The relationship between experienced losses and damages, risk tolerance and livelihood thresholds in the East Gippsland, Australia, farming sector

Losses and damages are residual impacts of climate change that occur despite mitigation and adaptation actions. Losses and damages are borderless, albeit experienced differently between and within countries. Although Australia is a high-income country, recent losses and damages have been particularly severe. Over the last eight years, farmers in East Gippsland, Victoria, have been severely affected by a prolonged drought, bushfires, and floods, with evidence emerging of the links between these events and anthropogenic climate change. Through a series of surveys and semi-structured interviews with farmers and agricultural governance actors in East Gippsland, this research explores the relationship between experienced losses and damages, risk tolerance and livelihood thresholds. East Gippsland farmers are undertaking adaptation, but are still experiencing significant economic and non-economic losses and damages. Farmers and sectoral governance actors portray a complex picture of high risk tolerance, which, together with livelihoods strongly linked to identities, values, and self-worth, translates into a low desire to leave the sector despite escalating losses and damages that are challenging livelihood viability. We suggest that farmers’ high risk tolerance may, at present, with limited structural adaptation action identified, be unsustainable in light of current and future climate change. However, the strong values associated with being a farmer and the apparent recognition of greater adaptation needs across scales provide a potentially conducive environment for change. Whether farmers choose to stay or leave the sector, there must be managed processes to enable people to decide without losing their dignity and incurring further losses and damages.