Resilience and adaptive capacity in social-ecological systems: the good, the bad and the trendy
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Resilience and adaptive capacity in social-ecological systems: the good, the bad and the trendy Christo Fabricius Resilience Alliance
description
Social-ecological systems in emerging democracies are often in an untenable state. Under such conditions, building resilience is not appropriate and transformation is the way forward. In this presentation I briefly explain the theoretical underpinnings of resilience and transformation and provide examples of transformative strategies from communal areas in South Africa and Tajikistan to explain.
Transcript of Resilience and adaptive capacity in social-ecological systems: the good, the bad and the trendy
Resilience and adaptive capacity in social-ecological systems:
the good, the bad and the trendy
Christo Fabricius
ResilienceAlliance
Here it is…
from Ostrom 2009. Science 235: 420
Social-ecological systems
• The ability to absorb disturbances • Capacity of the system to be changed
– and then to re-organise – and still retain the same basic structure and ways of
functioning
• Declining resilience -> declining magnitude of shocks from which system cannot recover
resilience
Time
Resilience
The Resilience of the Earth System
Cundill & Fabricius 2009 in Exploring Sustainability Science: a Southern African perspective, pp. 537-568.
The slippery slope of resilience loss
Adaptive renewal cycle
• Several possible states
• Crucial role of disturbance
• Irregular cycles of ‘capital’ accumulation, release and re-organization
• Feedbacks between and within scales
Lock-in traps
• An undesirable state from which ‘escape’ is difficult
• The system has become locked in
• Characterized by • low potential for change • rigidity • high resistance to change
• Sources of novelty and innovation have been eliminated
Allison, H. E. and R. J. Hobbs. 2004. Ecology and Society 9(1): 3.
Thresholds and regime shifts
The problem with resilience..
• What if the system is not in a good place?
– would adapting and ‘bouncing back’ be enough?
• Some untenable situations can be very resilient
• Elements of adaptive capacity, e.g.
– traditions, sense of place, identity
• might inhibit meaningful change
• Response: reduce resilience?
A ‘resilience’ approach to development..
Transfer of vulnerability
Building resilience in one context sometimes creates vulnerabilities in another
Transformation • Transformability: “The capacity to create a
fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social (including political) conditions make the existing system untenable”
www.resalliance.org
Walker et al. 2004. Ecology and Society 9(2): 5.
“can we innovate sufficiently rapidly and with
sufficient intelligence to transform our system
out of a destructive pathway….”
Westley et al. 2011. Ambio 40: 762-789
Processes of transformation
• Institutional entrepreneurs
• Behind the scenes’ innovations
• Shadow networks
• Bridging agents • Connectors • Communities of
practice
• Earth stewardship • Incentives • Monitoring • Adaptive management • Repair & restoration
www.stockholmresilience.su.se
Transformation through knowledge sharing & interrogating conventional beliefs
Transformation through creating new awareness
Transformation through learning
Forming alliances and knowledge networks
Transformation through institutional renewal
Leadership: the importance of ‘key individuals’ or ‘stewards’
Transformation through linkages and alliances
Transformation through repair of ecosystem services
A few research questions
• What can we learn from existing self-organizing transformations? – the role of citizen’s science
• Which social-ecological processes promote and inhibit transformation?
• What are the long term impacts of adaptation vs. transformation?
• Challenges: – hold our frameworks loosely – embrace multiple epistemologies – be prepared to tread ‘where angels fear to go’
