Welcome to Stockholm Resilience Centre���– Research for Governance of Social-Ecological Systems

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Resilience and Social-Ecological Systems

Linacre Lectures 2012

Carl Folke Beijer Institute Stockholm Resilience Centre Resilience Alliance

Carpenter et al. 2009. E&S

Carpenter et al. 2009. Ecology and Society

Does the Resilience Lens help provide new pictures, and surprising ones? Carpenter et al. 2009.

Ecology and Society

Reconnecting to the Biosphere

•  Global change – new forms of interactions

•  The resilience lens – persistence, adaptability, transformability

•  Examples of transformations towards ecosystem stewardship and adaptive governance

A biosphere shaped by humanity

Scale increase – The Great Acceleration

Steffen et al. 2011. Ambio

“Welcome to the Anthropocene Humans have changed the way the world works. Now they have to change the way they think about it, too Humans have become a force of nature reshaping the planet on a geological scale—but at a far-faster-than-geological speed.”

May 28th, 2011

Reconnecting to the Biosphere

Folke et al. 2011. Ambio, Walker et al. 2009. Science

New forms of interactions and feedbacks

In the Anthropocene – opportunities and challenges

•  dealing with a new type of “great acceleration” with many people moving from poverty to middleclass

•  new global dynamics of connectivity, mobility, multiplications of linkages, speed of interactions and new combinations of social-ecological shocks and surprises move humanity into new terrain

•  information technology, revolutions in microbiology and genetics and nano-technology are now taking off

florianotte.webseiten.cc/ alexhaensel/alex/pho...

> 50% live in urban environments

Many have lost contact with the Biosphere

Deuts

Deutsch et al. 2007. Global Environmental Change 17:238-249

Fishmeal imports to shrimp farming in Thailand

Globalisation, seafood production and marine ecosystem support

Forests 355-870 km2 Marine 135 km2

Wetlands 30-75 km2

Lakes 50 km2

Agriculture 10-30 km2

Agriculture 50 km2

Forests 20 km2

City 1 km2

Ecosystem support to cities

Folke et al. 1997. Ambio

Cities in the Baltic Sea drainage basin > 250 000 inhabitants

Reconnecting to the Biosphere •  Integrated economies

and societies

•  The living resource base as the foundation for the integration

•  Strengthening the ability of people to enhance Earth’s life support capacity for societal development and human wellbeing

Transformation towards global sustainability

Seafood management in Maine, USA ���a success story

Common Pool Resource Stewardship and Climate Change

Lobster aquaculture - a gilded trap?

Rhode Island – 72% loss from shell disease

Loss of diversity - simplification

Steneck et al. 2011. Cons Biol

Thresholds and tipping points

Transitions and regime shifts

Scheffer et al. 2001. Nature Folke et al. 2004. AREER

Social-ecological interactions – ���global markets, land use, disturbance, ���

regional tipping and climate ������

the case of the Borneo rainforests, ���and the weather event El Niño

Turning El Niño from creator to destroyer

e.g. Curran et al. 200. Science; Page et al. 2002. Nature

1997 fires - 13–40% of the mean annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels

Lenton et al. PNAS 2008

The risk of Catastrophic Tipping Points

Aborigines arrive in Australia

Beginning of agriculture

Great European civilisations: Greek, Roman

Last Glacial-Interglacial Cycle"

Young and Steffen. 2009. In: Chapin. Kofinas, Folke. (eds.). Principles of Ecosystem Stewardship. Springer

First migration of fully modern humans

out of Africa

Migrations of fully modern humans

from South Asia to Europe

A SAFE OPERATING SPACE FOR HUMANITY ���

to stay away from global tipping points

Rockström et al. 2009. Nature

Resilience thinking: Persistence, Adaptability and

Transformability •  Resilience as persistence - capacity of a SES

to continually change and adapt yet remain within critical thresholds.

•  Adaptability - part of SES resilience, the capacity to adjust responses to changing external drivers and internal processes and thereby allow for development along the current trajectory (stability domain).

•  Transformability is the capacity to shift and cross thresholds into new development trajectories.

•  interrelate across multiple scales. Folke et al. 2010. E&S

The Resilience of the Earth System

Persistence at the global level requires social-ecological transformations

Regime shifts •  - understanding and describing regime shifts and

their implications • 

- how to manage and govern resilience of current social-ecological regimes (adaptability, staying on the current pathway/trajectory)

•  - how to break resilience of current social-ecological regimes to –  revive an “old” regime –  transform into a new regime

Adaptability Goulburn-Broken agriculture

•  Economically lucrative - thriving •  Dryland cropping, grazing, irrigated dairy

and fruit production, connecting the region to global markets - one quarter of the State of Victoria's export earnings

•  Thresholds with possible knock-on effects between them

•  widespread clearing of native vegetation and high levels of water use for irrigation have resulted in rising water tables, with severe salinization problems

•  Breaking the agricultural path transform, requires changing deep values and creating a new identity

Walker et al. 2009. E&S

Turning crisis into opportunity in social-ecological systems

•  Hurricane Mitch – Honduras •  Storms and floods – Cayman Islands •  Great Barrier Reef – Australia •  Curbing illegal fishing – Southern Ocean

•  Collaborative learning from crises/shocks and responding by building adaptive capacity for turning crisis into opportunity; changes in management practice and governance

e.g. McSweeney & Coomes 2011. PNAS; Tompkins et al. 2008 GEC; Olsson et al. 2008 PNAS

Reconnecting to the Biosphere social-ecological transformations

Biosphere Reserve Kristianstads Vattenrike, Southern Sweden

Perceived crisis – shift in mind set, shared vision From silo-management to integrative landscapes Window of opportunity, governance transformation Agency, organisations, institutions, networks Experimentation, learning Enabling environments – now MAB area

Olsson et al. 2004 E&S, Hahn et al. 2006 Human Ecol. Schultz et al. 2007 Env. Cons.

Transformations of SES towards ecosystem-based management

Preparing the system for change Navigating the

transition Building resilience of the new direction

Window of opportunity

Chile’s coastal resources Sweden’s urban landscapes Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Olsson et al. 2008. PNAS Folke et al. 2005. ARER Chapin et al. 2010. TREE Gelcich et al. 2010. PNAS

Agency in navigating transformations, developing and retaining a social/collective memory of ecosystem management in the face of change

•  Leaders, stewards, brookers, middlemen

•  Knowledge carriers and retainers •  Interpreters and sense makers •  Networkers and facilitaters •  Visionaries and inspirers •  Innovators and experimenters •  Followers and reinforcers •  etc

Berkes, Colding, Folke. 2003

Bridging organizations

•  Performing essential functions in crafting effective responses to change in social-ecological systems

• Accessing and combining multiple sources of knowledge and interests for ecosystem stewardship

• Linking groups, networks and organizations across levels, creating the right links, at the right time, around the right issues

• Enhancing social learning and vertical and horizontal governance integration

Bridging organization

Folke et al. 2005 ARER, Olsson et al. 2007 E&S

Resilience and social-ecological transformation

•  under the “right conditions” - occur rapidly •  often triggered by perturbation or surprise,

perceived crisis – opportunity •  requires sources of resilience, locally emerging

or drawn upon from elsewhere, building on existing strengths, social structures, ecological knowledges, skills and perceptions and recombining them for new innovative solutions

Local ecosystems

Ecological knowledge & understanding

Management practices

Land and Seascapes

Catch- ment, Continen tal shelf

Institu- tions, Incen- tives

Nested Institutions, Organisa- tions, Social networks

Social-Ecological Systems Build knowledge and understanding of ecosystem dynamics

Drivers Drivers

processes, functions, dynamics, resilience Berkes and Folke 1998

Sources of resilience

•  Social-ecological memory •  Collaborative learning platforms and

communities of practice •  retained and transmitted through

participation in imitation practices, learning processes, oral communication, collective gatherings,

•  resides in structures of chalets and garden plots and other physical forms and artefacts as well as a number of rules-in-use (institutions)

•  various forms of media, markets, social networks, collaborative organizations, and legal structures.

•  Barthel, Folke, Colding, 2010. GEC e.g. gardens in urban areas

•  Social adaptation and collective action detached from stewardship of ecosystem resilience may lead to traps and vulnerable SES •  Political crises, disconnected from environmental issues, may open up opportunities for transformational change of SES •  Open access and unsustainable extraction affecting ecosystems and livelihoods may be curbed through international adaptive governance

Reconnecting to the Biosphere

Resilience thinking: Persistence, Adaptability and

Transformability •  dynamic interplay between rapid and gradual

change, between persistence and renewal

•  interrelations across multiple scales

•  combinations of old experiences, memories, knowledges for adaptation, transformation, and innovation

•  transformations towards Earth stewardship, reconnecting to the biosphere

Gunderson and Holling 2002. Panarchy. Island Press Barthel et al. 2010. Global Environmental Change

Folke et al. 2011. Reconnecting to the Biosphere

Steffen et al. 2011. The Anthropocene: from global change to planetary stewardship

Westley et al. 2011. Tipping towards sustainability: emergent pathways of transformation

3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability

•  Planetary Boundaries •  Planetary Opportunities •  Planetary Stewardship

•  Part of the biosphere – environment not a sector

•  Not about saving the environment – about us

•  Not just climate but global change

UN  Secretary  General  Ban  Ki-­‐Moon    High  Level  Panel  on  Global  Sustainability    presented its report on 30 January 2012

Lack of SES resilience – expect surprise