Peasant Adaptation to Environmental Change

One of the primary challenges facing researchers and practitioners in their efforts to address issues ofpoverty and environment is the need to deepen ourunderstanding of the logic that guides people'sdecisions over resource use, particularly among therural poor whose livelihoods often depend on fragileand dynamic environments. This study seeks toidentify the set of factors that influences howpeople respond to abrupt environmental disturbancesand resource scarcity through changes in livelihood and resource management practices in two riverine communities of the Peruvian Amazon. The results reveal that socioeconomic characteristics such asforest knowledge and access to agricultural land explain striking differences among households in livelihood responses to environmental change, particularly concerning resource use behavior, resilience to disturbance, and the propensity to adopt more sustainable resource management strategies. This book should be especially useful to researchers, NGOs, policy makers, and community leaders working towards - or anyone else concerned about - poverty alleviation and sustainable resource use in tropical humid environments.