Hazel Webber

Hazel Webber completed a PhD at King’s College London. Her research centred on the human dimensions of environmental change. Her study was entitled ‘An examination of adaptive strategies in a time of increasing livelihood vulnerability due to long term declining resources’. The study aimed to investigate the adaptive responses of small-scale fishers to resource fluctuations and other institutional and market shocks and uncertainties to add to the understanding of small-scale fisher communities when designing fisheries management policy. The study seeked to show how a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of poverty and vulnerability, as well as an understanding of asset accumulation and natural resource utilisation, can contribute to counterbalancing some of the predominant ideological stereotypes regarding global poverty and natural resource utilisation. The natural resource dependent Bajo community living on Sampela, a stilt island 500 meters from the coast of Kaledupa in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia, formed the case study. The specific vulnerabilities and subsequent adaptive strategies of the community were mapped over a longitudinal period of time in order to build on existing academic knowledge and contribute to future management policy.