What it Means to be Resilient (Part 4) - Managing Natural Assets and Economic Opportunities

We’ve reached the end of our series on what it means to be resilient. In this final installment, we look at the aspects of economic opportunity and management of natural assets. When the aspects of community resilience were identified by the IFRC based on community perceptions of resilience, it was through a global aggregate of feedback. This makes this more difficult for Pacific communities because the idea of natural assets assumes a range of assets both on land and in the sea. In low lying atolls, natural assets refer almost exclusively to what is in the sea (and, of course, the sea itself). So, how can we use these criteria to understand how the SDGs can help improve community resilience in relation to limited natural resources available.

If we begin by examining the management of natural assets, it is easier to understand how that can translate into sustainable economic opportunities.

The sustainable development goals are extremely useful in this regard. Goals 12 on responsible production and consumption, 14 on life below water and 15 on life on land - they define island life. Basically, the natural assets on land and in the sea need to be consumed sustainably. What we take, we must give back. We cannot continually harvest from the land without replenishing the nutrients in the soil. We cannot cut down trees to build and not replant. We cannot take so many fish from the sea that there is no time for populations to replenish themselves.

At the same time, we cannot degrade these environments simply out of laziness and the thought that ‘someone else can deal with it.’ Tossing garbage in streams or the sea, dumping household chemicals - this pollutes our environment and contaminates our soil and water - it harms our livelihoods - our fishing and our agriculture. Deforestation increases the odds of landslides and flooding, of erosion, and undermines our ability to grow food and increases our risk of disaster.

We have a responsibly to manage our assets. If we don’t we will have fewer and fewer economic opportunities upon which to base livelihoods, and enough assets to reasonably need to access markets.

We need to learn how to monitor the impacts that our daily lives have on our environment - as individuals and communities. We need to have community agreements on reducing and preventing the pollution of our marine resources - this means including both households and local businesses in a ‘social compact’ that puts then onus on everyone to abide by community rules and agree to any sanctions and their enforcement. The same goes for land resources, be it forests or shorelines.

Community plans are also needed for the natural restoration of forests, mangroves and shorelines. It is the best defense against flooding and erosion. Communities have been doing it for generations - restoring mangroves and using local assets to put in place erosion prevention measures. These are not high technology dependent activities - but we have become so dependent on outside advice and technology to resolve our problems that we have forsaken traditional knowledge in practice. Admittedly, for some islands it is already too late, and technology dependent solutions and migration may be the only option. But it is not too late for everyone.

This leads into managing economic opportunities. If we are managing our natural resources (on land and in the sea) sustainable, then our local economies can operate and grow sustainably. But what does that mean in practice - the sustainable management of our local (or community) economies? First, we have to recognize the value of unpaid work - domestic work and care of children and the elderly work, and not unemployment. It is difficult to value since these types of services vary in price across societies, but they are irreplaceable. But it means that those that are doing unpaid work need to be factored into the services provided in the local economy, and we need to understand how the local community can support and compensate for them. Traditionally, it is women who fulfill these roles, and so we must look at ways to empower women in the communities. Do they have small businesses such as kiosks or market stalls? How can we formalize these businesses to give them legal protection as well as raise the taxable income base for the local government - which feeds back into the community through the provision of health care and education services, if not improved transport infrastructure and communications.

How can the community work together to provide protection to women and youth? By enhancing access to rights over land and other resources. Studies from all over the world have shown that when women have legal rights to land, local economies flourish. It also means they have assets to use as capital to increase financing for their businesses, and, perhaps most importantly, access insurance schemes which are second to none in terms of bouncing back from disaster and the impacts of climate change.

One of the most important assets that any community has is its youth - the problem is that many communities fail to proactively identify ways in which the talent of youth can be put to use for the good of the community. The needs of communities vary from island to island, country to country, but youth are more adaptable to innovation and this should be taken advantage of. Communities need to work with local governments to improve access to the knowledge resources youth need to continue learning and contributing to the local economy be it through adaptation activities or innovative and profitable enterprises that address natural resources management and use. Essentially, managing the economy is very much about managing economic opportunities and women and youth are the embodiment of such. It is up ti community leaders to recognize and act on this… and if not perhaps it is time to question leadership in the community and take the mantle of leadership upon oneself.

To end this series on understanding resilience, we leave you with an excellent quote from an article in Time Magazine: “Resilience is essentially a set of skills… that make it possible for people not only to get through hard times but to thrive during and after them. Just as rubber rebounds after being squeezed or squished, so do resilient people.” The same can be said for communities, as long as we remember that skills are learned, that they take time to cultivate, and that they must be practiced so that they do not abandon you in your time of greatest need. It is not alarmist to say that our time of greatest need is upon us. The skills we need to be resilient, and to keep being resilient, are within our grasp. We just have to take the initiative and take action.