We systematically reviewed current climate change literature in order to examine how multiple processes that affect human vulnerability have been studied. Of the 125 reviewed articles, 79 % were published after 2009. There are numerous concepts that point out to stressors other than climate change that were used in reviewed studies. These different concepts were used interchangeably and they illustrate processes that act on different scales. Most widely used concepts included non-climatic (40% of the articles), multiple stressors (38%) and other factors (37%). About 75% of the studies either acknowledged or carefully analyzed the social and environmental context in which vulnerability is experienced. One third of the studies recognized climate change related stressors as the most important, one third argued that stressors other than climate are more important and the rest of the studies did not analyze the relative importance of the different processes. Interactions between different stressors were mentioned in 76% and analyzed explicitly in 28% of the articles. Our review shows that there are studies that analyze the social context of vulnerability within climate change related literature and this literature is rapidly expanding. Reviewed studies point out that there are multiple interacting stressors, whose interlinkages need to be carefully analyzed and targeted by policies, which integrate adaptation to climate change and other stressors. In conclusion, we suggest that future studies should include analytical frameworks that reflect dissimilarities between different types of stressors, methodological triangulation to identify key stressors and analysis of interactions between multiple stressors across different scales.
This paper examines the relationship between farmers' socio-economic characteristics, silvicultural activity and the quality of their mahogany and kadam plantation stands in two independent case study villages in South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. Data on farmers' socio-economic characteristics and silvicultural practices were collected and analysed by village using descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney tests and Spearman correlations. Mahogany planters with larger areas planted carried out more silvicultural practices. Kadam planters who had joined the farmer's group earliest, had favourable or highly favourable attitudes towards tree planting, and whose households included more members gaining income were more active in silvicultural management. Approximately half of the studied mahogany and kadam plantations were of high quality. Most of the farmers conducted the recommended silvicultural practices, but just conducting them did not of itself cause the variation in the quality of stands. Pruning timing and recovery time after pruning, however, had an effect on the volume of potentially merchantable wood on medium quality mahogany sites. Further research is required on timing, frequency and methods used for the silviculture in order to improve the quality of stands. The policy implications drawn from this research include that farmers need to be provided with: (a) incentives to plant species with identified markets with reasonable price; (b) motivated extension officers; (c) improved access to production inputs; and (d) structures and mechanisms to assist them to organize and to develop activities, such as joint marketing.
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