Local experience, knowledge, and community adaptations to environmental change: the case of a fishing village in central Vietnam

Local ecological knowledge (LEK) represents an important link between resource users and their social-ecological system and plays a key role regarding the sustainable planning of environmental resources. This study investigates the nature of LEK in the case of a fishing village at the Tam Giang Lagoon in central Vietnam by applying an ethnographic participant observer approach. The research demonstrates a means to understand a complex, self-organized local network with a multitude of actors with different interests and adaptive behaviors, interfering in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways in the same environmental context. It concludes with two understandings about LEK. (1) It is important to recognize it as a concept that is not fixed in time and space as it is coevolving with broader system changes. (2) Only if approached through careful immersion and participation at the local level can it provide a valuable source of science-based information for improved decision-making.