MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL INCIDENT IMPACTS ON LOCAL PEOPLE’S LIVELIHOODS: EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL COASTAL PROVINCES OF VIETNAM

The incident of environmental pollution in the central provinces of Vietnam in 2016 had a strong impact on the livelihoods of people living in the Central coastal provinces. Some of the most affected industries are the fisheries sector, followed by business, services, tourism and peoples daily life. The consequences were very heavy: hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, lost their income, a series of service activities stopped, and other consequences for a long time. According to statistics, 263.000 people have been affected by the environmental incident in four central provinces including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue. After four years of the marine environmental incident and the effects of climate change, many local peoples lives are now relatively stable and continue with other livelihood activities together. This research employed a convergent parallel mixed method design. The study investigates employment needs for people residing in the central coastal provinces of Vietnam in the coming years and provides a number of recommendations for sustainable employment orientation for local people in the future.

MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL INCIDENT IMPACTS ON LOCAL PEOPLE’S LIVELIHOODS: EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL COASTAL

PROVINCES OF VIETNAM

Quynh-Tho Thi Bui,

PhD, Department of Sciencetific Research Management, Ha Tinh University, Ha Tinh city,

Vietnam; E-mail: tho.buithiquynh@htu.edu.vn

Ngoc Hai Tran,

PhD student, Institute of Continuing Education, Ha Tinh University, Ha Tinh city, Vietnam;

E-mail of the corresponding author: haingoc74@gE-mail.com; ORCID

Abstract

The incident of environmental pollution in the central provinces of Vietnam in 2016 had a strong impact on the livelihoods of people living in the Central coastal provinces Some of the most affected industries are the fisheries sector, followed by business, services, tourism and people's daily life The consequences were very heavy: hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, lost their income, a series of service activities stopped, and other consequences for a long time According to statistics, 263.000 people have been affected by the environmental incident in four central provinces including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue After four years of the marine environmental incident and the effects of climate change, many local people's lives are now relatively stable and continue with other livelihood activities together This research employed a convergent parallel mixed method design The study investigates employment needs for people residing in the central coastal provinces of Vietnam in the coming years and provides a number of recommendations for sustainable employment orientation for local people in the future

Keywords: Marine environmental incident, Central coastal provinces, local people,

livelihoods

1 Introduction

Ecological environmental incident is the change of the comprehensive network between soil, water, air and living organisms in the global scope (Manasi, 2013) Changes or disturbances at a certain point

in the system will have serious consequences in humans and nature Ecological environmental change

is manifested through various forms such as environmental pollution, environmental degradation, climate change, etc (Akinwale, 2017) This causes the negative impacts on the livelihoods of the poor

in agricultural villages in some areas such as agriculture, forestry, fishing and aquaculture, where the poor rely mainly on natural resources to implement livelihood strategies (Neefjes, 2009) The study by Neefjes (2009) also suggests that in order to create a sustainable livelihood in the context of climate change impacts, people and communities need high quality livelihood resources and policies and institutions are needed It is important that the livelihood resources are accessed fairly so that people can manage and use them sustainably The creation of local people’s livelihood opportunities is important, but it also needs to be linked to urban livelihood opportunities to ensure livelihood sustainability (Manasi, 2013) Therefore, diversification of livelihood strategies is essential, including migration

Several other studies have shown that rural livelihood systems in coastal areas are most at risk from climate change, and environmental changes are livelihoods dependent on natural resources (for example, Armitage & Plummer, 2015; Loe & Plummer, 2015; Manasi, 2013) Therefore, building resilience for climate-resilient coastal livelihoods and environmental changes needs to take a parallel approach, including strengthening environmental governance and development, local livelihoods (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, 2010); In the context of environmental management capacity in terms of: government's land and water management, it is necessary to have the capacity to adapt to ecological environmental incident and employment for vulnerable local people (Armitage & Plummer, 2015)

After the ecological environment incident, local people in general and local people in Central coastal areas of Vietnam in particular have been often exposed to risky effects and faced the challenges of risks of losing their jobs and affecting their incomes and their livelihoods (People's Committees of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue, refered to as PCHQQH, 2018) A number of studies have suggested several contextual solutions to labor and employment issues for fishermen in the Central Coastal region and other coastal regions of Vietnam, contributing to the socio-economic development of the region and the country (Nguyen, 2006; Tran, 2012) Therefore, for sustainable development in those Central coastal regions, it is necessary to: (i) create links of regional cooperation

in job creation; (ii) urgently focus on synchronous investment from facilities, teachers, vocational training equipment, programs and curricula from provincial governments, along with investment from the Central Government; (iii) set up database, information on labor supply and demand, and forecast regional human resources; (iv) establish regional vocational training funds from central, local budget

to provide financial support sources to businesses and vocational training institutions (Phan, 2014)

2 Research methods

2.1 Research Method

This research employed a convergent parallel mixed method design (Creswell, 2014; Gorard &Taylor, 2004) because a mixed methods research approach “offers dialogic opportunities to generate a better understanding of important social phenomena precisely because it legitimizes and respects multiple responses to these critical issues and invites dialogue among them” (Greene, 2012, p 757) and “the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches, in combination, provides a better understanding of research problems than either approach alone.” (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007, p 5) This study got the qualitative and quantitative data at the same time and the data provided different types of information as detailed views of participants qualitatively from the interviews with 200 related people

in 12 coastal communes in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue province and surveys from 400 related people quantitatively (Creswell, 2014)

2.2 Sample (Selection of localities)

We employed purposeful sampling of localities including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue to yield “information-rich cases whose study will illuminate the questions under study” (Patton, 2015, p 169) These four provinces seiously affected by the environmental pollution incident

in 2016 in Vietnam, were selected to be studied 24 residents (6 residents from 3 coastal communes in each province) were interviewed for about 60-80 minutes In addition, 400 quessionanaires for 400 households, of which each province has 100 questionnaires for 100 households; and 100 questionnaires for relevant provincial, district, ward and commune authorities, referred to as state managers (using, of which 25 questionnaires from Ha Tinh province, 26 questionnaires from Quang Binh province, 25 questionnaires from Quang Tri province, 24 questionnaires from Thua Thien - Hue province) Consent forms were sent to participants before delivering the questionnaires and conducting the in-depth interviews

2.3 Data Collection and Analysis

To collect and analyze data effectively, the survey team in four coastal provinces in the Central region was greatly affected by the marine environmental polluton incident in 2016, including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue, collected and analysed the data in two steps:

Qualitative data collection

Semi-structured in-depth interviews based on a list of pre-designed topics and specifically individual in-depth interviews (either head of household or a member of a coastal household; local government official) to collect as much as possible initial information on the topic In each commune, 02 individual in-depth interviews were conducted, with 12 selected communes surveyed, 24 in-depth interviews were conducted in June 2019 The selection of participants for interviews was determined

in the 12 selected communes greatly affected by the ecological environmental pollution incident in the four central coastal provinces

Quantitative data collection

The survey was conducted from March 2019 to June 2019 The researchers used analytical statistical methods to synthesize and analyze primary data collected The assessment information is divided into two categories: one for farmer households (400 quessionanaires for 400 households, of which each province has 100 questionnaires for 100 households), other 100 questionnaires for relevant provincial, district, ward and commune authorities, referred to as State managers (25 questionnaires from Ha Tinh province, 26 questionnaires from Quang Binh province, 25 questionnaires from Quang Tri province, 24 questionnaires from Thua Thien - Hue province)

The method of data analysis was carried out as follows: Let n be the number of households/state managers surveyed; m is the number of criteria to be investigated; i is the ith household (i = 1, n), j is the jth criterion (j = 1, m) For households, questions related to occupation, income, change in main source of income, damages due to environmental pollution incident, employment change, production due to the ecological environmental incident, a number of questions on livelihood support policies, meeting the employment needs of the people and for managers, questions related to employment policies and support for people were calculated in billions, and the rate of replies to relevant comments Particularly for questions using a 5-level scale (Likert scale), P is the code of answer questions corresponding to the answer options, with values from 1-5 In multi-criteria questions, make

a separate assessment of each element / criterion using the average score (value) of each criterion

After that, it was analyzed and summarized with m criteria based on a review of factors: each factor/criterion score, assessment of the importance of the factors, the number of criteria reaching the

average level or below average based on which drew relevant comments that shed light on the

research issue

In addition, in order to better understand how the ecological environmental pollution incident has affected the income of coastal households, the researchers used the logistic regression model to evaluate At the same time, using the multiple regression model to investigate how the ecological environmental incident affect the income of coastal local people, and the model to evaluate the people's need to change jobs in the context of ecological environment incident It is important to see

factors affecting different levels of employment demands

3 Results and Discussion

3.1 Situation on employment and income of people in four Central coastal provinces of Vietnam in the context of ecological environmental incident

The impact of the context of ecological environment incident is that the main cause is the change of marine environment and climate change that are related to employment/occupation leading to the change in scale and income structure significantly From the Reports in 4 Central provinces (PCHQQH, 2018) show that, the main sectors/occupations include fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing, wholesale and retail of aquatic products, fishery logistics services, salt production, and travel services which have been seriously affected and result in reduction of the number of employees,

especially in fishing, wholesale, retail and fishery logistics

By using the questionnaires collected, the researchers wanted to clarify the status of changes in employment, size and income structure in the context of ecological environment incident with assessment of coastal households through questionnaires and in-depth interviews The context of ecological environment incident has made the changes in employment of local people in Central coastal provinces until the present time According to the survey data collected, the main occupation

of the household is considered to be Trade/Service/Commerce (37%) and Fishing in the wild (35.5%) Meanwhile, aquaculture decreased (15.8%) According to statistics, at present, the main source of income of households is from fisheries (39%) and trading (36.8%) Next is Aquaculture (16.2%); Another major source of income is related to seafood processing (5%) A large percentage of the households surveyed said that the main source of income has changed in recent years (75.8% yes) With the number of households answering the main source of income unchanged (24.2%), the majority of current income answers compared to the previous has decreased (66%), only 7.2% said that income increased, and 26.8% answered the income unchanged Thus, it is clear that for the former jobs, the ecological environment incident has reduced the income of coastal people significantly

Table 1: Assessing the impact of the ecological environmental pollution incident on

production activities of coastal households

(%)

Changed but

unrelated (%)

Unchang

ed (%)

Donot know/donot

answer (%)

Change fishing areas, fishing tools

and places, ponds and lakes

Family members must work away

from home (migrate)

Source: Survey data from 4 Central provincesof the research team, 2019

Accordingly, the production activities of coastal households have changed significantly The biggest change in production of coastal people related to ecological environment change is the change in fishing areas, fishing tools, and fishing locations (47.0%) Even these four provinces have had policies

to change their careers, the job changing is still slow, people are still afraid (21.2% have changed) In addition, people also have changes such as leaving/selling land, seedlings/varieties, cultivation season,

migration and some other changes

To determine the relationship between the ecological environment incident and the changes of former incomes of households from different industries and different levels of influence from the survey of

400 households in 12 Central coastal communes, the researchers examined the relationship between the variables through analyzing the correlation between them and the dependent variables and proceeds to estimate the regression model The necessary condition in this analysis step is that if the independent variable is not correlated with the dependent variable, this independent variable is excluded from the regression model The results of the study show that independent variables are correlated with each other However, based on VIF when performing multivariate regression, the variance inflation factor <2 does not occur in the case of multi-collinearity On the other hand, when considering the Tolerance value with the formula Tolerance = 1/VIF Tolerance is greater than 0.5 so

no multicollinearity takes place The results of correlation analysis between the variables through the correlation matrix show that the variables are related to each other and therefore will be included in

the model to explain the dependent variable

According to the analysis, of all 267 respondents, there were answers about the damage caused by ecological environment incident to the catching natural aquatic products, 58.4% rated as "much damage" and also at this level 30.8% assessed damage to fishing gears and means of fishing

Figure 1: Damage due to ecological environment incident on fishing

Thus, the career change from fishing is affected by environmental incident factors, whereby the

18.4

23.2

58.4 51

18.2

30.8

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Damage in productivity of fishing and natural exploitation Fishing tools

changing environment is significantly reducing the income from fishing activities of households

Ecological environmental incident change not only affects the fishery but also causes more damage to aquaculture 1.575 times than before The above difference is statistically significant p <0.01 corresponding to 99% of confidence interval (OR = 1,575, 99%) The survey results show that losses

in aquaculture production, damage to aquaculture equipment and damage to fishing locations all account for a high proportion, especially the most with 45.3% of survey respondents rated the level of

"much damage" to aquaculture production As such, the career change from aquaculture is influenced

by environmental factors, whereby the changing environment is significantly reducing the income of

households engaged in fishing and aquaculture

The change of ecological environmental incident also affects agricultural production by 0.377 times compared to the previcious time The above difference is statistically significant p <0.01 corresponding to 99% of the confidence interval (OR = 0.377, 95%) Although compared to fishing and aquaculture, losses in agricultural production, including those affecting rice, crops and other crops, and livestock losses, account for less damage The main sources of income of the people should have a great impact on the lives of households in the Central Coastal region Specifically, losses of rice, crops and other crops have 59.4% respondents saying "there is damage" more or less and 46.2%

of the respondents agree that there is damage to livestock Thus, the career change from agricultural production is affected by environmental factors, whereby the changing environment is significantly

reducing the income from agricultural activities of households

Not only working in the sea - fishing and aquaculture or participating in agricultural production, people in the Central Coastal region also have a trading business to create a big source of income for households This is an inevitable trend of changes in industry structure in socio-economic conditions but the change of ecological environment also affects the trading business 0.9,9 times more than before The above difference is statistically significant p <0.01 corresponding to 99% of confidence interval (OR = 0.972, 99%) As such, the career change from a trading business is affected by environmental factors, whereby the changing environment is significantly reducing household

business income

The remaining factors are not volatile, due to indirect and not related much to industries affected by environmental factors, so OR shows that the difference rate is small or equal to 0 The statistical significance level p <0, 05 in the model shows reliability that requires the proof

Table 2: Results of estimating logistic models of environmental incident to household income sources

Independent variable

Odds Ratio

Significant meaning (p)

Previous source of income from trading business 0,972 0,000 Previous sources of income from agricultural production 0,377 0,02

Previous sources of income from government subsidies 0,000 0,001

Previous source of income from service delivery 0,032 0,016

Previously sent income from the overseas workers 0,000 0,032

(Statistical significance level: *p<0,1 **p<0,05 ***p<0,01)

The data in the table shows that the model has statistical significance with p <0.01, R¬¬2 = 36.8% indicating that the independent variables in the model can explain 36.8% of the change of the dependent variable according to the variation of the independent variable in the model

The results show that the change of ecological environmental incident affects the fishery by 3,125 times The above difference is statistically significant p <0.01 corresponding to 99% of confidence interval (OR = 3,125, 99%)

Table 3: Prediction results of logistic models of environmental incident changes to household income

sources

Table 3 shows the analytical results of the dependent variable of marine ecological environmental pollution incident The observation column gives results for 2 values of this variable: 0 and 1 The predictive column gives the predictive value of the variable of ecological environment incident change based on the model This table gives the correct predictive value of the model compared to observed reality In this case, the model correctly predicted 13 cases for ecological environment incident change by 1 and incorrectly predicted 11 cases Therefore, the correct predictive result is 13/56 = 23.2% Similarly, the model correctly predicted that 341 did not change to ecological environment incident by 0 and incorrectly predicted 15 cases, the correct prediction result was 341/344 = 99.1% From that, the correct prediction rate of the whole model is: (13 + 341) / (13+ 341 + 43 + 3) = 354/400 = 88.5% The overall prediction percentage shows the model's correct prediction rate, in this case 88.5% Compared with the results of Block 0, the results showed that the model

predicted better (from 86% to 91.1%)

Thus, it can be affirmed that the marine ecological environment incident has an impact on the main income of households in the 12 Central coastal communes in those four Central coastal provinces, especially in traditional industries such as fishing and aquaculture and the extent of the impact of the ecological environment incident on the income sources among industries varies considerably in the direction of decreased income

rate Change in income source

Change in source

income

The overall percentage of correct

3.2 Employment needs for people in the Central coastal provinces in the context of marine ecological environmental pollution incident

It can be said that after the the the marine environment incident in 2016, the jobs of people in Central coastal provinces have been affected, thus the demand for employment of the people in the Central Coastal provinces also increases and becomes more urgent Specifically, the 7 groups of industries most affected include fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing, wholesale and retail of aquatic products, fishery logistics services, salt production, and travel services These are industry groups that are directly related to environmental incidents causing ecological environment change At the same time, although the provincial governments have been supporting jobs for people in Central coastal provinces, the demand for jobs related to marine environmental change is still high, especially these

needs are closely linked to living standards

Table 4: Employment statistics of coastal provinces Central Vietnam after the marine environmental incident

Unit: people

Province

Demand

Ha Tinh Quang

Binh

Quang

Tri

Thua Thien

Hue

Demand for learning short-term courses * 8.691 5.777 2.020 1.861

The need for employment support through public

employment policies

Demand for working in production and business

establishments (inside and outside the province)

Note: (*) primary, under 03 months

Table 5: Loan demand related to employment of local people in Central coastal provinces

Calculation unit: People

Hue

Demand for going to work abroad

under a contract

As the above tables show, because Ha Tinh Province is the province most affected by the marine environmental incident in 2016 and has the highest employment-related needs than other three Central coastal provinces, because Ha Tinh has the largest decrease in the number of employees in the main industries Specifically, according to the Table comparing main jobs of workers before and after sea

environment change, divided by 7 groups of industries affected in Ha Tinh province (PCHQQH, 2018) among 7 groups of industries most affected, fishing industry was the most affected, down by 14.770 people after the environmental incident, followed by seafood wholesale and retail group with 5.736 people; the fishery logistics industry group decreased by 1.015 people, the seafood processing industry group decreased by 985 people, the aquaculture industry group decreased by 823 people, and industry groups such as tourism services, restaurants, hotels and salt production groups In total, the total number of employees/jobs in the 7 above-mentioned industries and trades has decreased by 24.449 people after the change of the marine environment At the same time, it can be seen that, while the above-mentioned 7 major job groups have reduced the number of jobs, there has been a shift of labor to other jobs, in particular the number of workers in other occupations has increased with 4.411 people Thus, compared with the number of employees directly affected by the declining jobs after the marine environment incident in 2016, if the number of jobs increased when the shift to other industries is not enough to ensure the number of jobs: before the incident, in particular, there were still 20.038 underemployed people who had not been able to change to other jobs and still related to the needs of finding a job

Quang Binh is the second largest province in need of job-related needs after Ha Tinh The number of people affected by employment in the province, including job loss and reduced income during the marine environment change period, is 63.938, of which demand for employment is 36.306 people Specifically, the demand for vocational training support, vocational training is 9.262 people (accounting for 14% of the working age affected employment); The demand for employment support

is 21.391 people (accounting for 33% of the number of employees in working age affected) and the demand for labor export is 5.653 people (accounting for 9% of the number of workers in the working age) affected on employment) Among the total number of employees who need job creation assistance, there are 13.296 people (accounting for 62% of the total number of employees who need job creation assistance) who need to borrow capital from the National Fund for Employment At the same time, the number of laborers expected to work in production and business establishments is 4.134 people (MNRE, 2010)

The data also show that, for people in Central coastal communes in these four provinces, the need for job creation assistance is the largest among other needs (vocational training and apprenticeship, labor export) The demand for job creation support includes various support needs such as the need to support loans for job creation, demand for counseling, job placement, demand for employment support through public employment policies and demand for employment at production and business establishments both within and outside the province Besides, it can be seen that the number of people

in need of loans to create jobs is the largest among other needs Regarding labor export demand, most

of the people in the four central provinces wish to participate in large and quality markets such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan Specifically, in 2017, the number of coastal residents of Ha Tinh province having a need of going to Korea is 1.591 participants of the EPS program (Non-profit Cooperation Program of the Government of Korea) Meanwhile, people in coastal communes in Quang Tri wishing to have labor export in Japan and Korea are 400, Taiwan is 250 people and to other countries is 100 people As for the people of Thua Thien - Hue province, among the 5.378 people in need, the demand was mainly focused on the Japanese market (2.171 people, accounting for 40.4%); South Korea (1.332 people accounted for 24.8%) (PCHQQH, 2018)

To be able to change livelihoods sustainably, vocational training is also essential needs of workers in the central coastal provinces after the environment incident and the main direction of central coastal provinces In particular, the data in all the four provinces showed that the demand for vocational

training, short-term vocational training (elementary level, training less than 3 months) accounted for a large proportion compared to the needs of secondary education and college In particular, for the demand for having short-term coures, depending on the districts affected by the environmental incident, the demand for training disciplines varies But the general summary shows that in the districts most affected by the environment incident, the short-term courses with the highest demand include fishing, other professions, breed, seafood aquaculture, mechanics, electricity, and electronics For the needs of vocational training at intermediate and college levels, high-demand occupations focus on industries such as Mechanics and electronics, Restaurant Hotel, Aquaculture, Breeding and some other professions

The survey data also show that, for coastal people who have demand for vocational training mainly in agriculture, and their intention after vocational training is to still do the old job in the locality (51.8%), the number of people completely transferred to another job compared to the previous job accounted for 37.9% In addition, a small percentage (8%) needs to do old jobs but in other localities or have a different intention (2.2%) On the other hand, in order to meet the above needs, coastal people have a need for a loan However, it can be seen that the demand for loans from people is mainly focused on the demand for job creation and the need to go to work abroad, the number of people who need to borrow for vocational training accounts for a small proportion in total needs In fact, the situation of the people and households in the Central coastal region is still a percentage that is in the state of poverty, near-poverty or newly escaped from poverty (the total number of poor and near-poor households accounts for over 10%) On the other hand, the number of people aged 15 to 59 accounts for the highest proportion and the number of people aged 60 and older also accounts for a rate of over 10% For example, for Ha Tinh province, according to the Report of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of the province with a total of 57.284 households with 216.723 people directly and indirectly affected, the percentage of poor, near-poor and new households escaping poverty is 12.91%, 8.17%, 3.06% respectively In particular, the total number of households directly affected by the environmental incident is 22.780 households and the proportion of poor and near poor households is 8.2% and 8.42% respectively

Considering the age of the affected people, it can be seen that the age group from 30 to 54 years old accounts for the highest proportion (30.78%) of which women account for 49.23% of the total; Next is the age range from 15 to 29 years old (28.45%) of which women account for 46.8% In Thua Thien - Hue province, also according to the Report on household information collection in communes affected

by marine environmental change by Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs, out of 5 districts with 25 communes including 30.422 affected households with 2.356 poor households (accounting for 7.8%), 1.620 near-poor households (accounting for 5.3%) and 161 newly-escaped households The total number of household members collected information is 128.023 people, of which from 15 to 59 years old there are 87.541 people (68.4%), from 60 years and older there are 14.006 people (10.9%) (PCHQQH, 2018) Thus, in addition to the economic status of workers as analyzed above, the above characteristics of household economic status and age and sex of coastal people in the Central region also have a great influence on their employment needs after the environment incident On the other hand, according to the survey data, the majority of coastal people

have a need for employment related to their previous work (87% answered yes)

Based on the results of the regression model analysis on the marine ecological environment incident affecting the employment needs of the people living in the four Central Coastal provinces, the following will also clarify this The necessary condition in this analysis step is that if the independent variable is not correlated with the dependent variable, this independent variable is excluded from the