Disasters affect vulnerable communities which depend on natural resources. At-risk populations depend on ecosystem services for their livelihoods. Poor populations, especially women, are more vulnerable to disasters; they depend on environmental resources for protection and livelihoods. Therefore, investing in natural barriers and mainstreaming disaster risk and ecosystem management in development planning is likely to make a major contribution to the goal of achieving sustainable livelihoods for the poor.
There are clear links between resource degradation and disasters caused by conflicts. Development, poverty reduction and sustainable management of the environment ultimately depend on social stability and peace. Yet, since the end of the Cold War, conflict is increasingly fought within, rather than between nations, and is killing and displacing civilians as never before. The poor and the marginalized are disproportionately affected by conflicts and disasters, and are the least equipped to recover.
Evidence is emerging that appropriate management of ecosystems and natural resources can help reduce the vulnerability of human communities. Conversely, resource mismanagement may lead to degradation and scarcity, as well as inequitable access to resources and benefit sharing from their use, adding to the growing threats of conflict and disaster. Adapted from IUCN’s webpage “Building Community Resilience”
Ecosystems can reduce the amplitude of disasters. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment highlighted the protective functions of ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves, wetlands and mountain forests. In addition to supporting people’s day-to-day livelihoods, these ecosystems are also important in mitigating the impact of natural hazards. Analysis of recent disasters — such as the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the hurricanes that struck North and Central America in 2005 — demonstrates the importance of habitat protection and natural resource management in decreasing our vulnerability to extreme events.
Ecosystems can provide cost-effective protection against the effects of disasters. It costs less to prevent disasters than it does to fix the damage they cause. Disasters have an incommensurate impact on developing countries and poor populations, especially women, impeding progress toward achieving Millennium Development Goals. Certainly, not all ecosystems will prevent against the full impact of an extreme hazard event but in many cases, they provide cost-effective insurance in limiting the damage.
Preventing loss is significantly less expensive than reconstituting liveli¬hoods, and prevention measures need to be mainstreamed into disaster risk reduction. Such measures include investing in ecosystems such as sand dunes, mangrove belts, coral reefs, wetlands and protecting steep slopes with vegetation cover.
Disasters affect biodiversity. Disasters and the responses to them have a negative impact on biodiversity. Disasters can affect biodiversity through the spread of invasive species, mass species mortality and loss of habitat. Poorly planned post-disaster response and reconstruction work often do more damage to biodiversity than the disaster itself. This in turn threatens the ecosystem services — including food and medicinal plants and animals, clean water and air and buffers from extreme natural events — that are critical to people’s livelihoods
Adapted from “Ecosystems, Livelihoods and Disasters, An Integrated Approach to Disaster Risk Management”, IUCN 2006 and IUCN’s webpage “Building Community Resilience”
