Geoscience Reference
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economic crisis and currency devaluation that led to a signifi cant macroeconomic
reform programme implemented as a so-called Structural Adjustment Programme.
Many public sector agencies were forced to lay off their staff causing widespread
unemployment and reverse migrations from the cities back to rural areas. These
rural areas also faced reductions in real producer prices for agricultural commodi-
ties, shifts in cropping patterns, as well as more intensive exploitation of natural
resources, such as forests, through increased commercial licences to domestic and
international companies.
Brown and Lapuyade (2001) examined the effects of these broad socio-economic
and environmental changes on rural households and showed how the resilience of
different sections of the population was differentiated. Men and women are able to
adapt to changes in quite different ways. For instance, men moved into the produc-
tion of food crops for cash, previously an activity primarily done by women, while
women were found to rely increasingly on food processing as a means of livelihood,
and at the same time, because of greater exploitation of forests, lost traditional
rights of access to non-timber forest products. Women almost unanimously described
the changes as negative, expressing it as 'maybe this is the end of the world', whereas
men recognised that although the changes were tough, 'our standard of living is
improving constantly'. Hence, the multiple stressors of social change and economic
crisis interact to cause particular impacts in time and space.
In rural Cameroon, social and environmental change is experienced very differ-
ently by individuals even within the same household; vulnerability and resilience
are not simply system characteristics, but are also differentiated individually. Social
status and gender both matter. Understanding the political economy of resilience
requires addressing the question of whose resilience counts (Lebel et al., 2006). In
southern Cameroon, men's and women's adaptive capacity was acutely differenti-
ated, enabling men to diversify their livelihoods in the face of multiple stressors,
whereas women fell (or rather, were pushed) into poverty traps. Key factors were
their rights and access to resources and markets, which critically affected individu-
als' adaptive capacity.
A second case highlights the role of perceptions of resilience and vulnerability
and their potential to act as barriers to adaptation. In research on the management
of coastal resources in the light of climate change in the Orkney Islands north of
Scotland, resilience of the social-ecological system was expressed as a culturally
dependent phenomenon, representing the ways in which island life can be sustained
and the communities remain distinct and independent (Brown et al., 2005). It
appears that Orkney Islands have a high degree of adaptive capacity articulated,
for example, by participants in focus groups, highlighted by the voices of Orcadians
in Box 8.1.
Despite the island's dependence on grant aid and subsidies, residents had positive
perceptions of its autonomy and potential for self-organised local development. The
threat of climate change and the possible impacts and changes already experienced
- greater storm intensities, windier conditions and warmer winters - were seen as
providing an opportunity to enhance independence and sustainability, by encourag-
ing local production on islands instead of relying on inter-island transport and
imports from the mainland which could be at risk from climate change. The explo-
ration of possible responses to climate change reveals that Orkney society has many
attributes associated with resilience. These include, in particular, a continued refer-
ence to shared history and a manifest social memory; sensitivity to environmental
