Stephen Dovers

Uncertainty, sustainability and change☆

Abstract This article offers an exploration of connections between sustainability, risk and uncertainty. Global environmental change and human sustainability are characterized as the challenge of managing change in dynamic systems riddled with uncertainty. A number of disciplines and intellectual traditions, including systems thinking, risk and ecology, are surveyed briefly as sources to inform an approach to this challenge. Approaches to managing risk and uncertainty are discussed, a typology of resilience constructed, and an approach to sustainability defined. The discussion is based on the three imperatives of constant change, everpresent uncertainty and ignorance, and an increasingly stressed interdependency between humans and the biosphere.

Societal Vulnerability to Climate Change and Variability

Institutions in many wealthy industrialised countries are robust and their societies appear to be relatively well insulated against the impacts of climate variability, economic problems elsewhere and so on. However, many countries are not in this position, and there is a growing group of humanity which is not benefiting from the apparent global adaptive trends. Worst case scenarios reinforce the impact of this uneven distribution of adaptive capacity, both between and within countries. Nevertheless, at the broad global scale human societies are strongly adaptive and not threatened by climate change for many decades. At the local level the picture is quite different and the survival of some populations at their present locations is in doubt. In the absence of abatement, the longer term outlook is highly uncertain. Adaptation research needs to begin with an understanding of social and economic vulnerability. It requires a different approach to the traditional IPCC impacts assessment, as human behaviour, institutional capacity and culture are more important than biophysical impacts. This is consistent with the intellectual history of the IPCC which has gradually embraced an increasing range of disciplines.

Adaptive capacity and learning to learn as leverage for social–ecological resilience

Adaptive capacity is increasingly recognized as essential for maintaining the resilience of social–ecological systems and for coping with environmental change. Four main requirements enable societies to successfully adapt to change: (1) the will and intention to maintain social–ecological resilience, (2) knowledge about current problems and the desired direction of change, (3) proactive behavior, and (4) the capacity to change existing patterns of behavior. The adaptive capacity of societies can be greatly enhanced by fostering the adaptive capacity of their individual members. Considerable knowledge about how to foster the adaptability of individuals exists in the science of education and in cognitive and social psychology. Developing the ability to learn flexibly in a variety of ways, contexts, and circumstances is an important element of developing adaptive capacity. The widespread implementation of modern teaching approaches in the education sector could make a substantial contribution to building and...

Sustainability: Demands on Policy

In recent years, issues of environment and human development have been gathered together under the integrative framework of sustainability (sustainable development), creating unprecedented demands on policy. Major policy processes have been constructed and are producing new and supposedly far reaching agreements, policies and strategies. However palatable politically, the likelihood of these leading to significant positive changes in the environment or human use of it, however, is questionable. This situation is sketched, using the Australian setting as an example. The article then establishes in detail the problem attributes particular to sustainability, and argues the crucial proposition that this policy field is different from others in both kind and degree. Some implications of this for policy analysis and prescription are noted.

Human behavior and sustainability

7 Sustainability demands changes in human behavior. To this end, priority areas include reforming formal insti- tutions, strengthening the institutions of civil society, improving citizen engagement, curbing consumption and population growth, addressing social justice issues, and reflecting on value and belief systems. We review existing knowledge across these areas and conclude that the global sustainability deficit is not primarily the result of a lack of academic knowledge. Rather, unsustainable behaviors result from a vicious cycle, where tra- ditional market and state institutions reinforce disincentives for more sustainable behaviors while, at the same time, the institutions of civil society lack momentum to effectively promote fundamental reforms of those insti- tutions. Achieving more sustainable behaviors requires this cycle to be broken. We call on readers to contribute to social change through involvement in initiatives like the Ecological Society of Americas Earth Stewardship Initiative or the nascent Millennium Alliance for Humanity & the Biosphere.

A framework for scaling and framing policy problems in sustainability

Abstract It is argued that a necessary, but lacking, component of our approach in seeking policy responses to sustainability issues is some repeatable means whereby the relative magnitude and characteristics of these various policy problems faced in a given context can be analysed and described. To this end, a simple and tentative framework is constructed, based on the definition of the key attributes which shape policy problems pertaining to environmental change. These are: spatial scale of cause and effect; magnitude, timing and longevity of possible impacts; reversibility; mensurability; complexity and connectivity; nature of cause(s); relevance to the given polity; tractability (availability and acceptability of means); public concern; and existence of goals. These attributes inform a general taxonomy of micro-, meso- and macro-problems. The attributes and the taxonomy are described with supporting examples. To illustrate possible application of the framework, it is discussed briefly in the contexts of operationalising the ‘precautionary principle’, and policy instrument choice. It is concluded that the framework can help focus debate and operationalise vague principles, introduce relativity into the notion of sustainability, and make policy choice more efficient.

Community-based NRM Boards of Management: Are They Up to the Task?

We examine Australias 56 community-based regional NRM boards of management with responsibilities for delivery of two major national programs: Natural Heritage Trust Extension (NHT2) and National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP). The construct of community-based boards, as a lynchpin in the institutional model, has received little attention. Existing literature largely examines boards as individual case studies or in a cursory way within the broader regional arrangements: this article explicitly examines boards, and their current form and function. A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is used to examine the efficacy of boards as key agents of regional NRM planning and implementation. The work concludes that the people who comprise the regional system are constrained in performing changing and increasingly onerous roles with uncertain resourcing, and some regional actors are marginalised from decision-making. It identifies a need for governments to streamline program administration, introduce greater clarity and consistency in bilateral agreements, moderate regional responsibilities, enable regional flexibility, support effective capacity building measures and ensure consistent resourcing.

Uncertainty, ecology, sustainability and policy

Using an Australian focus to explore theoretical and policy issues of wider concern, this article examines linkages between public policy and the science of ecology. This is done within the broader framework of sustainability, emphasizing the problem of decision making in the face of ‘uncertainty’. Insights from the ecological, risk, sustainability and policy literatures are used. The sustainability-uncertainty problem is characterized, and the adequacy of existing policy support techniques and approaches noted, particularly the precautionary principle. The problem is further defined using the notion of ignorance. The treatment of ignorance and uncertainty in ecology is discussed. We suggest that the science of ecology has had a limited influence on policy formulation and discuss the basis of this using biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management as examples. We conclude by considering challenges for handling risk, uncertainty and ignorance in ecological science for policy formulation. We emphasize the need for improved communication between the science and policy communities, greater recognition of the limits of quantitative techniques in addressing uncertainty, and contingency planning.

Information, Sustainability and Policy

This article considers three imperatives from sustainability (sustainable development): pervasive uncertainty; the need for better information; and policy choice. The focus of the article is Australian, and the scale is national. While decisions must always be made on the basis of far-from- perfect knowledge, profound changes are demanded now in our efforts to inform ecological aspects of the sustainability problem. If not, we will be unable to design and implement effective policies, and further will be unable to assess whether our policies are working. Examples are noted, and the broad shape of the required changes outlined. These changes include: better institutional and policy abilities to handle uncertainty; redoubled efforts and greater independence and permanence in basic environmental monitoring; more continuity in policy settings; more sophisticated policy instrument choice; and stronger linkages between policy and. information via policy monitoring.

South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons

South Africas Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons. Edited by Stephen Dovers, Ruth Edgecombe, and Bill Guest. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003, and Cape Town: David Philip, 2002. Pp. ix, 326.