Social-ecological resilience and biosphere-based sustainability science

Humanity has emerged as a major force in the operation of the biosphere. The focus is shifting from the environment as externality to the biosphere as precondition for social justice, economic development, and sustainability. In this article, we exemplify the intertwined nature of social-ecological systems and emphasize that they operate within, and as embedded parts of the biosphere and as such coevolve with and depend on it. We regard social-ecological systems as complex adaptive systems and use a social-ecological resilience approach as a lens to address and understand their dynamics. We raise the challenge of stewardship of development in concert with the biosphere for people in diverse contexts and places as critical for long-term sustainability and dignity in human relations. Biosphere stewardship is essential, in the globalized world of interactions with the Earth system, to sustain and enhance our life-supporting environment for human well-being and future human development on Earth, hence, the need to reconnect development to the biosphere foundation and the need for a biosphere-based sustainability science.

Resilience and development: mobilizing for transformation

In 2014, the Third International Conference on the resilience of social-ecological systems chose the theme “resilience and development: mobilizing for transformation.” The conference aimed specifically at fostering an encounter between the experiences and thinking focused on the issue of resilience through a social and ecological system perspective, and the experiences focused on the issue of resilience through a development perspective. In this perspectives piece, we reflect on the outcomes of the meeting and document the differences and similarities between the two perspectives as discussed during the conference, and identify bridging questions designed to guide future interactions. After the conference, we read the documents (abstracts, PowerPoints) that were prepared and left in the conference database by the participants (about 600 contributions), and searched the web for associated items, such as videos, blogs, and tweets from the conference participants. All of these documents were assessed through one lens: what do they say about resilience and development? Once the perspectives were established, we examined different themes that were significantly addressed during the conference. Our analysis paves the way for new collective developments on a set of issues: (1) Who declares/assign/cares for the resilience of what, of whom? (2) What are the models of transformations and how do they combine the respective role of agency and structure? (3) What are the combinations of measurement and assessment processes? (4) At what scale should resilience be studied? Social transformations and scientific approaches are coconstructed. For the last decades, development has been conceived as a modernization process supported by scientific rationality and technical expertise. The definition of a new perspective on development goes with a negotiation on a new scientific approach. Resilience is presently at the center of this negotiation on a new science for development.

Threatened common property resource system and factors for resilience: lessons drawn from serege-commons in Muhur, Ethiopia

This ethnographic case study of serege-commons, communal pasture and forest in Muhur, Ethiopia, demonstrates the socially complex nature of the common property resource (CPR) system, including the factors behind its resilience and sustained operation. It reveals the multifaceted and interacting local processes that maintain the commons in the face of political economic processes that challenge common property management. The study shows how CPR use, crop cultivation, alternative livelihood strategies, out-migration, collective herding practices, management practices, and alternative sources of compliance interact, and these interacting processes reinforce each other and maintain a resilient CPR system. This study argues that there is not one single cause for sustainable CPR regimes. Instead, the resilience and sustained operation of the CPR system are due to a mix of interdependent elements and inter-reinforcing linkages related to CPR operations, and their interactions within complex social-ecological systems.

Exploring social representations of adapting to climate change using topic modeling and Bayesian networks

When something unfamiliar emerges or when something familiar does something unexpected people need to make sense of what is emerging or going on in order to act. Social representations theory suggests how individuals and society make sense of the unfamiliar and hence how the resultant social representations (SRs) cognitively, emotionally, and actively orient people and enable communication. SRs are social constructions that emerge through individual and collective engagement with media and with everyday conversations among people. Recent developments in text analysis techniques, and in particular topic modeling, provide a potentially powerful analytical method to examine the structure and content of SRs using large samples of narrative or text. In this paper I describe the methods and results of applying topic modeling to 660 micronarratives collected from Australian academics / researchers, government employees, and members of the public in 2010-2011. The narrative fragments focused on adaptation to climate change (CC) and hence provide an example of Australian society making sense of an emerging and conflict ridden phenomena. The results of the topic modeling reflect elements of SRs of adaptation to CC that are consistent with findings in the literature as well as being reasonably robust predictors of classes of action in response to CC. Bayesian Network (BN) modeling was used to identify relationships among the topics (SR elements) and in particular to identify relationships among topics, sentiment, and action. Finally the resulting model and topic modeling results are used to highlight differences in the salience of SR elements among social groups. The approach of linking topic modeling and BN modeling offers a new and encouraging approach to analysis for ongoing research on SRs.

The governance of adaptation: choices, reasons, and effects. Introduction to the Special Feature

The governance of climate adaptation involves the collective efforts of multiple societal actors to address problems, or to reap the benefits, associated with impacts of climate change. Governing involves the creation of institutions, rules and organizations, and the selection of normative principles to guide problem solution and institution building. We argue that actors involved in governing climate change adaptation, as climate change governance regimes evolve, inevitably must engage in making choices, for instance on problem definitions, jurisdictional levels, on modes of governance and policy instruments, and on the timing of interventions. Yet little is known about how and why these choices are made in practice, and how such choices affect the outcomes of our efforts to govern adaptation. In this introduction we review the current state of evidence and the specific contribution of the articles published in this Special Feature, which are aimed at bringing greater clarity in these matters, and thereby informing both governance theory and practice. Collectively, the contributing papers suggest that the way issues are defined has important consequences for the support for governance interventions, and their effectiveness. The articles suggest that currently the emphasis in adaptation governance is on the local and regional levels, while underscoring the benefits of interventions and governance at higher jurisdictional levels in terms of visioning and scaling-up effective approaches. The articles suggest that there is a central role of government agencies in leading governance interventions to address spillover effects, to provide public goods, and to promote the long-term perspectives for planning. They highlight the issue of justice in the governance of adaptation showing how governance measures have wide distributional consequences, including the potential to amplify existing inequalities, access to resources, or generating new injustices through distribution of risks. For several of these findings, future research directions are suggested.

Indigenous Māori values and perspectives to inform freshwater management in Aotearoa-New Zealand

In response to widespread water quality and quantity issues, the New Zealand Government has recently embarked on a number of comprehensive freshwater management reforms, developing a raft of national discussion and policy documents such as “Freshwater Reform 2013 and Beyond” and a National Policy Statement for freshwater management (NPS-FM 2014). Recent resource management reforms and amendments (RMA 2014), based on previous overarching resource management legislation (RMA 1991), set out a new approach and pathway to manage freshwater nationwide. Internationally, there is an increasing trend to engage with indigenous communities for research and collaboration, including indigenous groups as active participants in resource management decision making. What is driving this change toward more engagement and collaboration with indigenous communities is different for each country, and we document the progress and innovation made in this area in New Zealand. The indigenous rights of Māori in New Zealand are stated in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and in many forms of New Zealand's legislation. Local and central governments are eager to include local indigenous Māori groups (iwi/hapū) in freshwater management planning processes through meaningful engagement and collaboration. Key to the success of collaborative planning processes for Māori are enduring relationships between local government and Māori, along with adequate resourcing for all partners contributing to the collaborative process. A large number of shared governance and management models for natural resource management have emerged in New Zealand over the past 20 years, and some recent examples are reviewed. We provide some discussion to improve understanding and use of the terms used in these management models such as cogovernance, comanagement, and coplanning, and describe some of the more important frameworks and tools being developed with Māori groups (e.g., iwi/hapū), to strengthen Māori capacity in freshwater management and to support good collaborative process and planning.

How game changers catalyzed, disrupted, and incentivized social innovation: three historical cases of nature conservation, assimilation, and women’s rights

We explore the impact of “game changers” on the dynamics of innovation over time in three problem domains, that of wilderness protection, women’s rights, and assimilation of indigenous children in Canada. Taking a specifically historical and cross-scale approach, we look at one social innovation in each problem domain. We explore the origins and history of the development of the National Parks in the USA, the legalization of contraception in the USA and Canada, and the residential school system in Canada. Based on a comparison of these cases, we identify three kinds of game changers, those that catalyze social innovation, which we define as “seminal,” those that disrupt the continuity of social innovation, which we label exogenous shocks, and those that provide opportunities for novel combinations and recombinations, which we label as endogamous game changers.

Avian Cholera emergence in Arctic-nesting northern Common Eiders: using community-based, participatory surveillance to delineate disease outbreak patterns and predict transmission risk

Emerging infectious diseases are a growing concern in wildlife conservation. Documenting outbreak patterns and determining the ecological drivers of transmission risk are fundamental to predicting disease spread and assessing potential impacts on population viability. However, evaluating disease in wildlife populations requires expansive surveillance networks that often do not exist in remote and developing areas. Here, we describe the results of a community-based research initiative conducted in collaboration with indigenous harvesters, the Inuit, in response to a new series of Avian Cholera outbreaks affecting Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima) and other comingling species in the Canadian Arctic. Avian Cholera is a virulent disease of birds caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida. Common Eiders are a valuable subsistence resource for Inuit, who hunt the birds for meat and visit breeding colonies during the summer to collect eggs and feather down for use in clothing and blankets. We compiled the observations of harvesters about the growing epidemic and with their assistance undertook field investigation of 131 colonies distributed over >1200 km of coastline in the affected region. Thirteen locations were identified where Avian Cholera outbreaks have occurred since 2004. Mortality rates ranged from 1% to 43% of the local breeding population at these locations. Using a species-habitat model (Maxent), we determined that the distribution of outbreak events has not been random within the study area and that colony size, vegetation cover, and a measure of host crowding in shared wetlands were significantly correlated to outbreak risk. In addition, outbreak locations have been spatially structured with respect to hypothesized introduction foci and clustered along the migration corridor linking Arctic breeding areas with wintering areas in Atlantic Canada. At present, Avian Cholera remains a localized threat to Common Eider populations in the Arctic; however expanded, community-based surveillance will be required to track disease spread.