128
Leadership_2a 0.185 0.385 0.500 0.618 0.592 0.912
Leadership_3a 0.106 0.278 0.390 0.695 0.443 0.648
Leadership_4a 0.863 0.131 2.480 0.013* 0.585 1.126
Type_ 1a 0.165 0.305 0.540 0.588 0.430 0.762
Type_2a 0.315 0.109 1.340 0.181 0.530 0.098
Type_4a 0.391 0.201 1.410 0.159 0.784 0.010
Naturea 0.383 0.099 1.940 0.052 0.578 0.185
Gendera 0.114 .0302 0.40 0.692 0.478 .707

Statistical summary
Number of obs 112
Pseudo R2 0.50
Log likelihood 37.70
Goodness-of-t test
Number of covariate patterns 91
Pearson x2(65) 54.53
Prob > x2 0.79
a
dF/dx is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1; z and p > jzj correspond to the test of the underlying coefcient being 0; *p < 5%; **p < 1%; ***p < 1%; rows
highlighted in grey are the explanatory variables with a marginal effect greater than 60%.
1136 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140

in communities characterized by strong, effective leaders tended
to think that their communities coped well with past shocks. The
marginal effect of this variable was, in fact, the largest of the
model: 86%.
The next step was to conduct a similar analysis of the
perceptions of households regarding the degree to which
communities learned from shocks and felt that they were better
equipped to cope in the future. The major difference from the
previous analysis was that the binary variable past_coped was
used as an explanatory variable (it was the dependent variable in
the rst probit analysis) and the variable better_equipped (which
was not used in the rst probit model) became the dependent
variable. The objective was to test whether the capacity of the
communities to cope with past events may inuence the degree to
which people perceive their communities were able to learn and to
cope better in the future.
The goodness-of-t test conrmed the statistical validity of the
model (Table 5). The results show that, as one could expect, the
variable past_coped had a signicant positive effect on respon-
dents answers, meaning that the capacity to cope with past events
had a positive effect on the degree to which people perceive their
ability to deal with future threats. The marginal effect of
past_coped was high (71%). As for the other variables, geographi-
cal location seems to have a mixed effect whereby only one
community (No. 6 from Lau Lagoon) shows a signicant negative
effect (as was the case with community No. 5 for the past threat
analysis) while the others have non-signicant (positive or
negative) effects. The other two variables with signicant effect
were leadership and support.
The negative effect of location on peoples perception of having
not coped well in the past (community No. 5) or not being able to
cope well in the future (community No. 6) may in part be explained
by the fact that these two communities live on articial islands.
Often referred to as saltwater people because of their close
association with the marine environment, these people have
limited access to land for generating livelihoods (Molea and Vuki,
2008). The negative events most commonly listed by households in
communities 5 and 6 were fuel and food price rises, cyclones and
gardens being destroyed by rats. Sea level rise and future
population increase were identied as the main future threats;
consistent with a high degree of exposure to extreme weather
events and limited options for population expansion and livelihood
diversication.
The statistical signicance of the dummy variable Leader-
ship_2 (corresponding to the group of households that considered
leadership in their community was weak) is hard to explain its
marginal effect is relatively small (46%) compared to the marginal
effect of leadership_5 (answer = very strong; p < 0.01 and
marginal effect = 93%). Similarly, the dummy variable support_4
(indicating the answer strong to the question regarding the level
of support offered by the community to their local leader) was
positively signicant (p < 0.05) and had a very large marginal
effect (92%).
Finally we note that the dummy variable participation_2
(corresponding to the group of households who considered that
the degree of participation in collective actions was weak) was
not signicant but was associated with a relatively strong negative
marginal effect (68%) suggesting that poor participation reduced
the probability of success. Taken together these results indicate
that the degree of community collaboration and cohesion around
their leader were important factors in the perception people had
about their capacity to learn from the past and to cope with future
threats.
5. Discussion
The ndings of this research highlight the trauma that
unexpected extreme events can have on people. Two years after

Table 5
Probit model for the capacity for communities to cope with future contingencies (dependent variable: better_equipped see Table 3 for denition).

Explanatory variables dF/dx Std. err. z p>z [95% C.I.]

Past_coped* 0.719 0.148 2.37 0.018* 0.429 1.010

Age 0.022 0.007 2.44 0.015* 0.035 0.009
Tsunamia 0.004 0.270 0.01 0.99 0.532 0.525
Community_1a 0.118 0.192 0.5 0.618 0.260 0.495
Community_2a 0.366 0.484 0.84 0.4 1.315 0.584
Community_4a 0.096 0.254 0.33 0.743 0.403 0.594
Community_6a 0.924 0.083 2.19 0.029* 1.086 0.762
Occupation_2a 0.061 0.311 0.17 0.862 0.549 0.670
Occupation_5a 0.210 0.402 0.59 0.555 0.999 0.579
Occupation_6a 0.421 0.440 0.99 0.32 1.283 0.440
Occupation_8a 0.189 0.105 1.41 0.159 0.016 0.394
Leadership_2a 0.468 0.114 2.42 0.015* 0.245 0.691
Leadership_4a 0.121 0.359 0.37 0.708 0.825 0.582
Leadership_5a 0.929 0.086 2.78 0.005** 0.761 1.097
Participation_2a 0.680 0.351 1.49 0.137 1.267 0.108
Participation_4a 0.241 0.170 1.18 0.237 0.092 0.575
Support_2a 0.257 0.109 1.58 0.114 0.045 0.470
Support_4a 0.918 0.134 2.15 0.032* 0.656 1.180
Support_5a 0.134 0.385 0.36 0.718 0.889 0.620
Help_1a 0.039 0.203 0.19 0.847 0.437 0.359
Help_2a 0.302 0.454 0.77 0.44 1.192 0.588
Naturea 0.018 0.299 0.06 0.951 0.605 0.569

Statistical summary
Number of obs 90
Pseudo R2 0.55
Log likelihood 26.76
Goodness-of-t test
Number of covariate patterns 60
Pearson x2(37) 36.92
Prob > x2 0.47
a
dF/dx is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1; z and p > jzj correspond to the test of the underlying coefcient being 0; *p < 5%; **p < 1%; ***p < 1%; rows
highlighted in grey are the explanatory variables with a marginal effect greater than 60%.
 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140
the disaster, the April 2007 earthquake and tsunami that
devastated the western part of the archipelago was still very
much in peoples minds. In comparison, recurrent meteorological
events such as cyclones or tropical storms were acknowledged but
not as important as a source of vulnerability. This result is
interesting as Solomon Islands is just north of the latitudinal belt of
greatest seasonal cyclone activity in the southern hemisphere (10
208S) meaning these communities do occasionally experience
extreme cyclone-related weather events, and seasonal storms
from cyclones located further to the south are common (Bureau of
Meteorology Australia, 2010).
The lower ranking of seasonal, but relatively predictable events
may reect that people consider disruption associated with these
recurrent events as an inherent and natural component of their
lives and do not therefore perceive them as so detrimental to their
livelihood. This potential decoupling between the actual impact of
threats, be they large or minor, and the perception that people
construct about these events due to their recurrent nature needs
further exploration as an attribute of vulnerability and resilience. If
a decoupling is conrmed, it would suggest a potential limitation
in the interpretation of participatory vulnerability assessment if
the frequency and severity of repeated events are not included in
the analysis. A slightly different explanation was proposed by
Barnett (2001) who reported that considerable resilience to short-
term, seasonal hazards has been documented for the Pacic region.
Citing Campbell (1990, 1998), in particular, Barnett (2001) argued
that Pacic Island societies have historically had a range of
practices that made them resilient to climate extremes. Under this
narrative, the low level of (perceived) vulnerability to seasonal
weather-related events would reect a relatively high capacity to
adapt and react to these events.
Irrespective of whether an ability to cope with seasonal weather
events is perceived or actual, our results reinforce the conclusion
that individual and collectives perceptions matter when it comes
to assessing adaptation (Adger et al., 2009; OBrien and Wolf,
2010). This result adds to a growing body of empirical evidence
indicating that values and perspectives play a critical role in
individual and collective decision-making on adaptation options
(Grothmann and Patt, 2005; Adger et al., 2009; Heyd and Brooks,
2009; OBrien, 2009; Weber, 2010). In order to meaningfully
evaluate adaptation options, it thus becomes crucial to understand
beliefs, perceptions and values, and how in turn these inuence
individual and community responses and decision-making pat-
terns. In particular, recent analyses suggest that adaptations
considered successful by the affected people often appear to
depend on what people perceived to be worth achieving and
protecting. For instance, Schipper and Dekens (2009) showed that
numerous efforts to reduce risks have been unsuccessful because
not enough attention was paid to cultural or social factors. This is
consistent with a more specic analysis of sheries by Coulthard
et al. (2011) who argued that the inclusion of values, motivation
and social relationships into the development of sheries policy
can improve sheries governance and human wellbeing.
In addition to the impact of the 2007 earthquake, our analysis
revealed some less dramatic but equally important events for the
livelihood of the study communities. For example, remote
communities in this isolated archipelago in the Pacic Ocean
were not spared the effects of the fuel and food crisis that spread
across the world in 20082009. The vulnerability of these
communities was increased largely through a marked rise in the
price of imported fuel (Asian Development Bank, 2008), a
commodity on which remote communities are increasingly
dependent for sea travel to urban centres and markets, and in
the price of store-bought goods, in particular imported rice, which
is now considered a food staple in many parts of Solomon Islands
(GoSI, 2006).
1137
While the analysis of past contingencies suggests that climate
change was not recognized as a major source of vulnerability, the
analysis of the future threats shows that the perception
communities have about climatic risks is changing. Climate-
related changes and natural disasters was ranked rst in the list of
future source of vulnerability, indicating that even in these remote
rural areas the awareness about the issue of climate change is
increasing (see also Tschakert, 2007).
The analysis of local populations perception about future
sources of vulnerability revealed another marked difference from
the past vulnerability analysis. This relates to the emergence of a
Malthusian threat. This threat is associated with a relatively high
population growth rate of 2.5% (World Bank, 2008) and reasonably
conservative population projections suggesting that by 2015 the
working-age population of Solomon Islands could increase by 30%
from 2004 levels (World Bank, 2006). On current trends, formal
employment would only absorb around 10% of these people,
leaving the remainder to earn income from informal activities or
subsistence rural activities (Warner, 2007). Although subsistence
livelihood strategies adopted by smallholders in Solomon Islands
have been effective in the past, population pressures suggest that
these strategies will not provide a basis for maintaining or
increasing living standards in the long term. Nevertheless the
Malthusian threat has been described as being kept at bay so far in
Solomon Islands communities through various coping strategies
including diversication of livelihoods, a fuller integration into the
wider economic activity of the country, out-migration and a
reliance on remittances and goods from relatives living away from
the rural islands (Reenberg et al., 2008; Bayliss-Smith et al., 2010).
In the context of the perceived threat of population increase, it
is not surprising to observe that the third major source of future
vulnerability identied by communities relates to erosion of social
cohesion. The rural society of Solomon Islands is going through
important social and economic transformations. The principles of
intra-community solidarity, reciprocity and collective support that
have been norms in the social fabric of these communities (e.g.
Ruddle et al., 1992) are now challenged directly through the
monetization of inter-household interactions and indirectly by
the newly-introduced principles of modernity and democracy
which put emphasis on individualism and freedom and gradually
erode the collective nature of the traditional social system. In
addition, emerging societal issues such as drug use (especially
alcohol) exacerbate the sentiment amongst community members
that traditional systems, which have been seen as the foundation
for social and institutional stability, are now struggling. This is
probably part of the reason why the second, third and fourth most
important sources of future vulnerability identied by the
respondents are related to intra and inter-community negative
dynamics and revolved around issues such as social cohesion
erosion, conicts, competition and tension.
More surprising perhaps was the nding that although these
communities depend to a large extent on sh as critical source of
protein and cash, and that they identify these as being under
increasing pressure (Boso and Schwarz, 2009; Prange et al., 2009),
sheries-related issues were not identied as being amongst the
major sources of future vulnerability. One could hypothesize that
this result reects the fact that this analysis was conducted during
the initial stages of a larger community based sheries manage-
ment initiative in the study communities or that not all households
interviewed depended on sheries (and therefore that the shers
answers were diluted amongst the larger population). However, a
sher-specic analysis shows that the group of shers was never
associated with any signicant negative correlation. Indeed, it
appeared to have a strong signicant positive effect on the answers
regarding past events, suggesting that sher households were
relatively positive about how their community had coped with
1138 A.-M. Schwarz et al. / Global Environmental Change 21 (2011) 11281140
past threats. This may be explained in part by the fact that although
shers were amongst those most affected by the tsunami, many
received targeted support during the post-disaster programmes
(Schwarz, 2009).
From a wider perspective, our results challenge some
entrenched narratives regarding natural resource management
and the type of vulnerability that affects rural communities. While
the literature often presents uctuating or unpredictable level of
natural resources as important source(s) of vulnerability in
communities that depend upon these resources for their liveli-
hoods (e.g., Shahbaz, 2008; Allison et al., 2009; Armah et al., 2010),
our results suggest that these communities consider other sources
of threats deserve more urgent attention. Similar ndings have
been observed in recent assessments of shing communities in
other parts of the world (e.g. Mills et al., 2011; Salas et al., 2010).
These studies advocate for a broader vulnerability assessment
process resulting in the identication of very different entry points
for shery management that may still include some intra-sectoral
interventions such as gear controls, but also elements outside the
domain of the shery (e.g. water management allocation and
planning), or even cross-sectoral issues such as alternative
livelihoods, improving literacy, and better access to health
services.
Much has been written about the various strategies adopted by
households to deal with shocks and uncertainty, including ex-ante
strategies and ex-post coping responses (Roumasset et al., 1979;
Dercon, 1996; Carter, 1997; Kinsey et al., 1998). These different
works highlight the importance of livelihood diversication and
migration (McDowell and de Haan, 1997; Ellis, 1998; Bene et al.,
2003, but see also Bene, 2009). Much less has been written about
the social/institutional factors that strengthen the capacity of
households or communities to cope with contingencies and
increase the resilience of the socio-ecological systems of which
they are part. The resilience analysis presented here provides
information with which to start addressing these questions. It
stresses in particular the critical role that leadership, participation,
and community self-support seem to play in the creation of the
appropriate social environment for resilience building and
adaptation. These ndings are in agreement with recent work
suggesting that individuals and communities may be more ready
to engage/invest in the individual or collective actions and
behavioral changes that are required to ensure adaptation and
change if they evolve in a supportive social environment
(Spaargaren and van Vliet, 2000; Nye and Burgess, 2008; Adger
et al., 2009). Our research, which was conducted in the specic
context of sheries-dependent rural communities exposed to
multi-origin shocks and uncertainties, conrms these results and
provides empirical evidence illustrating the importance of
leadership, participation and community self-support as some of
the key social factors fostering adaption and resilience building.
6. Conclusion
This research was motivated by the increasing attention given
in the scientic literature to concepts such as vulnerability,
adaptability, and resilience. While the theoretical literature is rich
and rapidly expanding, the empirical application of these analyses
and concepts in developing countries is still very limited. There is
an urgent need for more empirical research on how to
operationalise these theories to make them meaningful and
applicable to local communities in developing countries.
This need for more empirical research includes, not only eld-
testing robust and measurable indices of resilience or vulnerabili-
ty, but also a need to better understand the social and institutional
factors that inuence the capacities of individuals and societies to
react and adapt to uncertainty and changes. Research to date
suggests that perceptions of risk, preference, belief, knowledge,
and experience are key-factors that determine, at the individual
and societal level, whether and how adaptation takes place. Our
research suggests that elements of good community-level gover-
nance such as social cohesion, leadership, or individual support for
collective action improve the perception that people have of the
capacity of their community to cope with change. We contend that
these components are necessary to create (or support) the enabling
environment to build resilience and facilitate adaptation to
external drivers.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to the Solomon Islands communities who
gave their time and knowledge to work with the research team and
to host the team in their communities. This work was supported by
WorldFish-Solomon Islands staff, particularly Cletus Oengpepa at
the Nusa Tupe eld station and ofcers from the Solomon Islands
Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources especially Lionel Luda
and Max Kori. Tim Alexander provided useful comments on the
text which was greatly improved by the comments of anonymous
reviewers. This research was funded by the Australian Centre for
International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). ACIAR had no role in
the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data,
writing of the report or in the decision to submit the paper for
publication.
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