Derek Armitage

Adaptive co‐management for social–ecological complexity

Building trust through collaboration, institutional development, and social learning enhances efforts to foster ecosystem management and resolve multi-scale society–environment dilemmas. One emerging approach aimed at addressing these dilemmas is adaptive co-management. This method draws explicit attention to the learning (experiential and experimental) and collaboration (vertical and horizontal) functions necessary to improve our understanding of, and ability to respond to, complex social–ecological systems. Here, we identify and outline the core features of adaptive co-management, which include innovative institutional arrangements and incentives across spatiotemporal scales and levels, learning through complexity and change, monitoring and assessment of interventions, the role of power, and opportunities to link science with policy.

Adaptive Comanagement: a Systematic Review and Analysis

This paper outlines the results of a systematic review of the literature on adaptive comanagement (ACM). Adaptive comanagement is an emergent governance approach for complex social-ecological systems that links the learning function of adaptive management (experimental and experiential) and the linking (vertically and horizontally) function of comanagement. Given the rapid growth of adaptive comanagement scholarship, there is value in a systematic analysis of how the concept is being conceptualized to elucidate agreement and discrepancies and to examine the challenges this presents for cross-case comparisons and the possibility of arriving at more generalizable insights. A synthesis-based methodology has been developed involving a comprehensive search and screening of academic databases and the internet. A detailed analysis of 108 documents was undertaken to characterize the state of the ACM literature, unpack the construct of ACM, and examine relationships among aspects of ACM based on accumulated experiences to date. The systematic review and analysis reveals imprecision, inconsistency, and confusion with the concept. Robust evidentiary insights into how the variables or components of ACM interrelate as well as relate to goals and outcomes are, therefore, presently not possible. These findings lead to the discussion of a series of challenges for ACM scholarship. Opportunities remain for ACM scholars to pursue theoretical development in rigorous ways that facilitate empirically based cross-site comparisons.

Adaptive Capacity and Environmental Governance

Rapid environmental change calls for individuals and societies with an ability to transform our interactions with each other and the ecosystems upon which we depend. Adaptive capacity - the ability of a social-ecological system (or the components of that system) to be robust to disturbances and capable of responding to changes - is increasingly recognized as a critical attribute of multi-level environmental governance. This unique volume offers the first interdisciplinary and integrative perspective on an emerging area of applied scholarship, with contributions from internationally recognized researchers and practitioners. It demonstrates how adaptive capacity makes environmental governance possible in complex social-ecological systems. Cutting-edge theoretical developments are explored and empirical case studies offered from a wide range of geographic settings and natural resource contexts, such as water, climate, fisheries and forestry. Of interest to researchers, policymakers and resource managers seeking to navigate and understand social-ecological change in diverse geographic settings and resource contexts

Charting the New Territory of Adaptive Co-management: A Delphi Study

Complex systems understanding implies a world characterized by dynamic, nonlinear interactions, discontinuities, and surprises. Such conditions are not amenable to conventional resource management approaches that stress command-and-control, and therefore, novel governance approaches more suited to complexity and uncertainty are required. Adaptive co-management has emerged as an interdisciplinary response to this need, and blends the adaptive management and collaborative management narratives. However, concepts associated with adaptive co-management are relatively new and quickly expanding from multiple perspectives. The objective of this paper is to take stock of this relatively recent concept and synthesize current thinking in terms of: (1) the core components of adaptive co-management, (2) emerging research directions, (3) the barriers to implementation of adaptive co-management, and (4) criteria for success. To explore these four areas, a three-round, classical Delphi process was administered with an expert panel of 30 individuals. All members of the expert panel initially responded to open-ended questions, and the qualitative results were analyzed using QSR NVIVO. The subsequent two rounds of the Delphi required quantitative responses in which the expert panel was asked to indicate the level of importance using a seven point likert scale associated with specific items. Results of the Delphi survey reveal a high degree of consensus on several core areas within this emerging interdisciplinary governance approach. Results of this research should foster precision with respect to employment of the term, foster scholarly discourse, and indicate areas of practical importance to adaptive co-management.

Can resilience be reconciled with globalization and the increasingly complex conditions of resource degradation in Asian coastal regions

This paper explores the relationship between resilience and globalization. We are concerned, most importantly, with whether resilience is a suitable conceptual framework for natural resource management in the context of the rapid changes and disruptions that globalization causes in social-ecological systems. Although theoretical in scope, we ground this analysis using our experiences in two Asian coastal areas: Junagadh District in Gujarat State, India and Banawa Selatan, in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. We present the histories of resource exploitation in the two areas, and we attempt to combine a resilience perspective with close attention to the impact of globalization. Our efforts serve as a basis from which to examine the conceptual and practical compatibility of resilience with globalization. The first challenge we address is epistemological: given that resilience and globalization have roots in different disciplines, do they share a sufficiently common perception of change and human action to be compatible? Second, we address the issue of how resilience can be a viable management objective in the rapidly changing context of globalization. We identify scale as particularly important in this regard.

Community-Based Narwhal Management in Nunavut, Canada: Change, Uncertainty, and Adaptation

ABSTRACT To promote sustainable forms of community-based resource management, advocates and analysts must examine not only how multiple participants act collectively, but how they respond to change and uncertainty in ways that foster learning and build capacity for management adaptation. In the community-based narwhal management context, a number of issues influence prospects for adaptation and learning. Among the issues examined, the integration of remote communities in Nunavut into the market economy and the subsequent demand for cash to purchase key commodities create new and diverse motivations (collective vs. individual), which increasingly influence natural resource management decisions. Also, the formalized nature of the community-based narwhal management framework, despite efforts to transfer more authority to communities, may still create barriers to local Inuit participation in decision making. Finally, resource mobility and complexity makes the clarification of resource rights difficult, thus inhibiting the collective action required to foster learning. This problem is compounded by the challenge of effectively integrating formal science and traditional knowledge to better understand resource complexity.

A Systematic Review of Water Vulnerability Assessment Tools

The important relationship between health and water necessitates consideration of water vulnerability. Water vulnerability is contingent upon biophysical and social drivers operating at multiple scales, and is difficult to assess. This paper offers a systematic review of 50 water vulnerability assessment tools. We identify and synthesise the contents of these assessment tools (710 indicators) into five dimensions and 22 sub-dimensions and consider the extent to which they reflect environmental and social aspects. The findings are discussed in light of a holistic approach to water resources management, and specifically Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Significant opportunities exist to enhance the efficacy of water vulnerability assessment tools by incorporating indicators and operational measures for social considerations (e.g., adaptation, institutions, governance) that are developed outside the context of water.

Socio-institutional dynamics and the political ecology of mangrove forest conservation in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract Mangrove forests provide a range of ecological and socio-economic benefits in coastal zones throughout the worlds tropical regions. Yet the conversion of mangrove forest, due in particular to aquaculture development, is occurring at a dramatic rate. Drawing on insights and concepts offered by political ecology and complex systems, processes of mangrove forest conversion and aquaculture development in the coastal zone of Banawa District, Central Sulawesi, are analyzed. This is accomplished by exploring: (1) the comparative benefits of aquaculture developments and intact mangrove forest ecosystems; (2) a policy narrative supportive of intensified aquaculture development at the expense of common property resource systems in the region; and (3) the manner in which this narrative interacts with cross-scale administrative, institutional, economic, socio-cultural and property rights dynamics. The analysis suggests that policy and management issues aimed at conserving mangrove forests and alleviating the ecological and socio-economic impacts of aquaculture development in the region are not simply a matter of government formulating, enforcing and monitoring regulations that guard against mangrove forest conversion. Rather, there is a need to formulate, propose, implement and monitor strategies that contest existing policy narratives and challenge entrenched economic interests and power relationships.

Adaptive Comanagement and Its Relationship to Environmental Governance

We provide a systematic review of the adaptive comanagement (ACM) literature to (i) investigate how the concept of governance is considered and (ii) examine what insights ACM offers with reference to six key concerns in environmental governance literature: accountability and legitimacy; actors and roles; fit, interplay, and scale; adaptiveness, flexibility, and learning; evaluation and monitoring; and, knowledge. Findings from the systematic review uncover a complicated relationship with evidence of conceptual closeness as well as relational ambiguities. The findings also reveal several specific contributions from the ACM literature to each of the six key environmental governance concerns, including applied strategies for sharing power and responsibility and value of systems approaches in understanding problems of fit. More broadly, the research suggests a dissolving or fuzzy boundary between ACM and governance, with implications for understanding emerging approaches to navigate social-ecological system change. Future research opportunities may be found at the confluence of ACM and environmental governance scholarship, such as identifying ways to build adaptive capacity and encouraging the development of more flexible governance arrangements.

Traditional agroecological knowledge, adaptive management and the socio-politics of conservation in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

This paper illustrates the opportunity for conservation offered by linking traditional agroecological knowledge and advances in adaptive management theory and practice. Drawing on examples from the Banawa-Marawola region of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, a suite of traditional resource management practices premised on principles of adaptive management are identified and assessed, including: (1) resource management practices and regulations that are associated with the dynamics of complex systems; (2) procedural, planning and decision-making processes that foster learning; (3) sanctions and taboos that act as social mechanisms for the management and conservation of natural resources; and (4) ceremonies and social interactions that promote cultural internalization of the various practices, procedures and mechanisms. In addition, an emerging socio-political movement in the Banawa-Marawola region is explored. Premised on the strengthening of traditional rights and practices, the nascent Kamalise movement potentially provides the socio-political, institutional and organizational context needed to link traditional agroecological knowledge and adaptive management with broader conservation goals. Based on this analysis, two opportunities to enhance conservation in the region are identified: first, maintaining traditional agroecological systems and the associated adaptive resource management strategies used by local groups, and second, building upon the Kamalise movement to forge conservation alliances among communities, non-government and government organizations in which locally-evolved adaptive resource management strategies can be effectively applied. Both opportunities to combine traditional knowledge, adaptive management and conservation, however, are linked to the development aspirations of traditional groups: self-determination, acquisition of land rights and controlling the impacts of changes in livelihood.