Seite - 31 - in options, Band winter 2014/2015

interview 31winter 2014/2015 + optionswww.iiasa.ac.at people at iiasa Recovering from disaster What does it take? Q&A with IIASA Postdoctoral Research Scholar Wei Liu QQ What is the focus of your research? QA The major question that I address is: how to achieve transitions to sustainability, especially in ecologically vulnerable areas. For example, I’ve been studying the Wolong Nature Reserve in China for ten years. Human exploitation of natural resources in that area led to severe ecological degradation that has impacted both endangered species such as giant pandas, and the livelihoods of local Tibetan residents. With the completion of a major cross-border road in the late 1990s, the subsistence-based agricultural economy has gradually changed to more of a market economy featuring cash crops and tourism. During this time payment for ecosystem services programs was implemented in the reserve, giving the local people subsidies for environmentally friendly activities, including cutting fewer trees. These, together with the economic transition, have moved the community more toward sustainability. Within ten years the average household income has quadrupled and the forest cover has increased significantly. This was a case where we had success. Very often you meet failure, but finding success and explaining the complex mechanisms behind that success story is very important. Then other places can learn from it and replicate the mechanisms. QQ How did you get interested in disaster risk research? QA A major earthquake struck the area in 2008—it was magnitude 8 and killed at least 80,000 people. I was 15km away from the epicenter and was able to observe firsthand the disaster, the damage, and how people responded. Then later, through participating in disaster relief and reconstruction, I observed how people coped and adapted over the following years. That event changed my life and got me into disaster risk research. I came to IIASA as a result of that research. Previously I was interested in endangered species. Often if you want to protect these, you have to deal with development issues. Because of the earthquake and the related disasters—landslides, flood, and debris flow—I realized that in such ecologically vulnerable areas you have to deal with disasters too. Otherwise, neither conservation nor development goals can be achieved. They are connected and have to be addressed in an integrated way. So now I am interested in the overlapping areas of development, biodiversity conservation, and disaster risk reduction. QQ What type of research have you done since the earthquake? QA Since 2008 I have continued to monitor the ecosystem using remote sensing technology and I have also been monitoring the socioeconomic system by returning to visit the same households that we started sampling in the late 1990s. We go back every other year to see how they are adjusting their livelihoods and land  use to  cope  with disasters and policy changes. QQ You’ve also started a non-profit that serves the local people in the region, haven’t  you? QA A few of us started Human and Environment Linkage Program (HELP) in 2006 and had it officially registered as a non-profit organization in 2008. HELP has been playing an important role in earthquake relief and reconstruction in Wolong and has recently expanded to work in other similar ecologically vulnerable areas in western  China. JP Wei Liu is a postdoctoral research scholar in IIASA’s Risk, Policy and Vulnerability Program. His  research investigates the different interplays between biodiversity conservation, socioeconomic development, and  disaster risk reduction. Contact  liuw@iiasa.ac.at Photo: W ei Liu