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Towards a global sustainable development agenda built on social–ecological resilience
- Murray W. Scown, Robin K. Craig, Craig R. Allen, Lance Gunderson, David G. Angeler, Jorge H. Garcia, Ahjond Garmestani
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- Journal:
- Global Sustainability / Volume 6 / 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 April 2023, e8
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- Article
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- Open access
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Non-technical summary
The United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs) articulate societal aspirations for people and our planet. Many scientists have criticised the SDGs and some have suggested that a better understanding of the complex interactions between society and the environment should underpin the next global development agenda. We further this discussion through the theory of social–ecological resilience, which emphasises the ability of systems to absorb, adapt, and transform in the face of change. We determine the strengths of the current SDGs, which should form a basis for the next agenda, and identify key gaps that should be filled.
Technical summaryThe United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs) are past their halfway point and the next global development agenda will soon need to be developed. While laudable, the SDGs have received strong criticism from many, and scholars have proposed that adopting complex adaptive or social–ecological system approaches would increase the effectiveness of the agenda. Here we dive deeper into these discussions to explore how the theory of social–ecological resilience could serve as a strong foundation for the next global sustainable development agenda. We identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current SDGs by determining which of the 169 targets address each of 43 factors affecting social–ecological resilience that we have compiled from the literature. The SDGs with the strongest connections to social–ecological resilience are the environment-focus goals (SDGs 2, 6, 13, 14, 15), which are also the goals consistently under-prioritised in the implementation of the current agenda. In terms of the 43 factors affecting social–ecological resilience, the SDG strengths lie in their communication, inclusive decision making, financial support, regulatory incentives, economic diversity, and transparency in governance and law. On the contrary, ecological factors of resilience are seriously lacking in the SDGs, particularly with regards to scale, cross-scale interactions, and non-stationarity.
Social media summaryThe post-2030 agenda should build on strengths of SDGs 2, 6, 13, 14, 15, and fill gaps in scale, variability, and feedbacks.
2 - Adaptive dancing: interactions between social resilience and ecological crises
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- By Lance H. Gunderson, Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA
- Edited by Fikret Berkes, University of Manitoba, Canada, Johan Colding, Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm, Carl Folke, Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm
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- Book:
- Navigating Social-Ecological Systems
- Published online:
- 13 August 2009
- Print publication:
- 17 October 2002, pp 33-52
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Summary
Introduction
Systems of people and nature co-evolve in an adaptive dance (Walters, 1986). Resource systems change as people seek ecosystem services, such as the harvest of stocks, manipulation of key structuring processes, removal of geophysical assets or abation of pollutant concentrations. Meanwhile, as humans are becoming more dependent on these ecosystem services, the ecosystems become more vulnerable to unexpected events. This process that signals a loss of ecological resilience has been described as a pathology of resource development (Holling, 1995).
Complex resource systems are not easily tractable or understood, much less predictable. Nonlinear interactions among multiple variables, scale invariant processes, emergent properties from self-organization and other factors all contribute to unpredictability. Yet, even with these inherent difficulties, we continue attempts at making sense for management and other purposes. Due to a growing empirical base of observation, emergent patterns of these systems, including periods of stability and instability, as well as unexpected behavior due to internal and external changes have been revealed (Gunderson, Holling, and Light, 1995; Berkes and Folke, 1998; Johnson et al., 1999).
This paper builds on earlier work (Holling, 1978; Walters, 1986, 1997; Gunderson et al., 1995; Gunderson, 1999a) to explore these unexpected behaviors in managed ecological systems – perceived as surprises and crises. To begin with, the conceptual basis for understanding these nonlinearities, ecological properties of resilience and adaptive capacity, and analogous properties in institutions are presented.