Erin Bohensky

Linking futures across scales : a dialog on multiscale scenarios

Scenario analysis is a useful tool for exploring key uncertainties that may shape the future of social-ecological systems. This paper explores the methods, costs, and benefits of developing and linking scenarios of social-ecological systems across multiple spatial scales. Drawing largely on experiences in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, we suggest that the desired degree of cross-scale linkage depends on the primary aim of the scenario exercise. Loosely linked multiscale scenarios appear more appropriate when the primary aim is to engage in exploratory dialog with stakeholders. Tightly coupled cross-scale scenarios seem to work best when the main objective is to further our understanding of cross-scale interactions or to assess trade-offs between scales. The main disadvantages of tightly coupled cross-scale scenarios are that their development requires substantial time and financial resources, and that they often suffer loss of credibility at one or more scales. The reasons for developing multiscale scenarios and the expectations associated with doing so therefore need to be carefully evaluated when choosing the desired degree of cross-scale linkage in a particular scenario exercise.

Participatory scenario planning in place-based social-ecological research: insights and experiences from 23 case studies

Participatory scenario planning (PSP) is an increasingly popular tool in place-based environmental research for evaluating alternative futures of social-ecological systems. Although a range of guidelines on PSP methods are available in the scientific and grey literature, there is a need to reflect on existing practices and their appropriate application for different objectives and contexts at the local scale, as well as on their potential perceived outcomes. We contribute to theoretical and empirical frameworks by analyzing how and why researchers assess social-ecological systems using place-based PSP, hence facilitating the appropriate uptake of such scenario tools in the future. We analyzed 23 PSP case studies conducted by the authors in a wide range of social-ecological settings by exploring seven aspects: (1) the context; (2) the original motivations and objectives; (3) the methodological approach; (4) the process; (5) the content of the scenarios; (6) the outputs of the research; and (7) the monitoring and evaluation of the PSP process. This was complemented by a reflection on strengths and weaknesses of using PSP for the place-based social-ecological research. We conclude that the application of PSP, particularly when tailored to shared objectives between local people and researchers, has enriched environmental management and scientific research through building common understanding and fostering learning about future planning of social-ecological systems. However, PSP still requires greater systematic monitoring and evaluation to assess its impact on the promotion of collective action for transitions to sustainability and the adaptation to global environmental change and its challenges.

Framing the flood: a media analysis of themes of resilience in the 2011 Brisbane flood

In the wake of the flood that affected Brisbane, Australia, in January 2011, public attention turned to the causes of the event and lessons for minimizing the impacts of future floods. The news media was an important vehicle for understanding and internalizing the 2011 Brisbane flood. Examining how the flood was framed in the media is, therefore, useful to understand broad public perception of floods. We undertook a systematic newspaper analysis during a one-year period to explore media framings of the flood, focused on learning as an aspect of resilience in relation to two themes: (1) perceived links between the flood and climate change and (2) perceived roles of government in managing the flood. We show that media coverage of the flood reinforces aspects of resilience by acknowledging community spirit, self-reliance and the importance of sharing experiences for learning; articulating the risk of extreme events in a changing climate; and highlighting regional management trade-offs. Much of the discourse is likely to inhibit resilience, however, by casting the flood in terms of blame and political opportunity and paying inadequate attention to longer-term aspects of regional resilience. The limited learning observed to date may highlight a need for other mechanisms and actors to lead learning processes. As policy related to the 2011 Brisbane flood, and extreme events more generally, is influenced by the public discourse, it is important to understand the nuances of communication around these events and the media’s role in reinforcing or changing perceptions.

Discovering Resilient Pathways for South African Water Management: Two Frameworks for a Vision

Factors that constitute resilience can themselves change over time in social-ecological systems. This poses a major challenge for understanding resilience and suggests greater investigation is needed of how social-ecological systems evolve through time and how to manage along more resilient pathways given continuous change. Resilient pathways account for the changing context of social- ecological systems, such as changing management discourses and their societal inclusiveness, changing system boundaries and external connections, and lingering consequences of past management actions. In this paper I use two well-known conceptual frameworks to explore change in social-ecological systems and associated resilience in the case of water management in South Africa, which is undergoing a major transformation: (1) the conceptual framework of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and (2) the adaptive cycle described by Holling and others. Both frameworks, with minor adaptations, illustrate the systems shift from a centralized command-and-control style bureaucracy to a decentralized system guided by new legislation and a vision to balance efficiency, equity, and sustainability. During the former era, water managers attempted to maintain system stability and productivity through institutional and technical means that favored certain sectors of society, but resilience of the water management system declined as a result of increasingly unpopular policies and loss of ecosystem services. In using both frameworks, it becomes clear that the water management system contains two distinct social subsystems, representing South Africas previously advantaged and disadvantaged populations, and that these do not progress through the phases of the MA framework and adaptive cycle uniformly. This implies particular challenges for achieving the water management vision: (1) the potential for management discourses to be manipulated by powerful groups, (2) equity issues that reflect new system boundaries that extend beyond South Africas borders, and (3) past overallocation and poor management of water that make the previous level of privileges unattainable today. The South African water sector is a compelling case because of its dramatic transformation with as-yet unknown outcomes, but it presents challenges that are common among many large-scale social-ecological systems. With great international interest in operationalizing resilience definitions and frameworks, this exercise suggests the need to revisit definitions, continue applying these frameworks, and adapting them to capture variations in social-ecological systems.

Integrating Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and Science in Natural Resource Management: Perspectives from Australia

Ecology and Society’s 2004 special feature on Traditional Knowledge in Social-Ecological Systems (http://www. ecologyandsociety.org/issues/view.php/feature/13) marked one of the first efforts to view traditional, local, and Indigenous knowledge and their roles in managing ecosystems through the lens of social-ecological systems (SES) resilience. This view acknowledges the importance of experimentation, learning, and pluralism to cope with uncertainty in complex adaptive systems (Folke 2004, Folke et al. 2005, Berkes and Turner 2006, Davidson-Hunt 2006, Berkes 2009). As a frame for understanding knowledge, SES resilience provided new inspiration for scientists seeking to understand Indigenous livelihoods and resource management, increasingly against the backdrop of rapid global change (Armitage and Johnson 2006, Mercer et al. 2012, Raygorodetsky 2013).

Adaptive Capacity in Theory and Reality: Implications for Governance in the Great Barrier Reef Region

The Great Barrier Reef is an iconic ecosystem that faces multiple threats, including overharvesting, water quality decline and climate change. There is general recognition that these threats occur at multiple scales, and the reef ecosystem therefore requires management at multiple scales. This situation presents a highly complex challenge, as it involves multiple actors who have different objectives and values associated with the GBR. Adaptive capacity, by most definitions and measures, is considered high for this region, but these definitions and measures may have limited utility for managing in reality because they fall short of accounting for the complex dynamics of the region, including how adaptive capacity and its determinants are perceived on the ground. In this chapter, we review theoretical definitions of adaptive capacity and compare these to individual and organizational perceptions of adaptive capacity obtained through interview data from several research efforts. We discuss key messages emerging from this comparison of theoretical and empirical definitions, and potential implications for future governance of the Great Barrier Reef region.

Experts’ Perspectives on the Integration of Indigenous Knowledge and Science in Wet Tropics Natural Resource Management

ABSTRACT Aboriginal inhabitants of the Wet Tropics of Queensland advocate for greater inclusion of their Indigenous knowledge (IK) in natural resource management (NRM) to fulfil their customary obligations to country and to exert their Native Title rights. Despite a legal and institutional framework for inclusion of IK in NRM, IK has so far been applied only sporadically. We conducted an ethnographic case study to investigate perceptions on IK, science and how they affect integration of the two knowledge systems in the Wet Tropics. Our results show that IK and science are perceived as different concepts; that integration is limited by weak Indigenous internal and external governance; and that stronger Aboriginal governance and more focused engagement strategies are required to further the application of IK in local NRM. We conclude by arguing that NRM in the Wet Tropics needs to be reconceptualised to accommodate IK holistically, by considering its epistemology and the values and ethic that underpin it.

Advances in monitoring the human dimension of natural resource systems: an example from the Great Barrier Reef

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility and potential utility of decision-centric social-economic monitoring using data collected from Great Barrier Reef (Reef) region. The social and economic long term monitoring program (SELTMP) for the Reef is a novel attempt to monitor the social and economic dimensions of social-ecological change in a globally and nationally important region. It represents the current status and condition of the major user groups of the Reef with the potential to simultaneously consider trends, interconnections, conflicts, dependencies and vulnerabilities. Our approach was to combine a well-established conceptual framework with a strong governance structure and partnership arrangement that enabled the co-production of knowledge. The framework is a modification of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and it was used to guide indicator choice. Indicators were categorised as; (i) resource use and dependency, (ii) ecosystem benefits and well-being, and (iii) drivers of change. Data were collected through secondary datasets where existing and new datasets were created where not, using standard survey techniques. Here we present an overview of baseline results of new survey data from commercial-fishers (n = 210), marine-based tourism operators (n = 119), tourists (n = 2877), local residents (n = 3181), and other Australians (n = 2002). The indicators chosen describe both social and economic components of the Reef system and represent an unprecedented insight into the ways in which people currently use and depend on the Reef, the benefits that they derive, and how they perceive, value and relate to the Reef and each other. However, the success of a program such as the SELTMP can only occur with well-translated cutting-edge data and knowledge that are collaboratively produced, adaptive, and directly feeds into current management processes. We discuss how data from the SELTMP have already been incorporated into Reef management decision-making through substantial inclusion in three key policy documents.

Indigenous environmental values as human values

Abstract The claim that in natural resource management (NRM) a change from anthropocentric values and ethics to eco-centric ones is necessary to achieve sustainability leads to the search for eco-centric models of relationship with the environment. Indigenous cultures can provide such models; hence, there is the need for multicultural societies to further include their values in NRM. In this article, we investigate the environmental values placed on a freshwater environment of the Wet Tropics by a community of indigenous Australians. We discuss their environmental values as human values, and so as beliefs that guide communities’ understanding of how the natural world should be viewed and treated by humans. This perspective represents a step forward in our understanding of indigenous environmental values, and a way to overcome the paradigm of indigenous values as valued biophysical attributes of the environment or processes happening in landscapes. Our results show that the participant community holds biospheric values. Restoring these values in the NRM of the Wet Tropics could contribute to sustainability and environmental justice in the area.

Principle 4 – Foster complex adaptive systems thinking

The social–ecological systems that provide ecosystem services to society can be viewed as complex adaptive systems (CAS), characterized by a high level of interconnectedness, potential for non-linear change, and inherent uncertainty and surprise. This chapter focuses on whether resilience of ecosystem services is enhanced by management based on what we refer to as ‘CAS thinking’, meaning a mental model for interpreting the world that recognizes these CAS properties. We present evidence that CAS thinking has contributed to change in management approaches in the Kruger National Park, Great Barrier Reef, Tisza river basin and Chile among other places. However, attempts to introduce CAS thinking may compromise resilience when complexity is not effectively communicated, when uncomfortable institutional change is required or when CAS thinking is not able to evolve with changing contexts or is not equitably shared. We suggest that CAS thinking can be fostered by the following: adopting a systems framework; tolerating and embracing uncertainty; investigating critical thresholds and non-linearities; acknowledging epistemological pluralism; matching institutions to CAS processes; and recognizing barriers to cognitive change. Key questions for future research on this principle relate to communicating CAS thinking, the role of power, the importance of an organizational level of CAS thinking, and institutional barriers.