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Journal Article Enhancing the Fit through Adaptive Co-management: Creating and Maintaining Bridging Functions for Matching Scales in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve, Sweden(2007) Olsson, Per; Folke, Carl; Galaz, Victor; Hahn, Thomas; Schultz, Lisen"In this article, we focus on adaptive governance of social-ecological systems (SES) and, more specifically, on social factors that can enhance the fit between governance systems and ecosystems. The challenge lies in matching multilevel governance system, often characterized by fragmented organizational and institutional structures and compartmentalized and sectorized decision-making processes, with ecosystems characterized by complex interactions in time and space. The ability to create the right links, at the right time, around the right issues in multilevel governance systems is crucial for fostering responses that build social-ecological resilience and maintain the capacity of complex and dynamic ecosystems to generate services for human well-being. This is especially true in the face of uncertainty and during periods of abrupt change and reorganization. We draw on our earlier work in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve (KVBR), in southern Sweden, to provide new insights on factors that can improve such linking. We focus especially on the bridging function in SES and the factors that constrain bridging in multilevel governance systems, and strategies used to overcome these. We present two features that seem critical for linking organizations dynamically across multiple levels: 1) the role of bridging organizations and 2) the importance of leadership. Bridging organizations and the bridging function can be vulnerable to disturbance, but there are sources of resilience for securing these key structures and functions in SES. These include social mechanisms for combining multiple sources of knowledge, building moral and political support in social networks, and having legal and financial support as part of the adaptive governance structure."Journal Article Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems(2006) Walker, Brian H.; Gunderson, Lance; Kinzig, Ann P.; Folke, Carl; Carpenter, Stephen; Schultz, Lisen"This paper is a work-in-progress account of ideas and propositions about resilience in socialecological systems. It articulates our understanding of how these complex systems change and what determines their ability to absorb disturbances in either their ecological or their social domains. We call them 'propositions' because, although they are useful in helping us understand and compare different social-ecological systems, they are not sufficiently well defined to be considered formal hypotheses. These propositions were developed in two workshops, in 2003 and 2004, in which participants compared the dynamics of 15 case studies in a wide range of regions around the world. The propositions raise many questions, and we present a list of some that could help define the next phase of resilience-related research."Journal Article History and Local Management of a Biodiversity-Rich, Urban Cultural Landscape(2005) Barthel, Stephan; Colding, Johan; Elmqvist, Thomas; Folke, Carl"Urban green spaces provide socially valuable ecosystem services. Through an historical analysis of the development of the National Urban Park (NUP) of Stockholm, we illustrate how the coevolutionary process of humans and nature has resulted in the high level of biological diversity and associated recreational services found in the park. The ecological values of the area are generated in the cultural landscape. External pressures resulting in urban sprawl in the Stockholm metropolitan region increasingly challenge the capacity of the NUP to continue to generate valuable ecosystem services. Setting aside protected areas, without accounting for the role of human stewardship of the cultural landscape, will most likely fail. In a social inventory of the area, we identify 69 local user and interest groups currently involved in the NUP area. Of these, 25 are local stewardship associations that have a direct role in managing habitats within the park that sustain such services as recreational landscapes, seed dispersal, and pollination. We propose that incentives should be created to widen the current biodiversity management paradigm, and actively engage local stewardship associations in adaptive co-management processes of the park and surrounding green spaces."Journal Article Governance and the Capacity to Manage Resilience in Regional Social-Ecological Systems(2006) Lebel, Louis; Anderies, John M.; Campbell, Bruce; Folke, Carl; Hatfield-Dodds, Steve; Hughes, Terry; Wilson, James"The sustainability of regional development can be usefully explored through several different lenses. In situations in which uncertainties and change are key features of the ecological landscape and social organization, critical factors for sustainability are resilience, the capacity to cope and adapt, and the conservation of sources of innovation and renewal. However, interventions in social-ecological systems with the aim of altering resilience immediately confront issues of governance. Who decides what should be made resilient to what? For whom is resilience to be managed, and for what purpose? In this paper we draw on the insights from a diverse set of case studies from around the world in which members of the Resilience Alliance have observed or engaged with sustainability problems at regional scales. Our central question is: How do certain attributes of governance function in society to enhance the capacity to manage resilience? Three specific propositions were explored: (1) participation builds trust, and deliberation leads to the shared understanding needed to mobilize and self-organize; (2) polycentric and multilayered institutions improve the fit between knowledge, action, and social-ecological contexts in ways that allow societies to respond more adaptively at appropriate levels; and (3) accountable authorities that also pursue just distributions of benefits and involuntary risks enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable groups and society as a whole. Some support was found for parts of all three propositions. In exploring the sustainability of regional social-ecological systems, we are usually faced with a set of ecosystem goods and services that interact with a collection of users with different technologies, interests, and levels of power. In this situation in our roles as analysts, facilitators, change agents, or stakeholders, we not only need to ask: The resilience of what, to what? We must also ask: For whom?"Journal Article Water RATs (Resilience, Adaptability, and Transformability) in Lake and Wetland Social-Ecological Systems(2006) Gunderson, Lance; Carpenter, Stephen; Folke, Carl; Olsson, Per; Peterson, Garry D."The lakes in the northern highlands of Wisconsin, USA, the lakes and wetlands of Kristianstads Vattenrike in southern Sweden, and the Everglades of Florida, USA, provide cases that can be used to compare the linkages between ecological resilience and social dynamics. The erosion of ecological resilience in aquatic and wetland ecosystems is often a result of past management actions and is manifest as a real or perceived ecological crisis. Learning is a key ingredient in response to the loss of ecological resilience. Learning is facilitated through networks that operate in distinct arenas and are structured for dialogue, synthesis, and imaginative solutions to chart alternative futures. The networks also help counter maladaptive processes such as information control or manipulation, bureaucratic inertia, or corruption. The networks help create institutional arrangements that provide for more learning and flexibility and for the ability to change. Trust and leadership appear to be key elements for adaptability and transformability."Journal Article Shooting the Rapids: Navigating Transitions to Adaptive Governance of Social-Ecological Systems(2006) Olsson, Per; Gunderson, Lance; Carpenter, Stephen; Ryan, Paul; Lebel, Louis; Folke, Carl; Holling, C.S."The case studies of Kristianstads Vattenrike, Sweden; the Northern Highlands Lake District and the Everglades in the USA; the Mae Nam Ping Basin, Thailand; and the Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Australia, were compared to assess the outcome of different actions for transforming social-ecological systems (SESs). The transformations consisted of two phases, a preparation phase and a transition phase, linked by a window of opportunity. Key leaders and shadow networks can prepare a system for change by exploring alternative system configurations and developing strategies for choosing from among possible futures. Key leaders can recognize and use or create windows of opportunity and navigate transitions toward adaptive governance. Leadership functions include the ability to span scales of governance, orchestrate networks, integrate and communicate understanding, and reconcile different problem domains. Successful transformations rely on epistemic and shadow networks to provide novel ideas and ways of governing SESs. We conclude by listing some ?rules of thumb' that can help build leadership and networks for successful transformations toward adaptive governance of social-ecological systems."Journal Article Resilience: Accounting for the Noncomputable(2009) Carpenter, Stephen; Folke, Carl; Scheffer, Marten; Westley, Frances"Plans to solve complex environmental problems should always consider the role of surprise. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to emphasize known computable aspects of a problem while neglecting aspects that are unknown and failing to ask questions about them. The tendency to ignore the noncomputable can be countered by considering a wide range of perspectives, encouraging transparency with regard to conflicting viewpoints, stimulating a diversity of models, and managing for the emergence of new syntheses that reorganize fragmentary knowledge."