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Working Paper Ring Statement: Realising Sustainable Development(2007) Ring Alliance of Policy Research Organisations"Half a generation has passed since the Rio Summit laid out its ambitious plan for a more equitable and sustainable global future. In that heady and hopeful time, governments first began to see how sustainable development might work in practice, agreeing goals based on the recommendations of Gro Harlem Brundtland’s World Commission on Environment and Development. Yet two decades on, there is little evidence that the scale of action at any level is a match for the magnitude of the problems facing us all. We need to deal with the root causes – but make a major shift in the way we do it, by building sustainability from the bottom up."Journal Article Impact of Cropping Methods on Biodiversity in Coffee Agroecosystems in Sumatra, Indonesia(2004) Gillison, Andrew N.; Liswanti, Nining; Budidarsono, Suseno; van Noordwijk, Meine; Tomich, Thomas V."The sustainable management of biodiversity and productivity in forested lands requires an understanding of key interactions between socioeconomic and biophysical factors and their response to environmental change. Appropriate baseline data are rarely available. As part of a broader study on biodiversity and profitability, we examined the impact of different cropping methods on biodiversity (plant species richness) along a subjectively determined land-use intensity gradient in southern Sumatra, ranging from primary and secondary forest to coffee-farming systems (simple, complex, with and without shade crops) and smallholder coffee plantings, at increasing levels of intensity. We used 24 (40 x 5 m) plots to record site physical data, including soil nutrients and soil texture together with vegetation structure, all vascular plant species, and plant functional types (PFT's readily observable, adaptive, morphological features). Biodiversity was lowest under simple, intensive, non-shaded farming systems and increased progressively through shaded and more complex agroforests to late secondary and closed-canopy forests. The most efficient single indicators of biodiversity and soil nutrient status were PFT richness and a derived measure of plant functional complexity. Vegetation structure, tree dry weight, and duration of the land-use type, to a lesser degree, were also highly correlated with biodiversity. Together with a vegetation, or V index, the close correspondence between these variables and soil nutrients suggests they are potentially useful indicators of coffee production and profitability across different farming systems. These findings provide a unique quantitative basis for a subsequent study of the nexus between biodiversity and profitability."Journal Article 'Sustainability Learning': An Introduction to the Concept and Its Motivational Aspects(2010) Hansmann, Ralf"This theoretical paper clarifies the concept of sustainability learning and specifically analyzes motivational aspects. Mastering the challenges of sustainability requires individual learning as well as learning processes on different levels of human systems ranging from groups and organizations to human societies, and mankind as a whole. Learning processes of individuals play a fundamental role, since individuals constitute and shape the larger social aggregates. Learning processes on the level of social aggregates are important since social systems embed and influence individuals. Therefore, sustainability learning needs to be understood as a multi-level concept, comprising individual learning as well as learning processes of human systems. Transdisciplinarity and mutual learning between science and society are considered fundamental approaches of sustainability learning, and hence increase the capacity of mankind to manage human-environment systems in sustainable ways. Based on systemic considerations, the two-fold role, in which motivations act as determinants and targeted outcomes of sustainability learning processes, is explained together with the outstanding role that cooperation, hence cooperative motivation, plays for sustainable development. Finally, the multifaceted, controversial discourses on what sustainability ultimately means (for the scientific community, for a given cultural or political entity, organization, or individual person) are considered."Conference Paper Migration and Property in Mangrove Forest: The Formation and Adaptation of Property Arrangements of the Buginese in an Open Delta in Mahakam, East Kalimantan, Indonesia(2013) Safitri, Myrna A."By defining local property arrangement as internal rules of the games used by people whose no property rights to protect their land claims and resource utilization, this paper discusses how migrants have invented and adapted their property arrangement in a de facto open access tropical delta in Mahakam, East Kalimantan. Unique due to its diversity of mangrove species and specific geological formation, the Mahakam Delta has been facing devastating mangrove destruction. The Delta land is designated as state forest areas; however, it is open access since pre-colonial times. In such a situation, migrants, mainly the Buginese, have occupied the land. This paper aims to explore the relationship between migration and the formation of property arrangement and semi-formal property rights. Migrants are more vulnerable than indigenous people in the sense that they have not been able to establish their community property rights and the state does not grant them with legal rights. As such, they have to bargain with street-level officials to seek for semiformal rights by accepting any written documents provided by these officials to confirm their land claims. The case study of the Mahakam Delta migrants conceptualizes that property rights evolve from property arrangement. Migration and de facto open access regime are the formative elements of such property arrangement. This paper describes types of local property arrangements related to land, sea and river in the Mahakam Delta; how these arrangements have emerged; how migration and state regulations related to these arrangements; what the main conflicts of interests between stakeholders are, how these conflicts related to the property arrangements crafted by the migrants and how the changes of livelihood have influenced these arrangements."Journal Article Gender and Sustainable Forest Management in East Africa and Latin America(2011) Mwangi, Esther; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth; Sun, Yan"This paper presents a comparative study of forest management across four countries in East Africa and Latin America: Kenya, Uganda, Bolivia, and Mexico. It focuses on one question: Do varying proportions of women (low, mixed, high) in forest user groups influence their likelihood of adopting forest resource enhancing behavior? We found that higher proportions of females in user groups, and especially user groups dominated by females, perform less well than mixed groups or male dominated ones. We suggest that these differences may be related to three factors: gender biases in technology access and dissemination, a labor constraint faced by women, and a possible limitation to women’s sanctioning authority. Mixed female and male groups offer an avenue for exploiting the strengths of women and men, while tempering their individual shortcomings."Working Paper Understanding the Dynamics of Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems: Human Behavior, Institutions, and Regulatory Feedback(2014) Anderies, John M."I present a general mathematical modeling framework that can provide a foundation for the study of sustainability in social ecological systems (SESs). Using basic principles from feedback control and a sequence of specific models from bioeconomics and economic growth, I outline several mathematical and empirical challenges associated with the study of sustainability of SESs. These challenges are categorized into three classes: 1) the social choice of performance measures, 2) uncertainty, and 3) collective action. Finally, I present some opportunities for combining stylized dynamical systems models with empirical data on human behavior and biophysical systems to address practical challenges for the design of effective governance regimes (policy feedbacks) for highly uncertain natural resource systems."Journal Article Design Principles for Social-ecological Transformation toward Sustainability: Lessons from New Zealand Sense of Place(2012) Chapin, F. Stuart; Mark, Alan F.; Mitchell, Robin A.; Dickinson, Katharine J.M."As society seeks to meet the needs of a growing human population and rising aspirations for consumption, many of the ecosystem services on which society depends have declined in the global aggregate. Although some local societies sustainably manage their natural resources for long time periods, the more frequent pattern is overuse of renewable resources and a trajectory toward degradation. How can this degradation be reversed? In this paper we draw on four New Zealand examples and the literature to posit a set of design principles and recommendations to foster transformation from social-ecological degradation toward more sustainable pathways. These include a strong sense of place, prioritizing long-term solutions over short-term benefits, collective engagement of all key stakeholders and willingness to compromise, right to organize and manage, negotiated consensus on sustainability goals, formal and informal monitoring, flexibility to renegotiate goals and adapt, and guidance by a skilled facilitator. We also identify guidelines that foster consensus-building in the face of contested solutions. Examples from New Zealand and the literature suggest that local social-ecological systems can self-organize to shift toward more sustainable trajectories and that society can foster conditions that increase the likelihood of favorable transformations."Journal Article Assessing Sustainability of Logging Practices in the Congo Basin's Managed Forests: the Issue of Commercial Species Recovery(2006) Karsenty, Alain; Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie"Traditionally, sustained yield (SY) has been viewed as a pillar of sustainable forest management (SFM), but this has been increasingly questioned. Ensuring SY of some species, i.e., a 'strong sustainability' paradigm, could be an inadequate criterion if consideration of the social and economic components of the SFM concept are desired. SFM was translated into the ATO/ITTO set of principles, criteria, and indicators (PCI) for forest management in the Congo Basin; it resulted in the necessity for a certified logging company to ensure that no significant change in structure and floristic composition would result from logging operations. Besides raising the question of where to place the change threshold, we argue that sustainability must be considered from three indissociable viewpoints: ecological, social, and economic. The issue is how to balance these criteria, knowing that this assessment will involve potential conflicts of representations and beliefs. To discuss these questions, we used the example of two heavily logged timber species in the Congo Basin, sapelli (Entandrophragma cylindricum) and ayous (Triplochiton scleroxylon). Using long-term data collected from permanent sample plots in Mbaiki, Central African Republic, we calibrated a matrix model and performed short- and long-term simulations to examine (1) the potential effect of repeated logging of the species under the current national regulation system and (2) the rules that should be set to reach long-term SY. Ensuring long-term SY would require a 22% and 53% decrease in the felling intensity of E. cylindricum and T. scleroxylon, respectively, at first cut, together with an increase in overall logging intensity targeted toward less-used species. Light-demanding E. cylindricum and T. scleroxylon require open forests to regenerate and grow. This new set of rules is probably economically unsustainable for the current African forest industry, and will not meet the ecological requirements encapsulated in the ATO/ITTO PCI. We thus stress the following points: (1) the importance of most exploited species for the current industry may change as wood processing capacities become more efficient and markets change, potentially providing conditions for harvesting a greater number of species; (2) floristic change is unavoidable in these conditions, but this problem should be addressed at a broad scale, notably by ensuring a network of protected areas; (3) as long as the timber industry remains one of the few sources of employment and revenues in marginalized countries, reducing SFM to SY of the most exploited species on every concession appears questionable."Journal Article Social Learning and Natural Resource Management: The Emergence of Three Research Perspectives(2011) Rodela, Romina"A review is presented of research contributions that use social learning in research on natural resource management. The review is based on an extensive survey of peer-reviewed journal articles appraised against the following selected analytical items: (1) characterizing features, (2) level of analysis, and (3) operational measures. Together, these allowed for an assessment of underlying assumptions and emerging themes. The findings suggest that, within natural resource management literature, three research approaches to social learning have been developed, each with its own assumptions about the learning process, learning outcomes, and operational practices. Hence, we find that a group of publications showed an interest for participants' learning experiences and focused on the type of outcomes that arise from their attendance in participatory workshops and similar activities. Also, findings indicate that a second group of publications showing an interest for learning in other types of settings, such as groups, networks, and associations, have framed social learning as a process that results in a change in resource management practices, or in how things are done. On the other hand, a third group of publications showed an interest in social-ecological systems emphasizing learning as an emergent property."Journal Article Rethinking the Galapagos Islands as a Complex Social-Ecological System: Implications for Conservation and Management(2008) Gonzalez, Jose A.; Montes, Carlos; Rodriguez, Jose; Tapia, Washington"The Galapagos Islands are among the most renowned natural sites in the world. Unlike other oceanic archipelagos, the ecological and evolutionary processes characteristic of Galapagos have been minimally affected by human activities, and the archipelago still retains most of its original, unique biodiversity. However, several recent reports suggest that the development model has turned unsustainable and that the unique values of the archipelago might be seriously at risk. In response to international concern, UNESCO added Galapagos to the list of World Heritage in Danger in 2007. Our goal was to provide new insights into the origins of the present-day crisis and suggest possible management alternatives. To this end, we re-examined the Galapagos situation from a broad systems perspective, conceptualizing the archipelago as a complex social-ecological system. Past, present, and possible future trends were explored using the resilience theory as a perspective for understanding the dynamics of the system. Four major historical periods were characterized and analyzed using Hollingâ  s adaptive cycle metaphor. The current Galapagos situation was characterized as a prolonged series of crisis events followed by renewal attempts that have not yet been completed. Three plausible future scenarios were identified, with tourism acting as the primary driver of change. The current tourism model reduces the systemâ  s resilience through its effects on the economy, population growth, resource consumption, invasive species arrival, and lifestyle of the island residents. Opportunities to reorganize and maintain a desirable state do exist. However, strong political and management decisions are urgently needed to avoid an irreversible shift to a socially and environmentally undesirable regime. Key measures to achieve a new sustainability paradigm for Galapagos include modifying traditional practices to produce a more adaptive resilience-based co-management model, adopting a more comprehensive approach to territorial planning, strengthening participative approaches and institutional networks, and promoting transdisciplinary research at the frontiers of social and biophysical sciences."