Local Social-ecological Systems Research Articles

Regenerating Place: Highlighting the Role of Ecological Knowledge

As many local places globally suffer from ecological and social decline, sustainability research increasingly recognizes the critical importance of studying organizational efforts toward regenerating local communities and ecosystems. This emerging research, however, overlooks the role of ecological knowledge, that is, place-based understanding of the processes and functions of the ecosystems in which organizations operate. As such, we ask “How do organizations harness ecological knowledge to advance the regeneration of local places?” Through an inductive study of nine certified organic farming organizations on Vancouver Island, Canada, we find that organizations engage in three cyclical and closely interlinked practices of identifying, acquiring, and applying ecological knowledge which together enhance their organizational performance while contributing to regenerating the local social-ecological systems. Our empirically grounded model of leveraging ecological knowledge contributes to research on sustainability and place, and to studies of regeneration, by uncovering the specific practices that enable firms to develop place-based regenerative solutions.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities report ongoing and widespread climate change impacts on local social-ecological systems

The effects of climate change depend on specific local circumstances, posing a challenge for worldwide research to comprehensively encompass the diverse impacts on various local social-ecological systems. Here we use a place-specific but cross-culturally comparable protocol to document climate change indicators and impacts as locally experienced and analyze their distribution. We collected first-hand data in 48 sites inhabited by Indigenous Peoples and local communities and covering all climate zones and nature-dependent livelihoods. We documented 1,661 site-agreed reports of change corresponding to 369 indicators. Reports of change vary according to climate zone and livelihood activity. We provide compelling evidence that climate change impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities are ongoing, tangible, widespread, and affect multiple elements of their social-ecological systems. Beyond potentially informing contextualized adaptation plans, our results show that local reports could help identify economic and non-economic loss and damage related to climate change impacts suffered by Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Building wildland–urban interface zone resilience through performance-based wildfire engineering. A holistic theoretical framework

In recent years, a worldwide expansion in the frequency of large, uncontrolled, and catastrophic wildfire events has occurred, creating drastic social, economic, and environmental damage, especially in wildland–urban interface (WUI) zones. This damage includes losses of life, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. The impacts of wildfires at the WUI derive from the complicated and multidimensional interconnected relationships present in the Anthropocene. To enforce resilience of the environment and human communities against wildfires, it is critical to comprehend the local social-ecological systems holistically. In this paper, we present a theoretical framework approach, built on performance-based wildfire engineering, that is envisioned to be a stepping stone towards WUI resilience. To attain this objective, performance benchmarking and design is disaggregated into explicit components of a rigorous mathematical framework. They are linked to a causal inference chain, providing an integrated picture and enabling decision analysis to identify the optimal management strategies based on quantitative parameters. The proposed framework is developed from the total probability theorem and divides the risk assessment into single parts, in particular (1) hazard (wildfire) analysis, (2) social-ecological impact characterization, (3) social-ecological interaction analysis, (4) social-ecological impact analysis, (5) damage analysis, and (6) loss analysis. Therefore, the proposed framework can be applied by emergency agencies directly to assess the performance of society and ecosystem recovery after a wildfire, making emergency management and resilience policy-making more effective.

Environmental change and ecosystem functioning drive transitions in social-ecological systems: A stylized modelling approach

Sustainable management of social-ecological systems requires an understanding of how anthropogenic climate- and land use change may disrupt interactions between human societies and the ecosystem processes they depend on. In this study, we expand an existing stylized social-ecological system model by explicitly considering how urbanizing societies may become less dependent on local ecosystem functioning. This expansion is motivated by a previously developed conceptual framework suggesting that societies may reside in either a green loop and be strongly dependent on local ecosystem processes, or in a red loop where this dependency is weaker due to imports of natural resources from elsewhere. Analyzing the feasibility and stability of local social-ecological system states over a wide range of environmental and socio-economic conditions, we observed dynamics consistent with the notion of green loop-dominated and red loop-dominated societies comprising alternate stable social-ecological states. Based on systems' inherent dependencies on local ecosystem processes, responses to environmental change could comprise either transitions between green loop- and red loop-dominated states, or collapse of either of these states. Our quantitative model provides an internally consistent mapping of green loop- and red loop-dominated states, as well as transitions between or collapses of these states, along a gradient of environmental conditions.

A local-scale participatory zoning approach to conflict resolution in protected areas

Protected areas (PAs) commonly involve multiple objectives, rendering zoning increasingly important. However, the generalised zoning of PAs leads to local conflicts, often caused by the scale mismatch between the generalised zoning and the social-ecological systems. Generalised zoning approaches offer only single-scale management practices, hence zoning tends to cover large areas where local social-ecological systems are neglected. This study aims to develop and test a local-scale participatory zoning approach for PAs to resolve local conflicts. The proposed approach is developed using a landscape services framework, starting with a progressive stakeholder analysis to gain a deeper understanding of the local social-ecological system, involving the identification of stakeholders and landscape service typology, differentiating between and categorising stakeholders and investigating relationships between stakeholders. Lastly, facilitate stakeholder collaboration to develop a consensus zoning scheme based on these understandings. This was tested in Baoku Valley (China) to reveal the strengths and limitations of the approach and provide a case for application in other PAs. Eighteen stakeholders and twenty-five landscape services were identified. The stakeholders were divided into three groups according to their preferences for landscape services and the spatial relationships between the three stakeholder groups were identified. A consensus zoning scheme consisting of five zones was then developed by the stakeholders in a workshop. The results suggest that the local-scale participatory zoning approach can help resolve local conflicts in PAs by dividing conflict areas into more precise planning units and providing more fine-scaled management strategies matched to local social-ecological systems.

Tracking changes in social-ecological systems along environmental disturbances with the ocean health index

The well-being of coastal communities is intimately tied to a healthy ocean, but coastal social-ecological systems are among the most vulnerable to global change. Improving the resilience of coastal communities requires an understanding of how local social-ecological systems respond to shocks to better inform decision-making and adapt local management interventions. However, assessments of social-ecological changes throughout a disturbance regime are scarce at the local level, although critical for efficient natural resource management and sustainable use of ocean ecosystem services. Here, we apply the Ocean Health Index (OHI) to assess the status of the marine social-ecological system of a tropical island (Moorea, French Polynesia), and track changes of the system before, during and after a disturbance regime. Our results show that while there are signs of social-ecological recovery, coastal protection was most affected along the disturbance, and that there is room for improvement toward biodiversity conservation. In addition, our study highlights some context-specific challenges associated with local OHI assessments, particularly those driven by limited fisheries data and appropriate reference point selection for coastal protection. Our results demonstrate the value of localized, regular OHI assessments through time to track changes in marine social-ecological systems, while uncovering important data gaps, to inform management at appropriate scales for decision-making.

Potential Futures for Coastal Wolves and Their Ecosystem Services in Alaska, With Implications for Management of a Social-Ecological System

Carnivores across much of the world are declining, leading to loss of biodiversity as well as the ecosystem services carnivores provide. In 2020, the Alexander Archipelago (AA) wolf was petitioned for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the third time in 30 years. Concerns included habitat alteration from industrial timber harvest and subsequent declines in prey (deer), human-caused mortality, climate change, and genetic inbreeding. However, the underlying biogeography and ecology of these wolves continues to suggest resiliency across the subspecies’ range, even though local populations may go extinct. If local wolf populations go extinct, it will result in loss of their ecosystem services (e.g., interactions of wolves with their prey, which prevents over-browsing and protects carbon sequestration in soils and trees), which will likely have major consequences for the local social-ecological system. Here, we updated a model we constructed for the last ESA listing process (2015) to examine the dynamics of wolf and deer populations on Prince of Wales Island (the primary geographic focus of all three petitions) in response to future environmental and management scenarios developed with stakeholders. Further, we considered how changes in deer abundance impact predation services (prevention of over-browsing by deer). We found that wolf populations generally persisted over 30 years, but dropped below an effective population size of 50 wolves in 10–98% of years simulated. Low wolf abundance resulted in higher deer abundance, which increased hunting opportunity, but also browsing damages (e.g., 19% of areas would be over-browsed if wolf harvest caps are removed, and >30% of areas would be over-browsed if wolves go extinct). Human harvest of wildlife was a key regulator of abundance and ecosystem services within the coastal rainforest social-ecological system; wolf abundance was most affected by wolf harvest regulations; and deer harvest restrictions increased wolf and deer abundances, but also greatly increased browsing impacts (>70% of areas heavily browsed if hunting ceased). Our findings support an integrated approach to management of this social-ecological system, such that social and ecological sciences are both used to monitor important components of the system (e.g., measuring public sentiment and likelihood of poaching, alongside wolf and deer numbers). Integration and adaptive approaches are needed to ensure that the many ecosystem services humans depend on are valued, conserved, and restored, including the cryptic predation services wolves have historically provided to the timber industry via reduced browsing pressure by deer.

Integrated pond aquaculture and regional identity: ethnobiology of the golden humped tench of Poirino highlands, Northwest Italy

BackgroundSocial–ecological systems are based on particular species and on their direct and human-mediated interactions. The ‘golden humped tench’ or tinca gobba dorata, a variety of tench—Tinca tinca (L., 1758)—traditionally bred in artificial ponds called peschiere in Poirino highlands, northwest Italy, is one of such species. The aim of the study is to investigate the traditional farming of the golden humped tench, the associated knowledge, practices, and gastronomy, and to discuss the changes that the tench, the ponds, and their role in the local social–ecological system are going through.MethodsThe data analyzed were collected in different locations of Poirino highlands during May–September 2021. Fieldwork included semi-structured interviews (n = 23) with current and former tench farmers about the breeding and gastronomy of the tench and the management of the peschiere. The interviewees’ selection occurred through an exponential non-discriminative snowball sampling, and interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed through inductive thematic content analysis.ResultsThe golden humped tench has been farmed for centuries in ponds used also to water livestock and to irrigate cultivated fields, and managed by every peasant household in the area. This integrated aquaculture system is underpinned by detailed knowledge on the peschiera ecosystem and on the tench life cycle and supports a gastronomic knowledge that is part of the local heritage. The ongoing process of gastronomic valorization of the tench is sustaining the role of the fish in locals’ livelihoods and as a marker of regional identity, but it is also transforming tench farming, already threatened by livelihood change, pesticides, and invasive species, in controversial ways.ConclusionsWe argue that ponds and tenches are core elements of the local social–ecological system, defining the cultural landscape and engendering a form of regional identity around them. Studying integrated aquaculture systems and associated knowledge and practices is relevant to design sustainable systems of food production and to address possibilities of conservation of biodiversity and livelihoods in aquatic environments.

Actions and leverage points for ecosystem-based adaptation pathways in the Alps

Ecosystems support the adaptation of societies to global changes through their contributions to people's quality of life. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA) implementation remains a challenge and will require changes of practices, structures and processes underpinning human and nature interactions, also considered as co-production of nature’s contributions to adaptation (NCA). We analysed the levers required to implement EBA to reach a future desired by stakeholders of a mountain social-ecological system in the French Alps. Using a participatory backcasting scenario approach and a serious game, local stakeholders were invited to design a desired vision for their region in 2040 and reflect on strategies and levers for reaching it. We analysed co-production actions required to achieve adaptation objectives aligned with the vision. We then assessed how local communities can leverage these actions to navigate a desired adaptation pathway. EBA and landscape multifunctionality are critical to achieve stakeholders’ vision. EBA require substantial adjustments, transformations, or new co-production actions, but natural capital was not a limiting factor for adaptation. Synergies among multiple co-production actions create windows of opportunity for local communities to achieve their vision through the combination of social levers. However, most powerful levers, like collaborative decision-making or common strategy design, appeared the most difficult to activate. EBA is mainly constrained here by social barriers reflecting the lack of collaboration and communication among stakeholders. Recognizing potential contributions of ecosystems to adaptation by maintaining and developing NCA supply can help communities to re-structure and re-think their local social-ecological system to achieve desired and sustainable pathways.

The nature of peace: How environmental regulation can cause conflicts

• Local conflict from natural reserves can be extended to larger-scale conflicts. • Exclusion of endogenous systems contributes to poor governance mechanisms. • Inadequate design of environmental regulations foster conflict dynamics. • Environmental exclusion may result in environmental degradation and conflicts. This article examines how the environmental protection of national parks can impact negatively both conflict resolution and peacebuilding. This research focuses on the Arly National Park, integrated into the W., Arly and Pendjari (WAP) peacebuilding and development initiative, one of the two main sources of insecurity in Burkina Faso. By excluding local social-ecological systems, Arly Park’s top-down environmental protection program leads to conflict situations rather than peacebuilding opportunities. This paper is based on field research carried out in Burkina Faso between October 2018 and April 2019. Forty interviews conducted with security actors, international observers, government officials, European Union officials and inhabitants of the Arly Natural Park reveal that both exogenous environmental regulation and poorly designed international development projects create a fertile breeding ground for conflicts. This field study investigates how the inadequate design of the initial initiative and personal agendas retard development and peacebuilding opportunities. It also highlights how national authorities seize the opportunity to attract development funding and use environmental regulation as a tool for the distribution of central power and authority in peripheral areas. Furthermore, it demonstrates how greed and looting linked to environmental regulation create a causal chain resulting in environmental degradation and conflicts. Finally, this article stresses the strong interconnection and interdependence of ecological and sociological systems, which embed ecological regimes of knowledge and practices that sustain an ecosystem’s preservation and perpetuation. Discounting this particular and holistic understanding when designing environmental regulations or, worse, emphasizing its exclusion, exacerbates in the end both environmental degradation and conflict.

Coastal Sustainable Development Studies in Latvia: Integrated Local Social-Ecological Systems Governance

Importance of sustainable coastal governance also in the Baltic sea region has been widely recognised and since such governance has to have integrative nature that requires horizontal cross-sectorial integration as well as involvement of all governance levels and subsequently organisation of vertical integration among the levels. Besides some succesfull local cases around Europe, mainly special outside projects based, there is to be recognized that the municipal integrated sustainable coastal governance has not been yet neither well and widely locally developed in practice nor sufficiently researched field in order to permit necessary design of adequate policy innovations. Practical development and local realisation of the municipal integrated coastal governance often encounters obstacles of the basic nature, e.g. because there are not sufficiently understood and applied cross- and trans-disciplinary approaches – studies and governance of the coastal territories as the complex social-ecological systems (SES). For understanding the process and structure of coastal governance, application of system thinking and system dynamics methods are to be emphasized as well. The paper demonstrates adaptation of coastal nature studies based System Analysis Framework (SAF) methodology for its application to coastal governance studies and general municipal governance system adjusting and upgrading towards coastal issues, what could be seen as the new step for SAF further planned developments. As the part of the EU BONUS programme BaltCoast project, the authors performed, including main stakeholders participation elements, the issue identification step, system definition and also a conceptual model building steps of the SAF methodology application in the particular, local governance innovations rich, case study territory – Salacgriva municipality in Latvia. Coastal governance problems in Latvia are especially relevant for rural coastal municipalities with limited administrative capacities and long and low populated coastline territories. The next SAF application steps will include development of coastal governance system scenarios using a systems modelling tool and the design and testing of complementary set of governance instruments as science-policy interface, that shall support sustainable use of coastal resources in the interests of coastal nature and culture protection, and local socio-economic development.

Gender Differentials in Perceiving Climate Change Impacts in the Kaligandaki Basin, Nepal

The global climate system is changing faster than earlier projections with variable rates across the geographic scale. The impacts are also perceived heterogeneously across the places and communities. This study explores gender differentials in impact-perception in the Kaligandaki river valley in central Nepal. Research used primary data collected from 360 households, 75 Key Informants and 24 Focus Groups Discussion as well as through construction of nine Historical Timeline Calendars from three clusters – Meghauli (lower basin), Lumle (middlepart) and Upper-Mustang (upper-basin). The impact perception was assessed under seven social-ecological variables in the unipolar Likert Scale. The impact perception does not significantly differ across the gender of respondents while testing the means of perception scores and probably it is due to the impacts that have been experienced at profound level. The test of independence of gender to level of impacts indicates no significant association. This research also tried to check if other social-economic variables such as age of respondents and landholding size of household as well as self-reported economic status of households were significantly associated with some of the impacts. However, the number of cells with expected counts less than 5 in chi-square test turned to be more than 20 percent so they were considered to be invalid. Nevertheless, impact perception is significantly associated with the places of residence or study clusters, which indicates that local social-ecological system matters in climate change impacts. The qualitative information however, suggests otherwise that women feel higher level of risk and impacts, and is related to their concern over the welfare of family members and livelihood resources. Since risk perception is found to be related to spatial characteristics, this research recommends for development and implementation of targeted and localized adaptation policies. None the less, those policies must also recognize the women’s concerns on climate change impacts.

"Safe and just operating space" for the sustainable development of the social-ecological system in the Liangzi Lake Catchment, Hubei Province, China.

The increases of human activities threaten the health of the earth's ecosystem, and pre-sent a big challenge to regional sustainable development and environment conservation. How to maintain a safe ecological environment together with social and economic development is an important issue for sustainable development. Under the theoretical framework of "safe and just operating space", we integrated lake sediment records, environmental monitoring data, and socio-economic data in Liangzi Lake Catchment, analyzed the status of key eco-environmental processes and achievement degree (the completion of the current value of social basic indicators relative to the target value) of residents' social welfare, and constructed a "safe and just operating space" for the sustainability of local social-ecological system. The results showed that the indicators including freshwater utilization, cultivated land resources, air quality, soil and sediment regulation, and chemical pollution in the catchment had exceeded the environmental ceiling and were at the "dangerous" level, which should be regulated in the future. As for the social welfare, the achievement degree of clean water, sanitation facility, and industrial innovation were relatively low. The per capita GDP was negatively correlated with soil and water conservation and air quality, indicating the negative effects of social and economic development on water, soil, and air. With multi-source environmental data, especially long-term limnological records, we effectively reconstructed the historical environmental change process, revealed the deficiency of environment and residential well-being in local social ecosystem management, which would provide important insights for regional sustainable development.

People-Centric Nature-Based Land Restoration through Agroforestry: A Typology

Restoration depends on purpose and context. At the core it entails innovation to halt ongoing and reverse past degradation. It aims for increased functionality, not necessarily recovering past system states. Location-specific interventions in social-ecological systems reducing proximate pressures, need to synergize with transforming generic drivers of unsustainable land use. After reviewing pantropical international research on forests, trees, and agroforestry, we developed an options-by-context typology. Four intensities of land restoration interact: R.I. Ecological intensification within a land use system, R.II. Recovery/regeneration, within a local social-ecological system, R.III. Reparation/recuperation, requiring a national policy context, R.IV. Remediation, requiring international support and investment. Relevant interventions start from core values of human identity while addressing five potential bottlenecks: Rights, Know-how, Markets (inputs, outputs, credit), Local Ecosystem Services (including water, agrobiodiversity, micro/mesoclimate) and Teleconnections (global climate change, biodiversity). Six stages of forest transition (from closed old-growth forest to open-field agriculture and re-treed (peri)urban landscapes) can contextualize interventions, with six special places: water towers, riparian zone and wetlands, peat landscapes, small islands and mangroves, transport infrastructure, and mining scars. The typology can help to link knowledge with action in people-centric restoration in which external stakeholders coinvest, reflecting shared responsibility for historical degradation and benefits from environmental stewardship.

Assessing Teachers’ Environmental Citizenship Based on an Adventure Learning Workshop: A Case Study from a Social-ecological Systems Perspective

ABSTRACT More sustainable environmental behavior and management is necessary if we are to sustain human well-being; however, current educational practices are not well aligned to support the development of environmentally informed citizens, including adequate teacher preparation. Classroom teachers are in a unique position to develop student skills and knowledge for sustainable environmental behavior through their teaching. Yet, teachers report a gap in their understanding of social-ecological systems, which presents a barrier to developing environmental citizens, or those enacting the skills and knowledge necessary for sustainable environmental behavior. This study focuses on the impact of a teacher professional development workshop designed to develop teachers’ understanding of local social-ecological systems. We explore the effects of the workshop through the framework of environmental citizenship which has five components: Ecological Literacy, Civics Literacy, Self-Efficacy, Values Awareness, and Practical Wisdom. The quasi-experimental design included a pre- and post-survey of teacher participants’ environmental citizenship. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that the median posttest scores were significantly higher than the median pretest scores, indicating a statistically significant increase in environmental citizenship for all five components. The environmental citizenship of teachers has not been reported in the literature, despite the emerging importance of environmental citizenship dispositions for delivering social-ecological systems content. Although the nature of the study limits our ability to generalize beyond this case, our findings suggest that environmental citizenship may increase as a result of teacher professional development, with potential to inform the type of education that leads to fostering environmental citizenship in students.

Shades of Conflict in Kyrgyzstan: National Actor Perceptions and Behaviour in Mining

Confronted with advancing resource frontiers, local communities increasingly rely on conflict to re-establish order in the face of problematic interdependences brought about by mining transactions. This article captures the interactions at national level that engender these interdependences in the first place. We explore how national actor groups influence emerging regularities of behaviour in mining through the example of gold mining in Kyrgyzstan – a fragile resource-dependent country divided by mining conflicts. For the analysis of these emerging patterns of behaviour, we focus on shared beliefs and norms that in interaction with perceived dimensions of transactions provide motivation to act. The identified regularities of behaviour help differentiate the otherwise crude dichotomy of conflict and cooperation, pointing to shades of conflicts. Mining conflicts in Kyrgyzstan are driven by profound structural factors that are rooted in weak governance, lack of institutional trust and limited cooperation across national actor groups. Risks and costs are distributed to outgroups, threatening the local social-ecological systems and further fragmenting Kyrgyz society. If extraction continues in the current mode of governance, resource-based grievances are likely to persist in Kyrgyzstan, as mining will increasingly encroach on local ecosystems, livelihoods and cultural commons – unless the national perceptions and shared beliefs change.

Examining the distributional equity of urban tree canopy cover and ecosystem services across United States cities.

Examining the distributional equity of urban tree canopy cover (UTCC) has increasingly become an important interdisciplinary focus of ecologists and social scientists working within the field of environmental justice. However, while UTCC may serve as a useful proxy for the benefits provided by the urban forest, it is ultimately not a direct measure. In this study, we quantified the monetary value of multiple ecosystem services (ESD) provisioned by urban forests across nine U.S. cities. Next, we examined the distributional equity of UTCC and ESD using a number of commonly investigated socioeconomic variables. Based on trends in the literature, we predicted that UTCC and ESD would be positively associated with the variables median income and percent with an undergraduate degree and negatively associated with the variables percent minority, percent poverty, percent without a high school degree, percent renters, median year home built, and population density. We also predicted that there would be differences in the relationships between each response variable (UTCC and ESD) and the suite of socioeconomic predictor variables examined because of differences in how each response variable is derived. We utilized methods promoted within the environmental justice literature, including a multi-city comparative analysis, the incorporation of high-resolution social and environmental datasets, and the use of spatially explicit models. Patterns between the socioeconomic variables and UTCC and ESD did not consistently support our predictions, highlighting that inequities are generally not universal but rather context dependent. Our results also illustrated that although the variables UTCC and ESD had largely similar relationships with the predictor variables, differences did occur between them. Future distributional equity research should move beyond the use of proxies for environmental amenities when possible while making sure to consider that the use of ecosystem service estimates may result in different patterns with socioeconomic variables of interest. Based on our findings, we conclude that understanding and remedying the challenges associated with inequities requires an understanding of the local social-ecological system if larger sustainability goals are to be achieved.

Multiple values of isolated and clusters of Ficus tree species protected by Betsileo farmers in rural landscapes in Madagascar: implications for biodiversity conservation

In Madagascar, biodiversity, local livelihoods and agroecosystems are increasingly threatened. It is critical to understand and support local social–ecological systems that sustain livelihoods and value biodiversity. This study investigates why Betsileo communities in Ambendrana and Sahabe protect isolated individuals and clusters of Ficus species in their rural landscapes. Ficus trees have multiple values and sustain webs of ecological interactions that favor biodiversity. We show that spontaneous seedlings of Ficus are protected and that people also actively propagate Ficus by stem cuttings. Their multiple values and uses and the distribution patterns of each species, are linked to social–ecological dynamics and to the historical construction of local landscapes. Both past and present uses associated with each Ficus species define how they are protected. Different sets of practices associated with each species are governed by both material and symbolic considerations. Ficus reflexa, a boundary marker of zebu corrals, has a symbolic role in protecting humans and livestock and checks erosion; F. lutea is a marker of residences of ancient noble classes and F. tiliifolia is a remnant of swidden agriculture and a marker of the memory of ancestors, but its numbers are shrinking. Ficus trees are protected but there is no strict taboo against cutting them when they hinder crop production. Their potential role for biodiversity conservation is linked to these social–ecological dynamics. Based on these findings, we propose some rules of thumb for developing collaborative approaches which consider synergies between local and scientific knowledge.

Building Resilience in Social-Ecological Food Systems in Vermont

There is an expanding interest in Local Food Systems (LFSs) in Vermont, along with a growing effort to create adaptive governance to facilitate action. In this case study, we investigate how adaptive governance of LFS can provide ideas and act as a catalyst for creating resilience in other social-ecological systems (SESs). By participating in meetings and interviewing stakeholders inside and outside the Vermont LFS network, we found that consumers were highly motivated to participate by supporting environmental issues, the local economy, and interactive communities, as well as building social relationships. Farmers experienced better income and increased respect in the local community. All participants found adequate “safe space” to share new ideas and explore partnerships. Their identities and values were also place-specific, reflecting the working landscape of Vermont. Adaptive governance was built on equal partnerships, where problems were discussed and responsibilities were shared among many stakeholders across geographic areas and multiple sectors. Some skepticism was expressed towards mainstreaming local food production and sales. Challenges remain to more fully include farmers, for-profit players, and low-income consumers in the network. This might limit the resilience and sustainability of the LFS. Because SESs are held together by common culture and identities, the risk of non-adaptive social patterns exemplifies one key challenge for future adaptive management towards resilient and sustainable outcomes. There is a critical need for developing relevant theory and conducting further research on LFSs and their potential roles in local SESs.

Small Parks as Local Social–Ecological Systems Contributing to Conservation of Small Isolated and Ephemeral Wetlands

Publicly owned lands designated as parks can be important tools for biodiversity conservation. In the U.S., state parks are afforded direct protection from localized development pressures, which may help to protect small, ecologically significant ecosystems such as isolated and ephemeral wetlands and headwater streams. We used the South Carolina State Park system as a case study to examine the structural and functional differences between small wetlands located inside vs. outside of parks in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge ecoregions in order to evaluate the efficacy of a small-scale conservation framework for protecting small, under-protected freshwater ecosystems. We evaluated data relating to water quality, wetland structure, and biodiversity parameters collected between January 2010 and June 2011. Our results indicated marked differences between park and non-park wetlands, with park wetlands having shallower depths, higher abundances of sensitive benthic macroinvertebrate taxa, and lower average tolerance values consistent with more sensitive macroinvertebrate species and higher water quality. These findings demonstrate that state parks can serve to protect freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity. State parks, thus, represent a preexisting network of protected areas to aid in the protection of localized habitats, such as small isolated and ephemeral wetlands, that may not otherwise receive the conservation protection warranted by their ecological function.