Social-ecological Systems Literature Research Articles

Social-ecological wellbeing of communities engaged in ecotourism: Perspectives from Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhutan

This paper develops an integrative framework of wellbeing through wellbeing perspectives from development studies and social-ecological systems literature. The framework was applied in indigenous communities of a wildlife sanctuary-cum-ecotourism destination in eastern Bhutan. Qualitative methods, including 68 household interviews and six focus groups, were used to assess subjective, socio-relational, material and ecological dimensions of wellbeing in connection to ecotourism and conservation-development debates. Findings suggest the critical yet complex socio-relational aspects of life for wellbeing; the significance of power relations between stakeholders in relation to sense of wellbeing; and the constant trade-offs that correspond to issues of justice and control, particularly with natural resources. The study identifies the need for more research on gender, power and governance in fragile and protected areas engaging in ecotourism. Assessments informed by an integrative wellbeing approach can foster fruitful dialogue on trade-offs and decision-making in ecologically sensitive areas.

A biographic approach to the study of biocultural learning

Natural environments such as arable lands, lakes, the sea, forests and savannahs are not only places for living and supporting the livelihoods of people, they constitute contexts of significance for sustainability. On the one hand, the study of the knowledge that people generate about their local natural environments has mainly been characterised by romantic views and false assumptions of learning, and more specifically knowledge generation (acquisition), as a merely social or collective process within social-ecological systems literature. It has led to unequal power relationships between different types of knowledge (scientific and experiential) as they were totally separated in human cognition development and structure, and professional knowledge and practices. On the other hand, there is limited interest in the study of professional learning among local communities having natural environments as their living and workplaces within adult educational research. Based on the empirical study of Swedish fishers and farmers, this article contributes to further development of approaches and methods for the understanding of biocultural learning or professional learning in and about nature. It answers the research questions of how the study of biocultural learning benefits from using a biographical approach and a variety of data collection methods, and how individual and social circumstances impact biocultural learning. Findings contrast the previous research literature on local ecological knowledge, and lead to reflections about the role of adult education research for the development of theories and methods for sustainability research and practices.

Do you bend or break? System dynamics in resilience planning for food security

AbstractThis paper discusses our experience in using system dynamics to facilitate resilience planning for food security in rural communities that are exposed to ever‐increasing climatic pressures in Guatemala. The social–ecological systems literature is rich in examples where policies to enhance resilience are deduced from factors generally accepted to be present in resilient systems (e.g. redundancy, connectivity and polycentrism). This deductive approach risks being overly simplistic. As an alternative, this paper explores how insights from analysing the structure–behaviour relationship of complex dynamic systems can be used to generate tailored policies. The results show that stability in food systems is mainly driven by key strategic resources that moderate the effects of environmental changes on food availability and affordability. Moreover, our experience highlights the importance of analysing mechanisms that determine a system's behaviour while and after the system is affected by a disturbance to formulate effective resilience policies.© 2020 The Authors. System Dynamics Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of System Dynamics Society

Emphasizing livelihoods in the study of social-ecological systems: insights from fishing practices in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

ABSTRACTClimate change will impact rural livelihoods in Southern Africa in unprecedented ways. Successful responses must account for intersecting social and ecological factors that determine natural resource access for people living in changing social-ecological systems. However, much of the existing scholarly literature treats natural resource access as a dynamic social process, while often failing to account for how it is also ecologically variable. The social-ecological systems literature more holistically considers social and ecological aspects of resource use, but rarely considers how livelihoods themselves are social-ecological. This paper advances the argument that livelihoods are a useful entry point for understanding the complex and intersecting social-ecological factors that impact natural resource use. Findings are presented from a mixed-methods research project in the variable wetland environment of the Okavango Delta of Botswana to show how participation in various fishing practices is determined by a complex combination of flooding variability, environmental governance, and social relations tied to gender and ethnicity. This article contributes to the literatures on natural resource access and social-ecological systems, increases knowledge about rural livelihoods in Botswana, and provides broader insight into how governance of social-ecological livelihood systems throughout southern Africa are likely to be challenged by climate change.

Reconstructing overfishing: Moving beyond Malthus for effective and equitable solutions

AbstractInaccurate or incomplete diagnosis of the root causes of overfishing can lead to misguided and ineffective fisheries policies and programmes. The “Malthusian overfishing narrative” suggests that overfishing is driven by too many fishers chasing too few fish and that fishing effort grows proportionately to human population growth, requiring policy interventions that reduce fisher access, the number of fishers, or the human population. By neglecting other drivers of overfishing that may be more directly related to fishing pressure and provide more tangible policy levers for achieving fisheries sustainability, Malthusian overfishing relegates blame to regions of the world with high population growth rates, while consumers, corporations and political systems responsible for these other mediating drivers remain unexamined. While social–ecological systems literature has provided alternatives to the Malthusian paradigm, its focus on institutions and organized social units often fails to address fundamental issues of power and politics that have inhibited the design and implementation of effective fisheries policy. Here, we apply a political ecology lens to unpack Malthusian overfishing and, relying upon insights derived from the social sciences, reconstruct the narrative incorporating four exemplar mediating drivers: technology and innovation, resource demand and distribution, marginalization and equity, and governance and management. We argue that a more nuanced understanding of such factors will lead to effective and equitable fisheries policies and programmes, by identifying a suite of policy levers designed to address the root causes of overfishing in diverse contexts.

An Indicator-Based Approach for Analyzing the Resilience of Transitions for Energy Regions. Part I: Theoretical and Conceptual Considerations

The transition of our current energy system from a fossil-based system to a system based on renewables is likely to be one of the most complex and long-term societal transitions in history. The need for a fundamental system transformation raises the question of how to measure the continuing progress and the resilience of this process over time. This paper aims at developing the conceptualization and operationalization of resilience for energy systems in transition with regard to both social and technical aspects. Based on the resilience concept in social-ecological systems literature, we propose to conceptualize resilience for energy systems building on two core attributes of resilience, namely diversity and connectivity. We present an indicator set to operationalize these key attributes in social and technical systems using: (i) definitions and measurements for three fundamental diversity properties—variety, balance and disparity—and (ii) basic connectivity properties from the social network analysis literature—path length, centrality and modularity. Finally, we reflect on possibilities for an application of these indicators in the social and technical system’s spheres and discuss the added value of the approach for energy transition research.

Towards a social-ecological understanding of sustainable venturing

Leveraging social-ecological systems literature and an exemplar case, the Panamanian-American venture Planting Empowerment, we introduce the notion of entrepreneurial synchronicity, emerging from an inductive approach, as a key concept for advancing sustainable entrepreneurship theory. Through an exploration of timing and rhythm of the new venture we can start to better explain and understand the degree of connection between the venture and its surrounding human and biophysical contexts.

Converging disciplinary understandings of social aspects of resilience

Resilience thinking has developed separately in the bodies of literature on social-ecological systems, and that published principally within developmental psychology and mental health on the resilience of individuals. This paper explores what these bodies of literature might learn from the other towards a more integrated and enriched understanding of both social-ecological systems and social resilience. The psychology-based literature recognises a strong set of factors that enhance the strengths of individuals and communities, but lacks a sophisticated integration of the physical environmental context. The social-ecological systems literature offers an excellent foundation in complex adaptive systems, but tends to superimpose ecological concepts of system function onto the human domain, and needs to include an array of core social science concepts that are important to a full understanding of social-ecological systems. An example on north eastern Australia suggests how a converged understanding of social resilience could assist managers to acknowledge, enhance and foster social resilience in linked social-ecological systems.

Collective action in a tropical estuarine lagoon: adapting Ostrom’s SES framework to Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta, Colombia

The paper contributes to the social-ecological systems literature by adapting and using Elinor Ostrom’s Social-Ecological System (SES) framework in the context of a coastal ecosystem. We modified the SES framework in the case of the Cienaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM), an estuarine lagoon in the Caribbean coast of Colombia. The ecological importance of CGSM and its species is undeniable. This paper aims to understand why collective action for a sustainable use of CGSM’s fishery resources has not taken place. In order to respond to that question, we created new variables within the social, economic, and political settings of the SES framework. The results show that the fishers’ fear of the indiscriminate and strong violence that illegal armed groups have inflicted on them since the 1960s and the economic development in the Colombian Caribbean region help explain the lack of collective action.

Employing resilience in the United States Forest Service

The concept of resilience has permeated the discourse of many land use and environmental agencies in an attempt to articulate how to develop and implement policies concerned with the social and ecological dimensions of natural disturbances. Several distinct definitions of resilience exist, each with its own concepts, focus and contexts related to land use policy and management. This often makes understanding the inherent objectives of policies and related principles challenging. The United States Forest Service (USFS) is one example where ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding the use of resilience permeates the content of documents in various areas of the agency. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the USFS employs the term resilience as a means to communicate strategies for managing forest lands. We perform a content analysis of 121 USFS documents including budgetary justification reports, research findings (i.e., journal articles, book chapters and technical reports), public releases, and newsletters to analyze both the rise and specific use of the term resilience in the USFS. Our analysis, which is guided by definitions of resilience in the social-ecological systems literature, reveals that the ambiguity surrounding the use of resilience in the academic literature is reflected in the content of USFS documents. However, we also find that often criticized versions of resilience (namely engineering resilience) are minimally employed by the USFS, and instead the agency focuses on the notion of ecological resilience in which natural disturbances are seen as an important component of the landscape. In some cases, the USFS employs notions of social-ecological resilience, however, the extent to which specific components of social-ecological resilience are integrated into management strategies appears minimal. The findings from this study suggest that clarity regarding the type and function of resilience needs to improve in USFS documents, and that the agency should evaluate the existing question in the SES literature of resilience of what to what?

The study of human values in understanding and managing social-ecological systems

The study of cognition can provide key insights into the social dimension of coupled social-ecological systems. Values are a fundamental aspect of cognition, which have largely been neglected within the social-ecological systems literature. Values represent the deeply held, emotional aspects of people’s cognition and can complement the use of other cognitive constructs, such as knowledge and mental models, which have so far been better represented in this area of study. We provide a review of the different conceptualizations of values that are relevant to the study of human-environment interactions: held, assigned, and relational values. We discuss the important contribution values research can make toward understanding how social-ecological systems function and to improving the management of these systems in a practical sense. In recognizing that values are often poorly defined within the social-ecological systems literature, as in other fields, we aim to guide researchers and practitioners in ensuring clarity when using the term in their research. This can support constructive dialogue and collaboration among researchers who engage in values research to build knowledge of the role and function of values, and hence cognition more broadly, within a social-ecological systems context.

Resilience and the industrial food system: analyzing the impacts of agricultural industrialization on food system vulnerability

The purpose of this paper is to explore how socioeconomic and technological shifts in Canadian and American food production, processing, and distribution have impacted resilience in the food system. First, we use the social ecological systems literature to define food system resilience as a function of that system’s ability to absorb external shocks while maintaining core functions, such as food production and distribution. We then use the literature to argue that we can infer food system resilience by exploring three key dimensions: (1) the diversity of the food system’s components, (2) the degree to which the components are connected, and (3) the degree of decision-making autonomy within the food system. Next, we discuss the impacts of industrialization on these three factors within Canada and the USA. Specifically, we show how processes of corporate concentration, farm-scale intensification, mechanization, and the “cost-price squeeze” have led to a decrease in ecological and economic diversity, a high degree of spatial and organizational connectivity, and a diminished decision-making capacity for individual farmers. While this analysis is qualitative and heuristic, the evidence reviewed here leads us to postulate that our food system is becoming less resilient to external shocks such as climate change. We conclude by discussing four possible strategies to restore resilience and suggest a more transformational shift in food system politics and practice. Specifically, we argue that publicly led multifunctional policies may support more diversified production while programs to promote food system localization can increase farmer autonomy. However, these shifts will not be possible without social-structural corrections of current power imbalances in the food system. This policy discussion reinforces the value of the social ecological framework and, specifically, its capacity to produce an analysis that interweaves ecology, economy, and power.

Participation, politics, and panaceas: exploring the possibilities and limits of participatory urban water governance in Accra, Ghana

Water governance debates have increasingly recognized the importance of adaptive governance for short- and long-term sustainability, especially with respect to increasing climate unpredictability and growing urbanization. A parallel focus on enhancing community participation pervades international development recommendations and policy literature. Indeed, there are often implicit and explicit connections made between the participatory character of water governance institutions and their adaptive capacity. The social-ecological systems literature, however, has also urged caution with respect to embracing panaceas, with increasing calls to be attentive to the limitations of proposed solutions. We discuss the parallels between the adaptive governance, comanagement, and participatory resource governance literatures and analyze efforts to encourage such participation in urban water governance through Local Water Boards in Accra, Ghana. Drawing on interview data, participant observations, and a survey of 243 individuals, we explored what participatory spaces have been opened or foreclosed as well as the possibilities for adaptive urban water governance in Accra. Applying insights from recent debates about panaceas, we argue that discerning the potential and limits for sustainable resource governance and associated development goals requires that participatory mechanisms be subjected to systematic and contextual analysis.

Organizing urban ecosystem services through environmental stewardship governance in New York City

Abstract How do stewardship groups contribute to the management of urban ecosystem services? In this paper, we integrate the research on environmental stewardship with the social–ecological systems literature to explain how stewardship groups serve as bridge organizations between public agencies and civic organizations, working across scales and sectors to build the flexible and multi-scaled capacity needed to manage complex urban ecosystems. Analyzing data collected from a survey of stewardship groups in New York City, combined with open-ended semi-structured interviews with representatives from the most connected civic “hub” organizations, we use a mixed-method approach to understand the specific activities of bridge organizations in the process of preserving local ecosystem services. This paper concludes that the role of bridge organizations in the management of urban ecosystem services in New York City is increasing, that these groups have a specific bi-modal role in the network, and that an initial presence of heterarchic organizational relations was crucial in their development. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of these results.

Organizing urban ecosystem services through environmental stewardship governance in New York City

How do stewardship groups contribute to the management of urban ecosystem services? In this paper, we integrate the research on environmental stewardship with the social–ecological systems literature to explain how stewardship groups serve as bridge organizations between public agencies and civic organizations, working across scales and sectors to build the flexible and multi-scaled capacity needed to manage complex urban ecosystems. Analyzing data collected from a survey of stewardship groups in New York City, combined with open-ended semi-structured interviews with representatives from the most connected civic “hub” organizations, we use a mixed-method approach to understand the specific activities of bridge organizations in the process of preserving local ecosystem services. This paper concludes that the role of bridge organizations in the management of urban ecosystem services in New York City is increasing, that these groups have a specific bi-modal role in the network, and that an initial presence of heterarchic organizational relations was crucial in their development. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of these results.