2002 World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists

This paper examines the vulnerability and responses to flood shocks among riverine peasant households in the Peruvian Amazon. Using interview data on shock experience, four types of coping strategies are identified: alternative activities (basically gathering, fishing, and upland cropping), precautionary savings, labor adjustment, and informal insurance mechanisms. Alternative activities are found to be the most important but to very different degrees across locales and households. Econometric analysis (a two-step probit) reveals that households’ coping responses are shaped by environmental endowments and asset holdings in such a way that in environments without upland or rich fish stocks nearby a strong positive link exists between asset poverty and the use of forest extraction as insurance. The paper discusses how conservation and development initiatives can assist with shocks by targeting and deploying contingent support.



	Paper Title:	Risk Coping Strategies In Topical Forests: Floods, Asset Inequality, And Natural Resource Extraction
	Presenting Author:	Yoshito Takasaki (University of Tsukuba)
	Coauthor 1:	Brad Barham
	Coauthor 2:	Oliver Coomes
	Coauthor 3:
	Abstract:	This paper examines the vulnerability and responses to flood shocks among riverine peasant households in the Peruvian Amazon. Using interview data on shock experience, four types of coping strategies are identified: alternative activities (basically gathering, fishing, and upland cropping), precautionary savings, labor adjustment, and informal insurance mechanisms. Alternative activities are found to be the most important but to very different degrees across locales and households. Econometric analysis (a two-step probit) reveals that households’ coping responses are shaped by environmental endowments and asset holdings in such a way that in environments without upland or rich fish stocks nearby a strong positive link exists between asset poverty and the use of forest extraction as insurance. The paper discusses how conservation and development initiatives can assist with shocks by targeting and deploying contingent support.
	Link to paper:	Not available

	Session / Day / Time	1B / Monday / 8:00 - 10:00 am

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