Environmental change, urbanisation, and socio-ecological resilience in the Pacific: Community narratives from Port Vila, Vanuatu

Aimée F. Komugabe-Dixson, Naomi S.E. de Ville, Alexei Trundle and Darryn McEvoy

Ecosystem Services, 2019, vol. 39, issue C

Abstract: Ecosystem services play a key role in maintaining community resilience and wellbeing; a function increasingly profiled following the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. However, there is limited understanding of the value of, and threats to, ‘urban’ ecosystem services, especially in relation to Small Island Developing States (SIDS). This study uses a bottom-up approach to investigate the provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural benefits of local ecosystems to urban communities in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The project was based on participatory action research carried out for the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) as part of the Pacific Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Change Project. Based on a survey of 821 households, and 10 community workshops, this paper provides a narrative of the terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal ecosystem services salient to the livelihoods of vulnerable urban communities. This narrative is set in the context of rapid urbanisation and climate change, which are increasingly undermining community resilience. These findings stress the urgent need to better understand, and account for, complex socio-ecological relationships when developing adaptation policies and urban development plans, not only in Vanuatu but across Oceania’s cities and towns.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Socio-ecological systems; Urbanisation; Climate change; Community resilience; SIDS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041619301986
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:39:y:2019:i:c:s2212041619301986

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2019.100973

Access Statistics for this article

Ecosystem Services is currently edited by Leon C Braat

More articles in Ecosystem Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().