Ecosystem changes and community wellbeing: social-ecological innovations in enhancing resilience of wetlands communities in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

The feedback relationships between resource-dependent human communities and their local ecosystem services may result in an undesirable SES dynamic where community wellbeing continually deteriorates. Yet, very little is known about the mechanisms that can facilitate reordering people’s relationship with ecosystem for sustained wellbeing. We argue that innovative approaches built upon local strengths are more likely to succeed in such an endeavour, and multi-level implementation can help sustainability and community wellbeing. The objective of this paper is to give an account of local people’s wellbeing in relation to ecosystem services and their changes, the drivers that change the ecosystem services and impact wellbeing, and the role of innovation in enhancing adaptability and SES resilience to changes and disturbances. We conducted our field research during 2014–2015 in a wetland region of northeastern Bangladesh, utilising Case study and participatory research methods. Our empirical investigation in selected wetland communities has revealed that: (i) community wellbeing and wetland SES resilience are subject to erosion due to multiple drivers of change operating at different temporal and spatial scales; (ii) the feedback relationships among these multiple drivers often adversely affect community wellbeing; and (iii) innovative strategies built on local strengths can help reorder people’s relationships with local ecosystems, restore community wellbeing, and enhance local sustainability. The key determinants of such reordering include entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, learning, and networking abilities of the locals. Intervention strategies should therefore pay more attention to the locals’ ability to innovate and adapt to ecological changes, especially through new or shifted livelihood initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Social-ecological innovations
• community wellbeing
• ecosystem changes
• resilience
• ecosystem services

Acknowledgements

The second author is indebted to University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship (UMGF) for supporting his Ph.D. studies. The authors thank the Center for Natural Resource Studies (CNRS), Bangladesh for facilitating the field research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ statement

A K M Shahidullah (AKMS) collected and analysed data for this manuscript. Mahed Choudhury (MC) and AKMS prepared the initial draft (including overall conceptualization and articulation) with the guidance and supervision of Emdad Haque (EH). EH and AKMS were responsible for acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication, and provided guidance on overall structure, flow, and consistency of the manuscript. All authors contributed on writing, editing, and reviewing to prepare the final version. All authors agreed on the contents and arguments of the submitted version.

Additional information

Funding

The first author received funding for field research from the International Development Research Centre [grant number 2014–15 Doctoral Fellowship], Canada. Additional financial support was received from a grant from the Centre for Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries, Centre for Economic Policy Research, UK to the first author, and from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: [Grant Number InSight Grant # 435-2018-0552], Ottawa, Canada InSight Grant to the third author.