Digital Library of the Commons

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Cultural Capital and Natural Capital Interrelations
(1992) Folke, Carl; Berkes, Fikret
"The importance of natural capital and the relationships between natural capital and human-made capital are of fundamental interest in ecological economics. But a consideration of these two kinds of capital alone fall short of providing the essential elements for the analysis of sustainability. A more complete conceptualization of the interdependency of the economy and the environment requires attention to social/cultural /political systems as well. We use the term cultural capital to refer to factors that provide human societies with the means and adaptations to deal with the natural environment. Cultural capital, as used here, includes factors such as social/political institutions, environmental ethics (world view) and traditional ecological knowledge in a society. The three types of capital are closely interrelated. Natural capital is the basis for cultural capital. Human-made capital is generated by an interaction between natural and cultural capital. Cultural capital will determine how a society uses natural capital to create human-made capital. Aspects of cultural capital, such as institutions involved in the governance of resource use and the environmental world view, are crucial for the potential of a society to develop sustainable relations with its natural environment."
Combining Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Monitoring Populations for Co-Management
(2004) Moller, Henrik; Berkes, Fikret; O'Brian Lyver, Philip; Kislalioglu, Mina
"Using a combination of traditional ecological knowledge and science to monitor populations can greatly assist co-management for sustainable customary wildlife harvests by indigenous peoples. Case studies from Canada and New Zealand emphasize that, although traditional monitoring methods may often be imprecise and qualitative, they are nevertheless valuable because they are based on observations over long time periods, incorporate large sample sizes, are inexpensive, invite the participation of harvesters as researchers, and sometimes incorporate subtle multivariate cross checks for environmental change. A few simple rules suggested by traditional knowledge may produce good management outcomes consistent with fuzzy logic thinking. Science can sometimes offer better tests of potential causes of population change by research on larger spatial scales, precise quantification, and evaluation of population change where no harvest occurs. However, science is expensive and may not always be trusted or welcomed by customary users of wildlife. Short scientific studies in which traditional monitoring methods are calibrated against population abundance could make it possible to mesh traditional ecological knowledge with scientific inferences of prey population dynamics. This paper analyzes the traditional monitoring techniques of catch per unit effort and body condition. Combining scientific and traditional monitoring methods can not only build partnership and community consensus, but also, and more importantly, allow indigenous wildlife users to critically evaluate scientific predictions on their own terms and test sustainability using their own forms of adaptive management."
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."
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."
Adapting to Climate Change: Social-Ecological Resilience in a Canadian Western Arctic Community
(2002) Berkes, Fikret; Jolly, Dyanna
"Human adaptation remains an insufficiently studied part of the subject of climate change. This paper examines the questions of adaptation and change in terms of social-ecological resilience using lessons from a place-specific case study. The Inuvialuit people of the small community of Sachs Harbour in Canada's western Arctic have been tracking climate change throughout the 1990s. We analyze the adaptive capacity of this community to deal with climate change. Short-term responses to changes in land-based activities, which are identified as coping mechanisms, are one component of this adaptive capacity. The second component is related to cultural and ecological adaptations of the Inuvialuit for life in a highly variable and uncertain environment; these represent long-term adaptive strategies. These two types of strategies are, in fact, on a continuum in space and time. This study suggests new ways in which theory and practice can be combined by showing how societies may adapt to climate change at multiple scales. Switching species and adjusting the 'where, when, and how' of hunting are examples of shorter-term responses. On the other hand, adaptations such as flexibility in seasonal hunting patterns, traditional knowledge that allows the community to diversity hunting activities, networks for sharing food and other resources, and intercommunity trade are longer-term, culturally ingrained mechanisms. Individuals, households, and the community as a whole also provide feedback on their responses to change. Newly developing co-management institutions create additional linkages for feedback across different levels, enhancing the capacity for learning and self-organization of the local inhabitants and making it possible for them to transmit community concerns to regional, national, and international levels."
Cultural and Natural Capital: A Systems Approach Revisited
(1998) Berkes, Fikret
"This paper does not claim to provide an 'ecological perspective' on social capital. Ecology has little to say directly on social capital. But the paper does emphasise social system-ecosystem interactions, along the lines of our recent book. First, let's place social capital in perspective. There is a spectrum of concepts on the social dimensions of sustainability. These include social indicators, as used for example in Robert Allen's new book still in press, and a diversity of concepts of social and cultural wellbeing: -- equity: fairness, social justice, distributional issues; -- empowerment: ability of people to exert a degree of control over decisions affecting their lives; -- sustainable livelihoods: capacity to generate and maintain one's means of living; -- cultural sustainability: ability to retain cultural identity, and to allow change to be guided in ways consistent with the cultural values of a people; -- social cohesion: shared values and commitment to a community - as the foundation stone of social order, as used by Jane Jenson and others; and as social capital: -- social organisational features, such as trust, norms and networks."
Livelihood Systems, Adaptive Strategies and Sustainability Indicators in the Western Indian Himalayas
(1996) Berkes, Fikret; Duffield, Colin E.; Ham, Laurie
"The paper is based on an interdisciplinary team project in Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, in the Western Indian Himalaya, and concentrates on three themes: land use and property-rights systems through which the local people interact with their environment; adaptive strategies used for sustainable livelihood security in the face of ecological, social and economic change, with focus on women's roles; and changes in the forest ecosystem and 'signs and signals' of sustainability as perceived by the people of the area. Local villagers are recognized as actors who define what is important and relevant, rather than merely the objects of study. Their perspectives provide two important findings: (1) adaptive strategies used by households and villages are diverse and contribute to the resilience of the social system and the natural system, and (2)villagers recognize a complex array of signs and signals, that are biophysical, social and economic in nature, and that may be seen as indices of sustainability. Village institutions are 'fuzzy' and resilient, and are the basis of both the system of adaptive strategies and the system of signs and signals. These institutions seem well adapted to fit into a decentralized, integrated, participatory resource management framework."
The Common Property Resource Problem: Sustainable Development and the Fisheries of Barbados and Jamaica
(1986) Berkes, Fikret
"The primary aim of this paper is to examine alternative approaches to solving the commons problem as relevant to sustainable development. First, an attempt has to be made to address the confusion created by differences in the definition of 'common property resources'. Second, the different formulations of the commons problem need to be analysed. This will be followed by a case study of Caribbean fisheries to explore the dimensions of an inshore commons problem (Jamaica), and an international commons problem (Barbados), and their possible solutions. Finally, some emerging principles of common property resource management will be offered towards a practical framework for sustainable development."
Learning as You Journey: Anishinaabe Perception of Social-Ecological Environments and Adaptive Learning
(2003) Davidson-Hunt, Iain J.; Berkes, Fikret
"This paper explores the linkages between social-ecological resilience and adaptive learning. We refer to adaptive learning as a method to capture the two-way relationship between people and their social-ecological environment. In this paper, we focus on traditional ecological knowledge. Research was undertaken with the Anishinaabe people of Iskatewizaagegan No. 39 Independent First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, Canada. The research was carried out over two field seasons, with verification workshops following each field season. The methodology was based on site visits and transects determined by the elders as appropriate to answer a specific question, find specific plants, or locate plant communities. During site visits and transect walks, research themes such as plant nomenclature, plant use, habitat descriptions, biogeophysical landscape vocabulary, and place names were discussed. Working with elders allowed us to record a rich set of vocabulary to describe the spatial characteristics of the biogeophysical landscape. However, elders also directed our attention to places they knew through personal experiences and journeys and remembered from stories and collective history. We documented elders perceptions of the temporal dynamics of the landscape through discussion of disturbance events and cycles. Again, elders drew our attention to the ways in which time was marked by cultural references to seasons and moons. The social memory of landscape dynamics was documented as a combination of biogeophysical structures and processes, along with the stories by which Iskatewizaagegan people wrote their histories upon the land. Adaptive learning for social-ecological resilience, as suggested by this research, requires maintaining the web of relationships of people and places. Such relationships allow social memory to frame creativity, while allowing knowledge to evolve in the face of change. Social memory does not actually evolve directly out of ecosystem dynamics. Rather, social memory both frames creativity within, and emerges from, a dynamic social-ecological environment."
Linking Social and Ecological Systems for Resilience and Sustainability
(1994) Berkes, Fikret; Folke, Carl
"Traditional resource management systems or other local-level systems, based on the knowledge and experience of the resource users themselves, may have the potential to improve management of a number of ecosystems types. A considerable amount of evidence has accumulated to suggest that ecologically sensible indigenous practices have or had existed, for example, in the case of some tropical forests, island ecosystems, tropical fisheries, and semi-arid grazing lands. Given that Western resource management has not been all that successful in many of these environments, perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the cultural capital of societies which have elaborated these practices, a view echoed in Our Common Future. Ancient cultures and indigenous peoples do not have monopoly over ecological wisdom; there are cases of local, newly emergent or 'neo-traditional' resource management systems which cannot claim historical continuity over generations but which are nevertheless based on local knowledge and practice appropriately adapted to the ecological systems in which they occur."

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