Analyze

“Despite these disadvantages, the state of California has failed to map wildfire vulnerability based on socioeconomic status. Without an accurate identification and mapping process, the state is unable to provide local governments and community-based groups with a reliable rendering of the populations most vulnerable to the impacts of wildfire. Most importantly, by failing to identify socially vulnerable communities across California, government entities are unable to understand in advance where to target limited resources and programs (Sadd et al., 2011).” (Mendez 57)

“To further ensure participation and strengthen capacity, federal, state and local governments should provide appropriate funding to community-based organizations working directly with vulnerable populations.Community-based organizations have stronger cultural competency in engaging with communities of color and immigrants,

greater levels of trust, and more flexibility to explicitly assist these populations. In community-based planning processes, vulnerable communities are actively engaged in the identification, analysis and interventions, monitoring, and evaluation of disaster risks. This approach helps reduce their vulnerabilities and enhance their capacities.” (Mendez 59)

This text highlights the importance of a mixed methods approach to disaster planning. Specifically, the importance of incorporating qualitative research methods as a way to anchor the voices of marginalized communities within disaster planning and provide context to emerging trends observed in climate related risks.  Regarding disaster planning and undocumented immigrant communities for example, Mendez (2020) stresses that practitioners must go beyond addressing the contextual vulnerability of these communities and consider how to address systemic problems perpetuated by the agricultural industry. The lack of accountability and disregard for human life within the industry, coupled with the lack political power within undocumented immigrant communities, particularly those belonging to the Mixteco/ Indigena indigenous groups, are systems of oppression which must be addressed if climate disaster risks are to be truly addressed.

Mendez (2020) stresses that the intersectionality of race, class, gender, indigeneity, and many other dimensions of identities coalesce to shape the lived experiences of people in their local environments. Traditional quantitative methods, though useful in providing snapshots of disaster vulnerability, can do little in capturing the social environmental conditions which determine responses to extreme weather and climatic events. At best, it can serve to provide an obscured understanding of disaster risks, at worst, this one-dimensional methodology approach may exacerbate existing inequalities perpetuated by systems of racism, classicism, and sexism by rendering whole communities invisible simply by virtue of sampling biases (Mendez, 2020). The case study by which Mendez frames his central argument focuses on how Indigenous immigrants were systematically ignored in emergency response and alleviation efforts following the Thomas Fire in California’s Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. 

This text builds from earlier conceptions of the term “land dispossession” and “land grab”. As defined by the 2011 International Land Coalition, land grabbing specifically refers to large scale land acquisitions that are “ in violation of human rights, without prior consent of the preexisting land users, and with no consideration of social and environmental impacts”. Characterization of land grabs and their resulting harms most commonly considers the effect of physical displacement and harms within the articulated “grabbed” area (Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2017;Ogwand, 2018;  huaserman, 2018). Li and Pan seek to expand the frame of analysis for land grabs beyond the site of grabbed land to consider the full extent of harms associated with land grabs both geographically (via pollution spillover to areas outside of “grabbed land”) and temporally (via latent “expulsion by pollution). 

 “While the villagers are not passive victims and have adopted various resistance strategies, the space for them to struggle and achieve success is confined and shaped by the existing power asymmetry in which local villagers, capital and local government are embedded.”  (Li and Pan, 2021, p 418). 

“...this framing of land dispossession is problematic in two aspects. Firstly, it obscures an invisible form of land dispossession in which people still maintain control of their land but its use value is damaged by pollution. This kind of indirect land dispossession could lead to expulsion, not due to the direct loss of control over land but by it being rendered useless by pollution.” Li and Pan, 2021, p 409). 

 This text employs a case study approach to characterize how villagers in a village in China have been displaced “in-place” as a result of new industrial activities within the area  (all specific details have been hidden within the publication, wherein the names of villager groups and the site of study itself is referenced only by coded letters). The scale of analysis primarily centers at the village level, though analysis of the case study itself extends towards the country level specifically when analysis of state actors are involved. 

Authors Hua Li and Lu Pan are scholars from China. Li is  affiliated with the College of Humanities and Law at Taiyuan University of Technology, wherein her research focuses specifically on water politics, environmental justice, and rural development and agrarian change. Pan is affiliated with the College of Humanities and Development at China Agricultural University. Her research interests include marginalized communities, rural development, and agrarian change.

Characterization of loss from Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (2018) within the Evaluation report on 10-year implementation of the national policy for ‘agriculture-farmer-rural’ development [ not available for public view] 

• “ Aquaculture households have lost 503.2 million VND (21,665 USD) per household, then fishing households 231.3 million VND (9958 USD) per household, and coastal service households 102.0 million VND (4392 USD) per household. Note that both fishing and fish farming households lost similar por- tions of their total income, around 98 percent, even as fish farmers earn twice that of fishers on average. In a country where the average yearly income of rural households is 130 million VND or 5600 USD (MARD, 2018), losing an average of 11,000 USD per household is significant.” (Truong et al., 2021, p 8). 

Characterization of the compensation schemes adopted by Vietnam’s government:

• “According to a report by the Ministry of Finance in 2018, the government was able to provide direct cash compensation to those identified as being impacted across the four provinces. This is because of the settlement with Taiwan Formosa Plastics for 500 million USD. In addition to cash, the Vietnamese government gave over 19,000 tonnes of rice to impacted households in the months following the fish kill. The government also monitored the safety of the ocean environment. As the government switched from emergency relief to recovery support, more programmes were introduced including loan access, scholarships for students, health insurance, and livelihood training pro- grammes. The government also worked with the Fisheries Department and other relevant agencies to build environmental monitoring systems, provide consistent water testing, engage in food safety monitoring, and work towards ecological rehabilitation of aquatic stocks” (Truong et al., 2021, p 10). 

“Environmental disasters have a tendency to further increase work precarity, particularly in places that are highly dependent on eco- logical resources (Marschke et al., 2020). Livelihoods, as such, may need to transform rather than persist in the face of crises (Alexander, 2013).” (Truong, 2021, pg 3)

“ Vietnam has struggled with ineffective environmental regulatory programmes or insufficient enforcement capabilities to ensure adequate protection of the environment as Vietnam develops (Fortier, 2010). Environmental impact assessments (EIA), in general, are viewed as bureaucracy rather than as an important aspect of the development approval process (Wells-Dang et al., 2016).” (Truong, 2021, pg 4)

The narrative of the text highlights the following key points extrapolated from survey responses and interview participants:

• Impacts of the Formosa disaster on households vary by livelihood strategies, and were particularly amplified for poorer households, women, and households without diversified livelihood strategies. 

• Coping mechanisms of households primarily involved reducing household expenditures, accessing loans, adopting a new livelihood strategy, and expanding existing livelihood strategies. However, adoption rates of these coping mechanisms vary across households with livelihoods across the service, fishing, and fish farming enterprises. 

• Compensation, though cited to have ignited protests from parties not qualified for restitution, did offer substantial help to those who were able to receive compensation. Additionally, compensation delivery was delayed (between one to two years after the incident was reported), further escalating impacts across families without savings. 

• Economic recovery of household income 30 months after the Formosa incident indicates that the majority of households have recovered their livelihood activities. However, this does not take into account families who are no longer in the region (out migrated following the disaster prior to the inception of this study).