The incident of environmental pollution in the central provinces of Vietnam in 2016 had a strong impact on the livelihoods of people living in the Central coastal provinces. Some of the most affected industries are the fisheries sector, followed by business, services, tourism and peoples daily life. The consequences were very heavy: hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, lost their income, a series of service activities stopped, and other consequences for a long time. According to statistics, 263.000 people have been affected by the environmental incident in four central provinces including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue. After four years of the marine environmental incident and the effects of climate change, many local peoples lives are now relatively stable and continue with other livelihood activities together. This research employed a convergent parallel mixed method design. The study investigates employment needs for people residing in the central coastal provinces of Vietnam in the coming years and provides a number of recommendations for sustainable employment orientation for local people in the future.
International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No (2020), pp 738-750 MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL INCIDENT IMPACTS ON LOCAL PEOPLE’S LIVELIHOODS: EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL COASTAL PROVINCES OF VIETNAM Quynh-Tho Thi Bui, PhD, Department of Sciencetific Research Management, Ha Tinh University, Ha Tinh city, Vietnam; E-mail: tho.buithiquynh@htu.edu.vn Ngoc Hai Tran, PhD student, Institute of Continuing Education, Ha Tinh University, Ha Tinh city, Vietnam; Email of the corresponding author: haingoc74@gmail.com; ORCID Abstract The incident of environmental pollution in the central provinces of Vietnam in 2016 had a strong impact on the livelihoods of people living in the Central coastal provinces Some of the most affected industries are the fisheries sector, followed by business, services, tourism and people's daily life The consequences were very heavy: hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, lost their income, a series of service activities stopped, and other consequences for a long time According to statistics, 263.000 people have been affected by the environmental incident in four central provinces including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue After four years of the marine environmental incident and the effects of climate change, many local people's lives are now relatively stable and continue with other livelihood activities together This research employed a convergent parallel mixed method design The study investigates employment needs for people residing in the central coastal provinces of Vietnam in the coming years and provides a number of recommendations for sustainable employment orientation for local people in the future Keywords: Marine environmental incident, Central coastal provinces, local people, livelihoods Introduction Ecological environmental incident is the change of the comprehensive network between soil, water, air and living organisms in the global scope (Manasi, 2013) Changes or disturbances at a certain point in the system will have serious consequences in humans and nature Ecological environmental change is manifested through various forms such as environmental pollution, environmental degradation, climate change, etc (Akinwale, 2017) This causes the negative impacts on the livelihoods of the poor in agricultural villages in some areas such as agriculture, forestry, fishing and aquaculture, where the poor rely mainly on natural resources to implement livelihood strategies (Neefjes, 2009) The study by Neefjes (2009) also suggests that in order to create a sustainable livelihood in the context of climate change impacts, people and communities need high quality livelihood resources and policies and institutions are needed It is important that the livelihood resources are accessed fairly so that people can manage and use them sustainably The creation of local people’s livelihood opportunities is important, but it also needs to be linked to urban livelihood opportunities to ensure livelihood sustainability (Manasi, 2013) Therefore, diversification of livelihood strategies is essential, including migration 738 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ2020 SERSC Australia International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No (2020), pp 738-750 Several other studies have shown that rural livelihood systems in coastal areas are most at risk from climate change, and environmental changes are livelihoods dependent on natural resources (for example, Armitage & Plummer, 2015; Loe & Plummer, 2015; Manasi, 2013) Therefore, building resilience for climate-resilient coastal livelihoods and environmental changes needs to take a parallel approach, including strengthening environmental governance and development, local livelihoods (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, 2010); In the context of environmental management capacity in terms of: government's land and water management, it is necessary to have the capacity to adapt to ecological environmental incident and employment for vulnerable local people (Armitage & Plummer, 2015) After the ecological environment incident, local people in general and local people in Central coastal areas of Vietnam in particular have been often exposed to risky effects and faced the challenges of risks of losing their jobs and affecting their incomes and their livelihoods (People's Committees of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue, refered to as PCHQQH, 2018) A number of studies have suggested several contextual solutions to labor and employment issues for fishermen in the Central Coastal region and other coastal regions of Vietnam, contributing to the socio-economic development of the region and the country (Nguyen, 2006; Tran, 2012) Therefore, for sustainable development in those Central coastal regions, it is necessary to: (i) create links of regional cooperation in job creation; (ii) urgently focus on synchronous investment from facilities, teachers, vocational training equipment, programs and curricula from provincial governments, along with investment from the Central Government; (iii) set up database, information on labor supply and demand, and forecast regional human resources; (iv) establish regional vocational training funds from central, local budget to provide financial support sources to businesses and vocational training institutions (Phan, 2014) Research methods 2.1 Research Method This research employed a convergent parallel mixed method design (Creswell, 2014; Gorard &Taylor, 2004) because a mixed methods research approach “offers dialogic opportunities to generate a better understanding of important social phenomena precisely because it legitimizes and respects multiple responses to these critical issues and invites dialogue among them” (Greene, 2012, p 757) and “the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches, in combination, provides a better understanding of research problems than either approach alone.” (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007, p 5) This study got the qualitative and quantitative data at the same time and the data provided different types of information as detailed views of participants qualitatively from the interviews with 200 related people in 12 coastal communes in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue province and surveys from 400 related people quantitatively (Creswell, 2014) 2.2 Sample (Selection of localities) 739 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ2020 SERSC Australia International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No (2020), pp 738-750 We employed purposeful sampling of localities including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue to yield “information-rich cases whose study will illuminate the questions under study” (Patton, 2015, p 169) These four provinces seiously affected by the environmental pollution incident in 2016 in Vietnam, were selected to be studied 24 residents (6 residents from coastal communes in each province) were interviewed for about 60-80 minutes In addition, 400 quessionanaires for 400 households, of which each province has 100 questionnaires for 100 households; and 100 questionnaires for relevant provincial, district, ward and commune authorities, referred to as state managers (using, of which 25 questionnaires from Ha Tinh province, 26 questionnaires from Quang Binh province, 25 questionnaires from Quang Tri province, 24 questionnaires from Thua Thien - Hue province) Consent forms were sent to participants before delivering the questionnaires and conducting the in-depth interviews 2.3 Data Collection and Analysis To collect and analyze data effectively, the survey team in four coastal provinces in the Central region was greatly affected by the marine environmental polluton incident in 2016, including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue, collected and analysed the data in two steps: Qualitative data collection Semi-structured in-depth interviews based on a list of pre-designed topics and specifically individual in-depth interviews (either head of household or a member of a coastal household; local government official) to collect as much as possible initial information on the topic In each commune, 02 individual in-depth interviews were conducted, with 12 selected communes surveyed, 24 in-depth interviews were conducted in June 2019 The selection of participants for interviews was determined in the 12 selected communes greatly affected by the ecological environmental pollution incident in the four central coastal provinces Quantitative data collection The survey was conducted from March 2019 to June 2019 The researchers used analytical statistical methods to synthesize and analyze primary data collected The assessment information is divided into two categories: one for farmer households (400 quessionanaires for 400 households, of which each province has 100 questionnaires for 100 households), other 100 questionnaires for relevant provincial, district, ward and commune authorities, referred to as State managers (25 questionnaires from Ha Tinh province, 26 questionnaires from Quang Binh province, 25 questionnaires from Quang Tri province, 24 questionnaires from Thua Thien - Hue province) The method of data analysis was carried out as follows: Let n be the number of households/state managers surveyed; m is the number of criteria to be investigated; i is the ith household (i = 1, n), j is the jth criterion (j = 1, m) For households, questions related to occupation, income, change in main source of income, damages due to environmental pollution incident, employment change, production due to the ecological environmental incident, a number of questions on livelihood support policies, meeting the employment needs of the people and for managers, questions related to employment policies and support for people were calculated in billions, and the rate of replies to relevant comments Particularly for questions using a 5-level scale (Likert scale), P is the code of answer questions corresponding to the answer options, with values from 1-5 In multi-criteria questions, make a separate assessment of each element / criterion using the average score (value) of each criterion After that, it was analyzed and summarized with m criteria based on a review of factors: each factor/criterion score, assessment of the importance of the factors, the number of criteria reaching the 740 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ2020 SERSC Australia International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No (2020), pp 738-750 average level or below average based on which drew relevant comments that shed light on the research issue In addition, in order to better understand how the ecological environmental pollution incident has affected the income of coastal households, the researchers used the logistic regression model to evaluate At the same time, using the multiple regression model to investigate how the ecological environmental incident affect the income of coastal local people, and the model to evaluate the people's need to change jobs in the context of ecological environment incident It is important to see factors affecting different levels of employment demands Results and Discussion 3.1 Situation on employment and income of people in four Central coastal provinces of Vietnam in the context of ecological environmental incident The impact of the context of ecological environment incident is that the main cause is the change of marine environment and climate change that are related to employment/occupation leading to the change in scale and income structure significantly From the Reports in Central provinces (PCHQQH, 2018) show that, the main sectors/occupations include fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing, wholesale and retail of aquatic products, fishery logistics services, salt production, and travel services which have been seriously affected and result in reduction of the number of employees, especially in fishing, wholesale, retail and fishery logistics By using the questionnaires collected, the researchers wanted to clarify the status of changes in employment, size and income structure in the context of ecological environment incident with assessment of coastal households through questionnaires and in-depth interviews The context of ecological environment incident has made the changes in employment of local people in Central coastal provinces until the present time According to the survey data collected, the main occupation of the household is considered to be Trade/Service/Commerce (37%) and Fishing in the wild (35.5%) Meanwhile, aquaculture decreased (15.8%) According to statistics, at present, the main source of income of households is from fisheries (39%) and trading (36.8%) Next is Aquaculture (16.2%); Another major source of income is related to seafood processing (5%) A large percentage of the households surveyed said that the main source of income has changed in recent years (75.8% yes) With the number of households answering the main source of income unchanged (24.2%), the majority of current income answers compared to the previous has decreased (66%), only 7.2% said that income increased, and 26.8% answered the income unchanged Thus, it is clear that for the former jobs, the ecological environment incident has reduced the income of coastal people significantly Table 1: Assessing the impact of the ecological environmental pollution incident on production activities of coastal households Perception Changed Changed but Unchang Donot (%) unrelated (%) ed (%) know/donot answer (%) Abandonment/sale of land 25,0 17,0 25,5 32,5 Change farming seasons 23,2 20,5 23,8 32,5 Change plants and animals 24,5 11,8 32,7 31,0 Change fishing areas, fishing tools 47,0 4,0 29,8 19,2 and places, ponds and lakes Family members change careers 21,2 12,2 34,8 31,8 741 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ2020 SERSC Australia International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No (2020), pp 738-750 Family members must work away 20,5 5,7 36,8 from home (migrate) Others 0,8 3,2 4,0 Source: Survey data from Central provincesof the research team, 2019 37,0 31,5 Accordingly, the production activities of coastal households have changed significantly The biggest change in production of coastal people related to ecological environment change is the change in fishing areas, fishing tools, and fishing locations (47.0%) Even these four provinces have had policies to change their careers, the job changing is still slow, people are still afraid (21.2% have changed) In addition, people also have changes such as leaving/selling land, seedlings/varieties, cultivation season, migration and some other changes To determine the relationship between the ecological environment incident and the changes of former incomes of households from different industries and different levels of influence from the survey of 400 households in 12 Central coastal communes, the researchers examined the relationship between the variables through analyzing the correlation between them and the dependent variables and proceeds to estimate the regression model The necessary condition in this analysis step is that if the independent variable is not correlated with the dependent variable, this independent variable is excluded from the regression model The results of the study show that independent variables are correlated with each other However, based on VIF when performing multivariate regression, the variance inflation factor