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Conference Paper Resilience and the Co-Evolution of Ecosystems and Institutions(1995) Folke, Carl; Berkes, Fikret"Resilience is the ability of a system to cope with change without collapsing. It is the capacity to absorb external perturbations, by actively adapting to an ever changing environment. Reduction in resilience means that vulnerability increases, with the risk that the whole system flips from one equilibrium state to another. Such flips are often a consequence of the misuse of the environment and the inertia of institutions to change. Smaller unpredictable perturbations that previously could be handled turn into major crises when extreme events intersect with internally generated vulnerability due to loss of resilience. To avoid such situations there is a need for institutions with the ability to respond to and manage environmental feedbacks, institutions that can cope with unpredictable perturbations before they accumulate and challenge the existence of the whole social-ecological system. This implies that it is not enough to only understand the institution in question. The dynamics of the ecosystems that form the biophysical precondition for the existence of the institution need to be taken into account as well. This study focuses on the linked social-ecological system, and its dynamic interrelationships. We regard it as one system with its social and ecological components co-evolving over time. It is in this context that we study traditional and newly-emergent social-ecological systems. We are analyzing 1) how the local social system has adapted to and developed a knowledge system for dealing with the dynamics of the ecosystem(s) including the resources and services that it generates, 2) specifically, how the local system maintains ecosystem resilience in the face of perturbations, and 3) those combinations of property rights arrangements, institutions, and knowledge systems which accomplish the above successfully. Examples will be presented from the Cree Indians of the Canadian eastern subartic and their resource management, and pastoral herders and rangeland management in semi-arid Africa."Conference Paper Community-Based Management and Sustainable Development(1989) Berkes, Fikret; Kislalioglu, Mina"Should a fishery be managed by limiting the number of licenses? Should it be managed by harvest quotas? How should the resource be allocated? How can conflicts among groups of fishermen be settled? What is the role of territorial use rights (TURFS)? How and on what basis can decisions be made about such management measures as mesh sizes and closed seasons? Research in the area of management interventions does not fall clearly into the realm of any one discipline: biology, oceanography, economics, political science, geography, planning, sociology, anthropology."Conference Paper Co-Management: The Evolution in Theory and Practice of the Joint Administration of Living Resources(1991) Berkes, Fikret; George, Peter; Preston, Richard J."The joint administration or cooperative management (comanagement) of living resources is the potential solution to the contentious divergence between two alternative systems: centralized, state-level versus local-level and community-based systems of resource management. But co-management does not have a simple prescription. There are 'levels' of co-management, from informing and consultation, through degrees of power-sharing between the central government and local resource users." "Studies in the James Bay area indicate that the capability of local-level management or self-management is important not only from a fish and wildlife management point of view. It is also important to the social and economic health of many native communities. Because of the continuing importance of living resources, the economic development of native communities is linked to their ability to manage their own resources. This, in turn, is linked to larger questions of self-government."Conference Paper Cross-Scale Institutional Linkages: Perspectives from the Bottom Up(2000) Berkes, Fikret"How do national and international-level institutions affect the capabilities of local users to govern and manage local resources? The question reflects the practical reality that local commons institutions are embedded in and affected by regional, national and global influences. There seem to be two broad categories of influences. First, decisions and developments in the outside world affect the local use of resources. Second, national governments and other national-level organizations are making commitments to manage international and global commons that obligate them to influence the actions of local resource users. This paper is mainly about the first category of influences, (1) understanding how higher-level institutions affect local institutions, and (2) identifying promising institutional forms for cross-scale linkages. "The commons literature is full of examples of destructive state intervention, such as excessive centralization, as found in many parts of Africa, which has stifled existing local institutions and prevented self-organization. However, the literature also contains many examples in which the state has created enabling legislation or has otherwise facilitated the development of local-level institutions. A literature has developed also on forms of institutions with potential for cross-scale linkages. One of these forms is co-management, linking local-level institutions with the government level. A second is multistakeholder bodies. A third is institutions oriented for development, empowerment and co-management (examples: CANARI in St. Lucia, West Indies; number of NGOs in Bangladesh). A fourth is the class of institutions for linking local users with regional agencies (example: epistemic communities leading to the Mediterranean Action Plan). A fifth concerns research and management approaches that enable cross-scale linkages (examples: adaptive management and participatory rural appraisal). Finally, a sixth is the emerging class of institutions for 'citizen science' (examples: watershed associations in Minnesota, USA; Peoples Biodiversity Registers, India)."