Livelihood resilience in the face of multiple stressors: biocultural resource-based adaptive strategies among the vulnerable communities.

Marginalized communities across the world are increasingly faced with a suit of social-ecological stressors, taking a huge toll on their biocultural resources and livelihoods. Collaborative learning is considered to be a feasible strategy for livelihood resilience among vulnerable communities experiencing such stressors. Taking insights from social-ecological resilience theory, this study discusses how Adi community, living in the ecologically fragile ecosystems of Arunachal Pradesh, India, has developed a location-specific biocultural resource-based adaptive strategy to enhance their livelihood resilience. A novel participatory approach—'recipe contest'—was used to mobilize Adi women from 11 villages of the state's East Siang district with overall aim of developing nutritious and culturally relevant food products based entirely on local resources and knowledge. A total of 43 women (winners of the recipe contests) and 33 other knowledgeable community members (total 76 participants), by participating in focus group discussions and personal interviews, shared their knowledge and experiences relating to local foods and sustainability. We found that a range of climatic, ecological, socioeconomic and political stressors were adversely impacting Adi women's subsistence livelihoods. Through community mobilization, these women formed Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and together they developed a marketable product, 'Adi Siang Nutri', with ingredients provided by 12 local species. This value-added product, integrated with local livelihood trajectories, helped diversify and increase the Adi women's income, allowing them to better safeguard themselves from aforementioned risks. The local species used as the ingredients are being conserved, and have several perceived socio-cultural, ecological and ethnomedicinal benefits. This participatory action research promises to make a significant change in the social-ecological resilience and associated biocultural resources of Adi women. Our findings provide valuable insights for several food, nutritional security and environmental policies to improve social-ecological resilience using biocultural resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]