Jonjoubsong and Thammabunwarit (2016) argue that human capital can be knowledge, skills and the experience of humans. When formal education and media literacy enriches the knowledge of the people, community also becomes more informed and equipped to take proper action. Discussion in this section focuses on understanding and acting on early warnings that bordered with the impending emergency as a process for safety with human capital and cultural capital as some of the contributing factors. A story of human capital exhibits that the value of formal education and promoting human security in saving the life of family had in one study village. This story, stated below, was from the much-damaged Bhone Daw Pyae village: the name of village can literally be translated as a ‘place of miracle’:
My neighbor, U Maung Maung, sent his children to the high school and college. They read books and they are more educated than us. They listened to the radio and looked at the map when the news came. So, they realized that the storm was coming toward us. When they were looking at the map and had a group consultation with family members and neighbors, we were mocking at them. We thought they were insane. They were the only family around the village who realized Thamee Hla Island announced by the radio was an island near to us called Lake Kyun. They could analyze coming risk and packed their stuff as quickly as possible. They moved to the other side of the river since the morning of that day. All four family members of them survived. When they moved out
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of the village, we were still busy with our own routine jobs. If we could interpret the early warning as correctly as they did, we could also run. (U Khin Shwe, a farmer of 49, Bhone Daw Pyae village, Zone I)
In disaster risk reduction, local knowledge that is embodied in cultural and human capital is grossly underutilized, although there have been proposals for hybrid management of risk in the last decade (Wisner 2003). The villages in the Delta have their own cultural construction of risk perception, which is based on knowledge gained from coexistence with nature. Elders in the villages of Zone I generally describe the learning process as the warnings are being carried to humans by other living creatures. People from Thaung Thar village in Zone II stated their awareness of the potential bad weather situation came from groups of seagulls flocking inland, passing over their village on the day of the storm. Seagulls flying inland were assumed to indicate impending bad weather. Unusual flocks of seagulls confirmed the storm news they got from other sources. In this case, direct observation of natural phenomena, embedded in the community as cultural capital, helped to confirm the news from outside in assisting processes for safety. Manuel-Navarrete et al. (2007) argue that a failure to communicate scientific knowledge effectively to a community can increase disaster vulnerability. Even if scientific knowledge is readily available, traditional knowledge can be a complement to understanding risk. In the rural society of the Ayeyarwady Delta, traditional knowledge has the potential to promote awareness and alert levels in community processes of disaster preparation. Unfortunately, inter-generational transfer of knowledge has been weakening due to changing values of local knowledge in the context of modernization. In addition to the depletion of the traditional knowledge body, a tragic aspect of Cyclone Nargis was the death of old people who were more knowledgeable about weather signs. Only in two villages of Toe and Thaung Thar was indigenous knowledge relating to weather and nature actively transferred from the elders to the new generation in a community social setting. The following Box 3 displays commonly found weather forecasting methods in the local knowledge of the three research zones. Some of these traditional ways of knowing signs are said to prompt alerts at the individual and family level.
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Box 3 Common local weather reading methods in the research areas
• Homecoming Seagull is another indicator of storm weather. If seagulls choose to stay near the shore, the storm could not be so serious. But if
they came straight to the inland human residents’ areas, we can guess
the weather be strong. If people cannot shoo them away and they are trying to stick to the house roofing, it means they are giving you an alarming storm warning. If jelly fishes are coming to the shore and staying in the small creeks instead of wide streams and rivers, this mean strong storm is approaching. (Focus group discussion, Kone Gyi village, Zone I)
• In normal condition, birds, crabs and snails are weather forecasters for us. If snails are trying to climb to a higher ground and pole, this mean the flood is likely to come. They never remain stable in hours before the flood. We have to keep watching their movements from time to time. (Daw Khin Aye Kyiang, a farm worker of 55, Auk Seik village, Zone I) • I can read weather condition in childhood by looking at the sky. In deep sea, we have to read the wind direction by looking at the winking stars. (Tun Tun Win, a seafarer of 37 from Kyun Chaung village from Zone I)
• I went to my radio and tuned it on when I heard a roar from the sea or little bee-eater (Merops orientalis) and Seagull are flying rushing to the land. They are telling us to stay alert. (U Sein Win, A farmer of 56, Toe village, Zone I)