The drastic depletion of elephant habitats in the dry zone of Sri Lanka has led to intense human-elephant conflict (HEC) in a region that is home to one of the celebrated agrarian settlements in Asia. Known as the tank villages, these settlements have a long history of human coexistence with elephants and other wild animals. However, the escalating incidence of human-elephant fatalities and crop losses to farmers indicates that the mode of interaction between the tank village inhabitants and the elephants has transformed from coexistence to conflict. Both population and agricultural land use pattern dynamics have contributed to agricultural expansion and loss of elephant habitat in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. However, our knowledge of how the agricultural land use pattern dynamics has contributed to the drastic depletion of elephant range in the dry zone is limited. This research attempted to gain insight into the role of agricultural land use dynamics on elephant habitat depletion and HEC in Sri Lanka through the study of Kuttikulama, a dry zone tank village. The data were collected through focus group discussions, key informant interviews and a cross sectional survey. The study revealed that agricultural land use patterns in traditional dry zone villages have changed in major ways over the last few decades. Such changes included the transition from a shifting-cultivation mode of farming to a fixed sequential mode of farming, the expansion of the per capita cropping area, and the disappearance of communality in agricultural land use patterns. The changes were found to have significantly contributed to a shift in human–elephant interactions from relatively harmonious ones to contentious ones. The study reveals the potential of traditional and alternative cropping and land use systems to minimize human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka.

The aim of this study was to assess the nutritional status and functional capacity of 144 community-dwelling elderly in three rural ethnic groups, namely, the Oy, the Brau and the Lao, of southern Laos. The Mini nutritional assessment (MNA) questionnaire and Determine Your Nutritional Health checklist were used to assess nutritional status. The Barthel Activities of Daily Living questionnaire and Lawton and Brody’s Instrumental Activities of Daily Living questionnaire were used to assess the functional capacity of the respondents. The MNA score results indicated that 92.5 % of Oy respondents, 85.4 % of Brau respondents and 60 % of Lao respondents were malnourished. Analysis of variance tests showed that the MNA scores of the Oy and Lao ethnic groups and of the Brau and Lao ethnic groups were significantly different ( both p p > 0.05). In terms of functional capacity, 47.2 % of Oy respondents, 43.9 % of Brau respondents and 20 % of Lao respondents had limitations in their activities of daily living, whereas 98.1 % of Oy respondents, 97.6 % of Brau respondents and 86 % of Lao respondents had limitations in their instrumental activities of daily living. Body mass index, reduced appetite, number of meals consumed daily and presence of common diseases predicted nutritional status in all three ethnic groups; the remaining factors differed by ethnicity. This result implies that ethnic differences and other factors, such as location of the village, services, resources within the village and respondents’ lifestyles, can affect nutritional status. Because predictors of nutritional status varied by ethnicity, there is a need for area-specific interventions aimed at improving the quality of life of the elderly in these areas.

Collective action has inevitable importance for sustainable governance of shared resource systems with interactions across multiple social and spatial scales. Village irrigation tanks in Sri Lanka have been recognized as shared resource systems sustainably managed through the collective action of local communities throughout history. Increased population pressure on shared resources and expanded socio-economic relationships over time have led to extended resource-based interactions between people. This occurred beyond village tanks within the broader scale of Village-Tank-Cascade Systems (VTCS), in which village tanks are constituent sub-units. This demands the cross-scale collective action of local communities for sustainable governance of VTCS, which has become a challenging endeavor in the current context. This case study explores the dynamics of collective action across multiple social and spatial scales within a VTCS by identifying existing collective action arenas, drivers, and limitations for the local community to engage in collective action through a mixed-methods approach with reference to the Medde Rambewa cascade system in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. Findings reveal that collective action arenas of VTCS-based local communities occur in response to common challenges posed by disturbed environmental equilibria and as a part of people’s lifestyle, with outcomes contributing to climate change adaptation, livelihood support, risk or emergency preparedness, and promoting social identity. Economic incentives, rules, and fines imposed by Farmers’ Organizations (FOs) were found to be drivers of currently adopted collective activities at the scale of village tanks. While collective action prevails beyond the scale of individual village tanks when governed by community institutions, shared resource uses, and social relationships among actors, individualistic resource uses occur in the absence of legitimate regulatory mechanisms. The study highlights the need for legitimate, scale-sensitive solutions to long-overdue common problems experienced by VTCS-based communities in order to foster meaningful collective action on a broader scale.

Over the last two decades, the growth of the fisheries sector in Indonesia has shown an increasing trend; however, behind the rapid development of this sector, the role of small-scale fisheries as one of the main actors supporting the whole industry is often neglected. They remain poor and continue to conduct fishing activities traditionally. Therefore, this study aims to describe the real situation of small-scale fishers, analyzing the fishers’ ownership of the boat they use, analyzing their income level to reveal their poverty status, and analyzing the factors affecting their income. The regression analysis results indicate that boat category, sea fish catch, fish selling price, fixed costs, and variable costs have significant effects on fishers’ net incomes.

During two decades back, the growth of the fisheries sector in Indonesia was showing increasing trend, however, behind the rapid development of the sector, small-scale fisheries role is often neglected as one of the main actors to support the whole sector. They remain poor and doing fishing activities traditionally. Therefore, this study aims to describe the real situation of small-scale fishers, analyzing fishers’ ownership of the boat, analyzing their income level to reveal their poverty condition, to analyze the factors affecting their income. The regression analysis results indicate that fishing days, boat category, sea fish catch, fish selling price, variable cost, and secondary job have significant affect to fishers’ net income.

Along with the rapid economic development that rural Vietnam has experienced since the implementation of the Doi Moi policy, increasing attention is being paid to the widening income inequality among rural households. Although several studies have been conducted to understand the drivers of rural inequality, there is a lack of analysis that considers different household characteristics simultaneously and quantifies their contributions to inequality. Our study aims to fill this gap by applying the Fields’ regression-based decomposition method to household data collected from VARHS 2012 and VARHS 2016. The analysis results show that human capital, indicated by the quantity and quality of working members, and physical capital, indicated by household mobility and access to information, are the main contributors that explain this inequality. Additionally, the decreasing variation in specific characteristics, such as education level, is found to reduce their contribution to inequality over time, consequently preventing these factors from exacerbating overall inequality.