Do Forests Help Rural Households Adapt to Climate Variability? Evidence from Southern Malawi

Monica Fisher, Moushumi Chaudhury and Brent McCusker

World Development, 2010, vol. 38, issue 9, 1241-1250

Abstract: Summary Data from rural Malawi are used to assess the role of forests in rural household adaptation to climate variability, and to examine implications for adaptation to future climate change. Although forests do not currently play a role in anticipatory adaptation by rural households, they do appear important for reactive coping: providing food during shortages, and a source of cash for coping with weather-related crop failure. We find households most reliant on forests have low income per person, are located close to forest, and are headed by individuals who are older, more risk averse, and less educated than their cohorts.

Keywords: climate; variability; climate; change; adaptation; forests; poverty; Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(10)00051-3
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:wdevel:v:38:y:2010:i:9:p:1241-1250

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

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