Risk, resilience and human security in cross-border areas

Climate change has been dubbed one of the biggest threats facing the world since it can increase the vulnerability of human systems and ecosystems, reduce socio-ecological resilience and threaten human security (see, for example, Adger 2010: 279–81; DFID 2006: 12; Scott 2008: 605–8; Trombetta 2008: 594–5). This chapter investigates the non-traditional security impacts of climate change in three cross-border areas in Southeast Asia – the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), the Heart of Borneo (HoB) and the Coral Triangle (CT). The cross-border areas under discussion are home to more than 400 million people. ¹ They are rich in biodiversity and natural resources. They also have excellent economic potential in the form of goods and services derived from natural resources, such as food, fibre, energy, tourism and others. However, Southeast Asia and its important cross-border areas are being threatened by increasingly severe and potentially irreversible impacts of climate change which is likely to accelerate and worsen disruptions from which socio-ecological systems may not be able to recover. This directly challenges the resource base upon which communities and individuals depend, eroding or entirely diminishing the ability of systems to perform their functions of sustaining human populations, as well as populations of other species (Deutsch et al. 2008: 6668; Joint Science Academies 2008; O’Hare et al. 2005: 355–77; Parry et al. 2009b: 1102).