Assessing the livelihood vulnerability of rural Guyanese communities due to accelerating environmental change

Environmental change is increasing vulnerability for many local communities worldwide. This can affect social, health, economic, environmental and cultural values, and challenges our ability to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Previous research has quantified such community vulnerability using indices such as the Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) and the Livelihood Vulnerability Index-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (LVI-IPCC) to assess the impacts of climate change on the livelihoods of local communities. However, there remains a gap in our understanding regarding how the vulnerability of communities is impacted by industries that lead to environmental degradation such as mining and logging, and how these may interact with changes linked to climate change such as increased intensity and duration of floods and droughts. We address this, utilising the LVI, LVI-IPCC and a livelihood-based analysis, by quantifying the vulnerability of four rural (primarily Indigenous) communities in Guyana, northern Amazon. We assessed the degree to which these communities and households are exposed, sensitive and have adaptive capacity towards a changing environment and climate and identify key community and household-level components contributing to that vulnerability. We find that communities and households dependent on mining and logging displayed lower overall vulnerability yet exhibited heightened sensitivity to environmental change due to natural resource depletion and degradation. In contrast, subsistence-based communities faced higher overall vulnerability, partly attributed to their susceptibility to flooding and lack of livelihood diversification. Our research improves our understanding of the processes and factors that predict vulnerability in rural communities and can help to guide the development of appropriate interventions.