Unravelling local adaptive capacity to climate change in the Bolivian Amazon: the interlinkages between assets, conservation and markets

Abstract

This paper examines household adaptive capacity to deal with climatic change among the Tsimane', an indigenous society of the Bolivian Amazon, and explores how exposure to conservation policies and access to markets shape such capacity. We surveyed Tsimane' adults (77 men and 34 women) living in four communities with different accessibility to the regional markets. The four communities were located in indigenous territories, but two of them overlapped with a co-managed biosphere reserve. We compared households' capacity for adaptation through indicators of access to social, financial and natural assets, entrepreneurial skills and human resources. We also assessed how conservation and markets condition such capacity. Our results show that, across communities, households clustered in four groups with differentiated adaptive capacity profiles: commoners typically participating in community meetings, vulnerable characterized by low shares of adaptive capacity indicators, leaders typically holding community positions, and subsidized mostly relying in government remittances. Overlap with the biosphere reserve was significantly associated with the adaptive capacity profile of vulnerable households. In contrast, access to markets does not seem to be related to household adaptive capacity. We discuss relevant behavioral and structural factors for current adaptation to climatic changes and priority measures to foster local adaptive capacity in indigenous territories overlapping with protected areas.