Andreas Neef

University of Auckland · Development Studies

Recent debates on climate mobilities have largely ignored the dynamics of mobility patterns including short-distance and short-duration circular movements to enhance adaptative capacity and resilience of households and individuals, enabling them to remain in place despite facing increasingly severe climatic risks. This paper explores Pacific Island...

In 2006 New Zealand government officials found themselves facing a barrage of enquiries arising from an erroneous claim contained in Al Gore's Academy Award-winning climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The documentary suggested that the government of Aotearoa had agreed to take “all climate refugees” from Tuvalu, an archipelago of nine...

It is increasingly evident that climate change is intersecting in complex ways with the more traditional drivers of migration, such as poverty and conflict. Yet there remains a startling lack of international agreement on how to address the issue. This article examines the problem climate change-related migration poses in terms of international res...

Background and aims: Many Pacific people are considering cross-border mobility in response to the climate crisis, despite exclusion from international protection frameworks. The 'Migration with dignity' concept facilitates immigration within existing laws but without host government support. Through the metaphor of Pacific navigation, we explore t...

Recent scholarship on climate mobilities and mobility justice calls for dynamic, relational, and agent-centered approaches to comprehend the complex decision-making that compels certain people to leave the places they call home, encourages or forces others to stay put, and acknowledges those who engage with mobile populations in host countries. Yet...

As the effects of climate change begin to materialise across Pacific Island nations, many exposed communities are considering migrating away from their homelands. Migrants’ resettlement experiences can depend upon their reception in the host nation. However, it is unclear whether justice-based obligations will influence host attitudes toward climat...

Tourism is a key contributor to the economy of the Pacific Island country Vanuatu. Yet many Ni-Vanuatu have seen their access to natural resources lost or reduced as a consequence of foreign investment in the tourism industry and associated land leases, while few community members found secure employment in the tourism sector to compensate for thos...

Unique vulnerabilities are intrinsic to Pacific island countries which shape risk perception and influence adaptive decision making to natural hazards. This study aims to examine ongoing risks caused by hydro-meteorological hazards, with a focus on micro-level household response to increasing vulnerabilities, in addition to macro-level community re...

Cambodia has experienced rapid economic growth due partly to excessive natural resource extraction. Land conflicts have been pervasive between local communities and companies that invest in land and other natural resources. Despite substantial research into land conflict resolution, knowledge about how land is returned to wronged parties and what h...

Global inaction on climate change is leading many Pacific peoples towards a reality separated from their ancestral lands. Yet, discussions of climate-related mobility often sideline Pacific understandings of well-being. This systematic qualitative review synthesizes the literature on the psychosocial and cultural impacts of climate-related mobility...

Integrating local knowledge and scientific information can aid in co-developing locally relevant approaches for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Communities along the Mekong River have adapted to variability in temperature, rainfall, and flooding patterns over time. Rapid environmental change in the Mekong Basin presents a new...

The number and diversity of migrant communities living in cities in developed countries are increasing. These have exerted more pressure on both physical and social infrastructures that have already been impacted by climate change. Improv- ing migrant communities’ resilience to adverse climate events is a priority of the inclusive disaster risk red...

Multi-risk environments pose challenges for rural and coastal communities in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly with regard to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation strategies. While much research has been published on disaster response and recovery for specific climate-related hazards in the region, such as cyclones, floods and...

‘Planned relocation’ has emerged in the international climate policy arena as an ‘adaptation’ solution with the potential to enhance resilience, address underde-velopment and debunk age-old narratives around migration as a risk to peace and security. In 2018, Fiji became one of the first countries to develop Planned Relocation Guidelines, with upwa...

This chapter explores the local narration of gendered experience of disasters in two iTaukei (Indigenous Fijian) communities, Votua and Navala, both located in the Ba River catchment, Fiji. The methodology consisted of semi-formal interviews, talanoa, mapping sessions and journal entries from community members in Votua and Navala. Local narratives...

This article examines how rural communities living in flood-prone river basins of Cambodia and Fiji have responded to increasing variability of floods and other natural hazards under the influence of climate change and other risk factors. Particular emphasis is placed on risk perceptions and adaptive strategies of households and communities with re...

Drawing on interviews with Cambodian and Thai communities in Auckland, New Zealand, this paper examines the role of Buddhist temples in disaster preparedness, response and recovery and the hindrances to optimising this role. We find that among the communities, Buddhist temples are identified as sites of community organisation and information dissem...

Large-scale land acquisitions accelerate tropical deforestation, suggests an analysis of two decades of land-deal and forest-cover data. Such exploitation will threaten the future of these globally crucial carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots.

Cambodia is considered extremely vulnerable to climate change due to high poverty, limited infrastructure, and weak adaptive capacity. Kratie province, in particular, has suffered from climate-induced disasters, including floods, droughts, storms, lightning, and heatwaves. To date, climate change interventions in the province have primarily focused...

Drawing on a household survey conducted by a team of researchers and students from the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) in four communes of Preak Prasop District, Kratie Province, Cambodia, in August 2017, this policy brief highlights the decisive role household-based livelihood strategies play in determining the nature and degree of climate c...

In urban environments characterized by rich diversity across language, migration status, demographic profiles, and usage of different forms of media, there can be significant challenges to ensuring that particular disaster risk reduction (DRR) communications reach those potentially affected. This article presents a study with 20 Pacific Island comm...

Bali’s tourism sector has seen a dramatic expansion over the past two decades, despite temporary security concerns following the 2002 and 2005 terrorist attacks. The growing influx of foreign and domestic tourists has put increasing strain on the island’s natural resources, including its freshwater sources and marine environment. This review chapte...

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami had a deep and long-term impact on communities along Thailand’s Andaman Coast. In this chapter, the authors examine how three communities of indigenous, formerly seafaring people (chao leh) have been affected by post-tsunami tourism developments. Taking Devine and Ojeda’s (2017) concept of ‘violent tourism geographies’...

In critical tourism studies, tourism has often been accused as a detrimental activity for local communities. The objective of this chapter is to highlight that there is another way of understanding tourism, one that responds to a more emancipating approach. The authors argue that from a post-structuralist perspective certain types of ‘responsible t...

This chapter introduces the tourism–disaster–conflict nexus through a comprehensive review of the contemporary social science literature. After reviewing conceptual definitions of tourism, disaster and conflict, the chapter explores various axes that link through this nexus. The linkages between tourism and disaster include tourism as a trigger or...

Cambodia has become a principal target of transnational (and domestic) land grabs over the past decade, mostly in the form of economic land concessions (ELCs). The northeastern part of the country—where the majority of Cambodia’s indigenous people reside—is a particular hotspot. In this article, we discuss three policy mechanisms that the Cambodian...

The Fiji Islands in the South Pacific are highly exposed to climate-induced hazards and have experienced several flood and cyclone events in recent years. Drawing on a series of field studies in the lower Ba River Catchment on Fiji’s main island Viti Levu, the objective of this paper is to determine how climate adaptation strategies – employed by i...

This paper focuses on livelihood transitions emerging from land use change in an indigenous commune of northeast Cambodia. The paper argues that despite overall poverty reduction among households in the commune from 2003 to 2012, the rapid expansion of the market economy resulted in dispossession from land and forest resources, an over reliance on...

Multifunctional agriculture is increasingly discussed as an alternative to conventional, mono-functional farming and its negative environmental impacts. This study aims at determining Thai society’s demand for agri-environmental services offered by a multifunctional agricultural system using two models, i.e. a Choice Experiment Model and a Latent C...

Home to more than 160 million people, the Nile River Basin has become one of the hotspots of the global quest for food, water and energy security. Moving closer to its completion, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) highlights the interplay between the food, water, and energy sectors and their implications on geopolitical power relations in...

Due to a combination of physical, socio-economic and political factors, the Agta, an indigenous group in Casiguran, Philippines, are highly susceptible to the threat of natural hazards, especially typhoons, floods, storm surges and landslides. Despite their evident vulnerabilities, the Agta possess valuable indigenous knowledge, generated through p...

The water–energy–food nexus is being promoted as a conceptual tool for achieving sustainable development. Frameworks for implementing nexus thinking, however, have failed to explicitly or adequately incorporate sustainable livelihoods perspectives. This is counterintuitive given that livelihoods are key to achieving sustainable development. In this...

The water–energy–food nexus is being promoted as a conceptual tool for achieving sustainable development. Frameworks for implementing nexus thinking, however, have failed to explicitly or adequately incorporate sustainable livelihoods perspectives. This is counterintuitive given that livelihoods are key to achieving sustainable development. In this...

In Southern Thailand, tourism-related businesses and small-scale fisheries were among the sectors that were hardest hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Drawing on an extensive literature review, conversational-style interviews and an innovative recovery profiling methodology used in the most affected province Phang Nga, this chapter discusses the...

The Moklen—often referred to as “sea gypsies”—are an ethnic minority with a long history of settlement in Southern Thailand. In contrast to the culturally and ethnically closely related Moken—who traditionally spent about 9 months at sea—, the Moklen have settled along the Andaman Coast for a long time and rely on coastal resources (e.g. mangrove e...

This introduction to the themed special feature on development-induced displacement in Asia discusses the scope and major drivers of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) in Asia, and recent policy developments at the national and international level. It describes some of the existing conceptual frameworks in the field of DIDR an...

This document addresses the need for explicit inclusion of livelihoods within the environment nexus (water-energy-food security), not only responding to literature gaps but also addressing emerging dialogue from existing nexus consortia. We present the first conceptualization of ‘environmental livelihood security’, which combines the nexus perspect...

This introductory article to the 2014 Special Issue of Law and Development Review provides a brief overview of the scope, actors, discourses and impacts of the global land and resource rush, a phenomenon that has been triggered by the confluence of the financial, food and fuel crises in the late 2000s. It situates transnational land acquisitions in...

This study is conducted using a legal and an in-text media study approach in order to deconstruct the discourse of land grabbing around the Monywa Copper Mine. Its aim is to analyze the discourse surrounding the resistance to expansion and to shed light on the current trends and any new opportunities that may exist in reforming Myanmar. To this end...

Traditional agrosilvopastoral systems have been an important component of the farming systems and livelihoods of thousands of ethnic minority people in the uplands of Mainland Southeast Asia. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and participatory inquiries in nine ethnic minority communities, this study emphasizes the complex articulation of loc...

This paper discusses Cambodia's legal framework relating to Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) and looks at the implementation gaps. It argues that despite Cambodian's legal framework governing land and ELCs being well-developed, its social benefits, such as protecting the rights of the poor and vulnerable and contributing to transparency and account...

Floods are among the most significant and frequent hazards to affect communities in the downstream part of the Ba River in Western Viti Levu, Fiji Islands. They often leave in their wake displacements and death putting thousands at risk of sliding into poverty. Using the recent 2009 and 2012 floods, we examine how social capital aids in post-disast...

The aftermath of natural disasters poses numerous challenges for communities, organizations, businesses, households, and individual citizens at the local level. Essential infrastructure may be destroyed, basic services are often disrupted, numerous livelihoods are endangered, and the local economy may be in shatters (Berke, Kartez, & Wenger, 1993;...

Drawing on studies in flood-affected upland areas of Thailand and Vietnam, this chapter explores the complex interplay between collective, state and individual responses to disastrous flood events and subsequent mitigation strategies. Fieldwork was conducted between 2007 and 2009, employing a variety of qualitative methods, such as semi-structured...

Communities affected by natural disasters are often stigmatized as being passive with regard to disaster prevention, mitigation, and adaptation, waiting only for government assistance in the aftermath of such events. Yet innovative community initiatives and individual livelihood strategies are oftentimes developed in the immediate aftermath of natu...

Competing models of innovation informing agricultural extension, such as transfer of technology, participatory extension and technology development, and innovation systems have been proposed over the last decades. These approaches are often presented as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. This article shows how practitioners in a rural innovat...

In rural Cambodia the rampant allocation of state land to political elites and foreign investors in the form of “Economic Land Concessions (ELCs)”—estimated to cover an area equivalent to more than 50 % of the country’s arable land—has been associated with encroachment on farmland, community forests and indigenous territories and has contributed to...

This study examines the potential of cardamom for poverty alleviation and sustainable rural development under conditions of increased resource scarcity in the uplands of northern Laos. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative fieldwork in Luang Namtha province, the supply chain of cardamom is identified and the socio-economic opportunities for...

Participatory approaches have been discussed as alternatives to and complementary elements of more conventional research on sustainable land use and rural development in upland areas of Southeast Asia. Following a brief overview of the history of participatory approaches (Sect. 9.1), this chapter discusses the potential and limitations of applying...

The Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) in Vietnam has undergone massive changes over the last decades. Initially triggered by an economic reform process (Doi Moi) initiated in 1986, the system was formalized by the first decree on agricultural extension in 1993 (GSRV (Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) (1993) Nghị Đị...

In response to the chronic overuse and misuse of pesticides in agriculture, governments in Southeast Asia have sought to improve food safety by introducing public standards of good agricultural practices (GAP). Using quantitative farm-level data from an intensive horticultural production system in northern Thailand, we test if fruit and vegetable p...

This paper attempts to identify the major factors associated with some of the failures and successes of integrated watershed management policies and projects with a particular emphasis on the uplands of mainland Southeast Asia. It argues that many policy measures have been misguided by failing to acknowledge the multi-dimensional facets of sustaina...

The expansion of the Monywa copper mine, the nation's largest, located on the Letpadaung mountain range, north of Naypidaw, Myanmar, affects some 26 villages in the area and creates further concerns over land grabbing. Mining operations in the area have been growing since the 1980s, the project being the result of a joint investment by the governme...

This article explores how the causes and impacts of a flood event as perceived by local people shape immediate responses and future mitigation efforts in mountainous northwest Vietnam. Local flood perception is contrasted with scientific perspectives to determine whether a singular flood event will trigger adjustments in mitigation strategies in an...

Drawing on two action-research projects conducted between 2007 and 2011, this paper compares the benefits of pro-poor microtrade arrangements for smallholder litchi growers in northern Thailand and small-scale vanilla growers in northwestern Tanzania. The case studies combine various qualitative and participatory research methods with an in-depth a...

In this article we investigate if qualitative soil fertility datasets derived during participatory processes can be combined with a corresponding land use change model (i) to improve the understanding of the social-ecological complexity of land use change and (ii) to allow testing of alternative scenarios even in data-poor environments. To test thi...

Recent discourse in the field of participatory agricultural research has focused on how to blend various forms and intensities of stakeholder participation with quality agricultural science, moving beyond the simple “farmer-first” ideology of the 1980s and early 1990s. Yet, most existing frameworks of participation in agricultural research still ad...

This study aims to analyze the potential and constraints of group-based extension approaches as an institutional innovation in the Vietnamese agricultural extension system. Our analysis therefore unfolds around the challenges of how to foster this kind of approach within the hierarchical extension policy setting and how to effectively shape and ena...

This paper assesses processes of adoption of agricultural innovations introduced to the northwestern uplands of Vietnam since the late 1950s as a result of external driving forces and the motivation of adopting farmers. We found that innovations which meet the immediate needs of food security and income genera-tion in the uplands are adopted by a h...

Thailand Rundschau Nr. 2/ Juli 2011, pp. 53-55

Purpose: The objective of this article is to analyze the introduction of participatory extension approaches (PEA) in the predominantly supply-driven, hierarchical Vietnamese extension system. Drawing on the case of the so-called Farmer Livestock School (FLS) concept, the authors investigate the potential and challenges of scaling up and out the FLS...

This article analyzes the dynamics of integration and marginalization inherent in the development process experienced by the rural upland areas of Vietnam and Lao PDR. Focusing on the post-1980s reform period, we compare the two uplands areas along the three themes ethnic difference and hierarchy, development policies and market permeation. In both...

Although contingent valuation is the dominant technique for the valuation of public projects, especially in the environmental sector, the high costs of contingent valuation surveys prevent the use of this method for the assessment of relatively small projects. The reason for this cost problem is that typically only contingent valuation studies whic...

Litchi growers of the Hmong ethnic minority in hillsides of northern Thailand have received consistently low prices for their fresh litchi fruits in past years. Concerns over sustainable livelihoods and land use have prompted a group of academics from University of Hohenheim, Germany, and two institutes from Chiang Mai University, Thailand, to coll...

Providing compensation for agricultural conservation practices adopted by upstream farmers is still an alien concept in the Thai political context. The governance of common-pool natural resources, such as forest and water, has traditionally been under the control of powerful government line agencies, while the contribution of local communities to n...

In recent years, many countries have experienced a formal shift from command-and-control and prescriptive management of natural resources towards policy making and planning processes that build on collaboration, negotiation and deliberation among policy-makers, scientists and local stakeholders (Bouwen and Tallieu, 2004; Warner, 2006; Ansell and Ga...

In Thailand water is widely perceived as an open access resource. It is also common belief that organization of highland irrigation in northern Thailand is characterized by a relatively simple structure, and that local communities are not able to adjust their management practices to new realities. The existence of diverse forms of control, ownershi...