30.3 Impacts of the Tsunami on Possessions and Productive Materials

practiced in this area provide food in addition to income; people practicing these occupations are hurt both in terms of monetary income and food. Other occupations were impacted because productive materials were literally washed away by the water that inundated the villages. For example, one respondent was a seamstress prior to the tsunami but her sewing machine and all of her tools and materials were washed away. She now has to save enough money to begin to rebuild her practice but because she has lost her machine, she needs to find a new occupation, or another way to access necessary tools to sew, in order to begin the rebuilding process. An additional impact is indirect. Many households are saving as much as possible in order to invest in materials necessary for practicing their former occupations, but because of this, they are less likely to spend money on things that are not absolutely necessary. To continue with the example above, the woman who wants to start a new occupation in order to buy a sewing machine will not be likely to save much by continuing as a seamstress for example, by hand because other villagers are less likely to hire her for her expertise. Therefore, the community as a whole will recover more slowly than if residents were able to resume their former livelihoods with the necessary tools. 4. Current Occupations 4.1 Introduction Occupations are a very important aspect of social structure as well as an indicator of the relative importance of different components of the coastal resource. During recovery efforts, an accurate description of occupational distribution is essential to determine options for livelihood rehabilitation projects. Scale, working group size and level of occupational multiplicity can provide additional information for use in designing recovery projects. Occupational multiplicity exists when a given individual or household practices two or more income or subsistence-producing activities. This is often a characteristic of coastal communities, especially in rural areas. Secondary data is often an inadequate source of information concerning occupations, since most published statistics only include the full-time or primary occupation. The only way to more accurately represent the distribution and relative importance of these activities is with the use of a sample survey Pollnac and Crawford, 2000. In order to provide an accurate description of livelihood distribution, we surveyed 251 households in the five village sites. The respondents, either the female or male head of household, were asked to rank livelihood activities by priority as they contribute to household income andor subsistence. 4.2 Current Occupations Fishing is the most important and the most common livelihood in each of the villages except for Village 3. Trading and farming are relatively more common in Village 3 because it is the center of commercial activity. Overall, the villages show occupational multiplicity to be the norm for households in the sample. Two of the five villages had at least one household rank six or more activities and over half of the households in the survey listed more than one activity. According to Table 15, the most important occupation among the surveyed households in Village 1 is fishing 81.5 percent, with over half of the households 51.2 percent listing this as the highest ranked occupational activity. Farming 30.2 percent, livestock 32.7 percent and labor 34.9 percent all contribute significantly to income generation for this village with about one-third of the surveyed households ranking these three occupations. Trading is identified by a relatively small percentage 16.3 percent. The remaining 4.6 percent are engaged in making soap for sale in the village and distributed to a small city, Kuraburi, nearby for sale to tourists. Table 15. Percent distribution of Village 1 Occupations by rank Activity 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th Total Fishing 51.2 25.6 4.7 - - - - 81.5 Aquaculture - - - - - - - 0.0 Farming 9.3 9.3 7.0 2.3 2.3 - - 30.2 Livestock 4.7 14.0 9.3 4.7 - - - 32.7 Trading 9.3 4.7 2.3 - - - - 16.3 Tourism - - - - - - - 0.0 Labor 20.9 7.0 7.0 - - - - 34.9 Taxi - - - - - - - 0.0 Other1 2.3 2.3 - - - - - 4.6 Other2 - - - - - - - 0.0 Total 97.7

62.9 30.3

7.0 2.3

0.0 0.0 8 As summarized in Table 16, over half of the surveyed households in Village 2 participate in fishing 58.7 percent. Labor 49.9 percent and farming 47.8 percent, however, contribute to income and food in almost half of the sampled households in this village. Slightly less than one-third of the sample ranked trading 30.5 percent or aquaculture 28.3 percent as a contribution to household income. Almost one-fifth of those surveyed ranked raising livestock 19.6 percent as a source of income, but none lists this as the primary source. Other activities contributing to income 15.3 percent consist of a variety of non-traditional occupations including motorcycle taxi, car-for-hire, and roadside maintenance-person in addition to more common occupations like teacher, policeman, and maker of fishing traps. Table 17 shows that fishing 47.5 percent is ranked by less than half of the households surveyed in Village 3 and farming 70.5 percent is the most often ranked occupation. However, fishing was most often ranked first 31.1 percent by over thirty percent of the sample. More than one-third of the households also ranked trading 42.6 percent andor labor 37.8 percent as a source of income with each ranked first by less than thirty percent of the surveyed households 26.2 and 24.6, respectively. Twice each week, there is a market in this village that draws local residents selling produce and merchants from nearby cities Kuraburi and Ranong. This could account for the relatively larger percentage of households involved in trading. Aquaculture 27.9 percent is practiced by just under one- third of the households in the sample. Less than one-fifth of the sample ranked raising livestock 16.4 percent, with none listing this as the primary occupation, just as in village 2. The remaining occupations 14.5 percent ranked include tourism, motorcycle taxi, manager of drivers for public transportation and village health worker. This village is not directly adjacent to the shore which could account for the relatively lower portion of the sample ranking fishing as an occupation. Table 16. Percent distribution of Village 2 Occupations by rank. Activity 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th Total Fishing 41.3 8.7 4.3 2.2 2.2 - - 58.7 Aquaculture 2.2 13.0 10.9 2.2 - - - 28.3 Farming 19.6 13.0 13.0 2.2 - - - 47.8 Livestock - 2.2 8.7 6.5 - - 2.2 19.6 Trading 17.4 8.7 4.4 - - - - 30.5 Tourism - - - - - - - 0.0 Labor 8.7 32.6 4.3 4.3 - - - 49.9 Taxi - - - - - 2.2 - 2.2 Other1 10.9 2.2 - - - - - 13.1 Other2 - - - - - - - 0.0 Total 100.1

80.4 45.6 17.4 2.2