Search results for ""author andreas neef""

Communities affected by natural disasters are often stigmatized as being passive with regard to disaster prevention, mitigation and adaptation, waiting only for government assistance in the aftermath of such events. However, many innovative community initiatives have been developed to address natural disasters, which are often characterized as "local responses". While scrutinizing the potential strength and comparative advantage of community-based disaster response, this book analyzes and illustrates how individuals, families and social groups in rural and urban communities perceive natural disasters, their underlying reasons and their effects on their livelihoods, and documents and analyzes the role of local responses to natural disasters and conflict. Key factors determining the degree of vulnerability and resilience of affected communities are also elicited. Several pivotal issues related to community-based disaster responses are addressed, such as the relationship between local and external knowledge in addressing disasters, the relevance of institutional and policy frameworks for community-based disaster response and the role of social capital and collective action.

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Climate-induced disasters constitute a major risk to peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. Drawing on case studies from Cambodia, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Samoa, the contributions in this volume examine local response, recovery and adaptation strategies, incorporating the perspectives and knowledge of affected individuals and communities. Asia-Pacific is the world's most disaster-prone region, accounting for about half of the climate-related displacements of 19 million people globally in 2017. Climate-related, fast-onset hazards, such as floods, cyclones and typhoons, have claimed many lives, displaced a high number of people and caused widespread damage over the past twenty years. The cost of short-term response to and medium- to long-term recovery from climate-induced disasters falls disproportionately on the poorest and most marginalised communities within Asia-Pacific countries. This book presents richly-detailed qualitative research from diverse contexts across the Asia-Pacific region, and adds to scholarship on the trajectory of community resilience and adaptation to climate-related hazards.

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This volume sheds light on the complex linkages between tourism, disaster and conflict. In many countries, tourism crises have been precipitated by natural disasters. At the same time, the tourism industry has often been assigned a pivotal role in the reconstruction and recovery efforts. Prospective tourists have been lured into supporting post-disaster rehabilitation simply through visiting disaster-affected areas. Yet, prioritising the tourism sector in the recovery process may have unintended consequences: less touristic areas that have been severely affected by the disaster may receive less humanitarian relief support. Disaster recovery processes in the tourism industry can also be highly uneven, as multinational hotel chains tend to recover more swiftly and increase both their market share and their control over important resources. Politically well-connected tourist operators and wealthy local elites tend to exploit distorted recovery governance mechanisms and take advantage of the legal and institutional uncertainties triggered by disasters. Insecure, customary land rights of ethnic minority groups and indigenous people may be particularly prone to exploitation by opportunistic tourist operators in the aftermath of a disaster. When disasters strike settings of pre-existing conflict, they may exacerbate the situation by increasing competition over scarce resources and relief funds, or they may catalyse conflict resolution following an intolerable excess of additional suffering among fighting parties. Tourism ventures may offer post-conflict livelihood opportunities, but potentially trigger new conflicts. Disasters may instigate a morbid “dark tourism” industry that invites visitors to enter spaces of death and suffering at memorials, graves, museums, and sites of atrocity.

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