Environmental changes and migration : Understanding perceptions and rationalizations of stakeholders in An Biên District, Vietnam

Abstract: As environmental changes, including climate change, become more and more severe and affect every corner of the world, many people are forced to move from their homestead as the nearby environment that once was a safe place slowly becomes inhabitable. The Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam is one of the places in the world where environmental changes jeopardize rural livelihoods creating a trend of out-migration and urbanization. Through a Minor Field Study facilitated by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, SIDA, this research was conducted in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, specifically the An Biên District in Kiên Giang province. The empirical base did, from an ethnographically inspired qualitative method, collect primary data by using observation, semi-structured interviews, a group discussion, as well as expert interviews with key informants. The research aimed at generating insights and knowledge about local perceptions by investigating environmental changes’ connection to migration and integrating the frameworks Drivers of Migration and the Sustainable Rural Livelihoods approach. It found both that the perceptions of environmental changes impact on livelihoods and its relation to migration as adaptation was different depending on the type of agricultural activities. It also found that environmental changes partly had or did not at all have a relationship with migration as adaptation, but rather the financial and social conditions together with natural capital as the size of land.