SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTTHROUGH A RESILIENCE APPROACH

TO MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE

Brian WalkerCSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems

The Resilience Alliance (www.resalliance.org)

Why is it, that with the best intentions ……

Mulga rangelands in Australia

Alternate states in lakes

Western Australian wheatbelt

Caribbean coral reefs

These are all social-ecological systems– interlinked systems of humans and nature

Unwelcome surprises in such systems are aresult of loss of resilience

Loss of resilience occurs through changes inslow variables leading to changed feedbacks

( )Supply of ecosystem services as a function of ecosystem state

‘B’ - lake services (fish, recreation) as a function of phosphate in mud‘A’ - rangeland services (wool production from grazing) as a function of shrubsVc - critical, threshold levels

www.resalliance.org - thresholds database

Development paradigms, such as seekingmaximum sustainable yield (MSY), originallyworked well, but are now running into problems

They create feedbacks that eventually causedifficulty

• focus on average conditions (rather than extremeevents)

Flawed assumptions underlying maximumsustainable yield

• belief that problems from different sectors don’tinteract (they do, very much)• expectation that change will be incremental andlinear (smooth) (it is mostly lurching and non-linear)• keeping the system in some optimal state willdeliver MSY indefinitely.

There is no sustainable “optimal” state of an ecosystem,a social system, or the world. It is an unattainable goal

Assumptions underlying Resilience Managementand Governance of social-ecological systems

1. They have non-linear dynamics withthresholds, and show self-organisingemergent behaviour

No-one is in charge !Top-down, command-and-control management

doesn’t work for very long

2. They exist as linked adaptive cycles atmultiple scales

Adaptive cycles

ecosystems, societies and social-ecologicalsystems cycle through 4 characteristic phases

aa __

rrKK

r: growthresources readily available

K: conservationResources slowly‘locked up’, complexityincreases

W: rapid release‘locked up’ resources suddenlyreleased; chaotic dynamics

a: re-organization andrenewala time for innovation

aa __

rrKK

Sustainable development (staying ondesirable trajectories) requires systems

that are

resilient, adaptable & transformable

ResilienceFormal definition:

The capacity of a system to absorbdisturbance and re-organise whileundergoing change so as to still retainessentially the same function, structure,identity and feedbacks

L

RPr

R1

R2

R3

R4

Focal scale

Finer scale

Coarser scale

R4

Panarchy (Pa) - influence of the states of the system (including wherethey are in their adaptive cycles) at scales above and below the focal scale,by impacting the system directly (from the finer scale) or by changing thestability landscape (from the coarser scale).

Latitude (L): the maximum amount a system can bechanged before losing its ability to recover (beforecrossing a threshold which, if breached, makesrecovery difficult or impossible)

Resistance (R): ease or difficulty of changing the system

Precariousness (Pr): current trajectory - how close thesystem is to a ‘threshold’

Panarchy (Pa): influence on the focal scale from scalesabove and below

(external politics, invasions, market shifts, climatechange can trigger local surprises and flips)

Four key aspects of resilience

AdaptabilityThe capacity of the system (people in it) tomanage resilience :

(i) move thresholds, or make it easier/harderto change the system (change the basin)

(ii) control the trajectory of the system (avoidcrossing a threshold, or engineer such a crossing)

!

resilience per se is not necessarilydesirable

the Hindu caste system ?

desertified and impoverished parts of the Sahel

transformability - the only way out

TransformabilityThe capacity to become (or create) afundamentally different system when ecological,social and/or economic conditions make theexisting system untenable

What determines resilience?

-Diversity (eggs-in-baskets)*-Modularity (connectedness)-Tight feedbacks-

*(e.g., having more perennial grasses in arangeland increases resilience of production todrought and grazing)

What determines Adaptability?

– social capitalleadershiptrust

- overlapping institutions

- human capital (skills, education, health)- financial resources- natural capital

- ongoing learning

What determines Transformability?

(we don’t know, but…)- cross-scale awareness (knowing when to jump)- propensity for experimentation (rewarded, notpenalised)- external support that provides options forchange vs incentives not to change- ?

Resilience, adaptability and transformability indesertification (Fernandez et al 2003)

declining grass basal cover

Vc1

Vc2

deb

t : i

ncom

e ra

tio

debt

: inc

ome

ratio

A C

B D

A C

B D

1/grass basal cover

Resilience governance and managementconsists of:

1. Maintaining or increasing the resilience ofdesirable states (or, conversely, decreasingit for undesirable states)

2. Keeping the system on desirabletrajectories - within a desirable state(or trying to get the system from anundesirable onto a desirable trajectory

A resilience approach identifies possibleintervention points in:

- management- governance (laws, regulations, rights)- investment

In developing intervention strategies:

• Thresholds and slow variables are the key

• The effectiveness of an intervention dependson where a system is in the adaptive cycle

• Beware of: - pursuing some perceived “optimal” state

- increasing “efficiency” that removes“apparent” redundancy

¸¸¸¸NatureConservn.

¸¸¸¸¸¸¸¸¸¸Dryland Crops

¸¸¸¸¸¸¸¸¸¸¸Dairy

businessmgmt.utilityirrigationt’sportarea &condn.

aciditywaterquality

diseasewaterstorage

soil,watertable &salinity

SkillsLabourInfrastructureEquimentMachinery

NativeVegn.

SoilWaterLivestock(cows &sheep)

Fodder

Human CapitalManufactured CapitalNatural Capital

Possible thresholds (¸) along “slow” variables (capital stocks) inthree production systems in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment)

Capital stocks

Prod

uction

sys

tems

Adaptive cycles are everywhere

- Ecosystems- Farming regions- Corporations- Societies and civilizations (rise and fall ofempires, Russian communism, the AnasaziIndians, Easter Island, …)

THE BIGGER PICTURE

rr

KK

__

aa

adaptive cycles are linked across scales

Which parts of Australia show critical loss ofresilience?

Are there regions in Australia teetering around abackloop?

Given its unprecedented connectivity, is a globalizingworld itself approaching a big backloop?If a big backloop looms, can a resilience approach helpavoid it, or prepare a graceful passage through it?

Examples of questions flowing from a resilienceapproach

Sacred forest (150ha) surrounded byagricultural land (beans and maize)

Southern Madagascar dry thorn forests

?

Sacred Forests - alafaly

What would a sustainably developing SES look like?

It would:- promote and sustain diversity - biological, landscape, economic (multiple useof resources), social- restrict human control of ecological variability- be modular (connected systems susceptible to shocks)- emphasize learning, social networks, and locally developed rules

And have:- tight feedbacks- a policy focus on “slow” variables associated with thresholds- a mix of common and private property, overlapping access rights- strong penalties (‘public shaming’) for cheaters- overlapping institutions (hierarchically)- unpriced ecosystem services included in development proposals- low resistance to change; innovation and experiments encouraged- strong awareness and response to cross-scale influences

The MarketClimate

Lightly Grazed Site (site 5)

photo by Jill Landsberg

abundance of grass species in an ungrazedrangeland in Australia

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Plant attributes determining ecosystem production(available data)

• height

• mature plant biomass

• specific leaf area

• longevity

• leaf litter quality

• height

• mature plant biomass

• specific leaf area

• longevity

• leaf litter quality

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021

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Functional similarities between dominant and minorspecies

Heavily Grazed Site

photo by Jill Landsberg

- Ecosystem performance is promoted byhigh functional diversity (complementarity)

- Resilience is promoted by high responsediversity (in rainforests, coral reefs, lakes,rangelands)

( cf Elmqvist etal; Response diversity, ecosystem changeand resilience. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment)