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Moving forward with resilience thinking

I wish that I had more insightful thoughts about utilizing resilience in practice than the ones that follow. Yes, I can think about how powerful of a tool it can be — a game-changer really. But unfortunately all I can focus on are the realities that Laura and Walker and Salt describe. In-the-now attitudes or doctrines of controlling nature are quite real, and are *very* powerful.  Achieving the goals of the resilience approach will be difficult and changing the deeply-rooted paradigm requires burrowing through the ideologies of anthropocentrism and individualism, and thus through the core belief of environmental domination.  It will take a great deal of time to undo what people have believed in for thousands of years and what they so powerfully instill in the modern era.  It requires that all parties involved accept nature and work with its cycles, as opposed to controlling it; or at the very least it requires that a group of influential parties begin the conversation. The task will be arduous, since such dogmas as growth and efficiency have become common-speak and pollute many sectors of public life, and thus become belief systems that have perpetually been retaught over and over again within society.   Regardless, there is a sense of urgency that undermines the demands of time in realizing change.  Our only hope can be to plant the seeds of resilience thinking in current and future generations through their [ecological] education, so they can repopulate corrupted social arenas with fruitful actions that respect the cyclical nature of life and ultimately protect the needs of humanity and the environment.

Wrapping up resilience

On my walk to work everyday, I cross one of the many bridges that extends across the Bombon River.  However, it wasn’t until last week that I noticed a sign marking a priority project of City Government of Tabaco City back in 2005: Rehab of the Bombon River.  Now…after glancing at this, I could only think about how visually ineffective that project was.  Eight years later and the river remains a cesspool.  Even the sign was falling apart and had been placed in a virtually unnoticeable spot (hence why I hadn’t seen it for 8 months!).  As I mentioned in an earlier post, many decisions are often rushed into to provide an unsustainable output for the community.  They are often made for present gain, without looking ahead at future challenges and consequences (as Laura stated, “living in the now”).  Was this project the same?  Was it designed to make a few people look good, for political interest, or without anticipating for change?  Power dynamics and political interests are two extremely impactful players here in the Philippines.  And I’ve noticed this even more since it is currently election season.  Employees are rarely fired, but primarily change due to political changes or retirement.  Many of my projects have been put on hold for the time being because of elections, and as a volunteer, you always have to be aware of your surroundings, inside and outside of your work environment (especially as a CRM volunteer since we work with the LGUs).  Pushing a particular project or attending a meeting or dinner could have its own set of consequences depending on election results.

I think one of the solutions to effective resiliency and also in dealing with power dynamics is establishing management councils throughout community levels.  Here in the Philippines, these are called Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Management Councils (FARMCs).  They can extend from the barangay level (smallest) to the provincial or integrated level (largest).  Chapter 5 and Case Study 5 from Walker and Salt describe similar solutions (2006).  Anyone has the ability to make resilient decisions for themselves or their community.  This could stem from the individual level to a community, municipal, or regional level, as was the case with the Vattenrike region in Sweden.  The issue with the FARMCs in the Philippines is their lack of consistent involvement.  Many municipalities have them implemented, but monthly meetings are rare and proper management is scarce, essentially making them nonexistent   However, they have the potential to be very successful resiliency bodies since they work together over a variety of scales and connect LGUs with NGOs, academia, etc.  So how can we address the issue of FARMC inconsistency in the Philippines?  Is it an educational problem?  Are the “right” people in charge?  All of these questions, again, relate back to our struggle with power dynamics.

Depending on your placement as a volunteer, capacity building often becomes your largest project during your service.  Previously mentioned, I see the Resiliency Workbook as a good starting point to get ideas flowing related to community resilience.  I particularly like the scenario approach, discussed by both Walker and Salt (2006) and the Workbook, because it generates a discussion of what could happen in the future and the need to prepare for these changes now.  But what are some ways we can capacity build to an ever-growing and ever-changing audience?  And to those who lack educational experience or resources?  Within my own community, continuous capacity building through various trainings and IEC campaigns could be one strategy.  But again, is this sustainable over a long period of time when there are employment changes?  A potential project of mine is a mini-CRM gallery, highlighting community issues, past and present projects, and ways to get involved in the community, primarily through murals.  It would be fixated in the heart of a few coastal barangays and would be an indirect way to attract support for CRM and natural resource management.  However, Laura hit the nail on the head when she mentioned proper leadership.  Resiliency is improbable if a system is forced to continuously adapt to new social or political changes.  As we have discussed, multiple stable states can exist, but too many put the system in a very vulnerable state.

This semester has allowed me to analyze resiliency on two levels: as a student and as a volunteer.  Both have been able to work hand-in-hand as I’ve been able to witness how our readings tie in with my everyday life.  It has challenged me to see past my daily highs and lows, instead, often viewing them with an “adaptive cycle” lens.  How can this success or obstacle help dictate my next move?  What happened previously that makes this method ineffective?  How can my time best be utilized to enhance the resiliency of my host family, my work, or my city?  Resilience thinking forces people to think beyond the present, past their personal wants, and instead focuses on working collaboratively, taking into account system vulnerability, and using past experiences to make better informed and sustainable decisions for the present and future of their communities.  My own resiliency has been continuously challenged as a Peace Corps volunteer.  I fully expect this to continue, but being able to mitigate and adapt to those challenges allows me to grow as a volunteer and as a person.

Some concluding thoughts on resilience thinking

Reflection on last part of the Resilience Workbook & Resilience Thinking book

Some points in the last few chapters of Resilience Thinking resonated with my experience in the context of environmental management in a developing country. The authors pointed out that one doesn’t have to be well versed in all the detailed theory of resilience in order to apply resilience thinking to management interventions (chapter 5). The whole concept of the Resilience Workbook supports this point: although a more detailed supplemental books is attached for practitioners to familiarize themselves with concepts such as thresholds and adaptive cycles, people can work through the workbook without being experts. They just have to be aware of the state of their system and the interactions that occur between various components, including ecological-social interactions in order to answer most of the guided questions.

The question then becomes, are people really aware of processes and interactions of their social-ecological system? In answering this, I also want to address Annette’s previous post, and perhaps clarify what I’ve written previously. First, not all MPA mangers and management schemes are the same. As a result, sometimes they are in the hands of “experts” from academe or international projects and NGOs that have a breadth of knowledge and resources about how coastal social-ecological systems function. Some (like mine) are run by the local government and some are completely community-run after the initial set up. With that being said, it’s very possible that the day -to-day management of an MPA or sanctuary is being run by people who do not have formal knowledge of social-ecological system processes. Many MPAS are managed by the local government unit, institutions in which employees don’t necessarily have previous education or experience in their line of work. Yet, it’s my impression that most managers have local knowledge of their communities relationship with marine resources and how ecological systems are being altered in order to make sound decisions. There are also outside institutions such as universities and NGOs that reach out to coastal leaders to assist and ensure decisions are being made to help the overall well-being of the social-ecological system. I don’t want to give the impression that all of our marine sanctuaries are being run by ill-advised, uneducated people- that is certainly not the case. However, there are instances where the people in charge might be the best ones for the job. Yet, because of political work-dynamics, the qualifications or ability of a person or management body to manage a reserve may not be challenged.

The importance of leadership as a “crucial component” was discussed in both the workbook and Resilience Thinking, and in my experience this can make or break a management program. I agree with this statement and also think that it can be one of the greatest challenges to areas such as coastal resource management in developing countries. My city was fortunate enough to have someone dedicated to developing accepted and successful CRM activities in a leadership position for many years. Yet, we are in a risky situation because most of the leadership capacity (at least at the municipal level) lies within this one person. That’s to say that other people are not leaders of stakeholder groups, etc. but as of right now one person is unanimously seen as the leader of CRM activities for my city, which can be a risky situation if he is unwilling or unable to maintain this leadership position.

Reflection on Power Dynamics and Knowledge Production

As mentioned in the previous post, consideration of power dynamics was missing from our readings, yet they play a huge role in management which can then have effects on policies and decisions made towards creating a resilient social-ecological system. If possible, people from academe, NGOs, and other “neutral” organizations should be included in the deployment of the resilience workbook for situations in which government or other political parties are heavily involved in resource management. On the surface this seems like a logical solution to mitigating power bias since people from non-governmental institutions in theory should have less political influence or receive less backlash for not blindly following a political agenda. But power dynamics isn’t explicitly a political problem, politically unaffiliated people can rise into a leadership or power position and push their own personal agenda. To me, this also gives stronger support for why there should be a co-production of knowledge during planning phases of management- not only will it give a platform for multiple voices to be heard, but it can potentially minimized potentially negative effects of power dynamics.


Advantages and oversights of using a resilience-based approach // What I take away from this semester

I think one of the major oversights of using a resilience-based approach is the lack of clearly defined ways to measure resilience. Once people are introduced to the concept of resilience and start incorporating resilience thinking into management (such as using the workbook), two questions come to mind that I think people will ask:

Is our social-ecological system really a resilient one?
If so, how do we compare to other communities in similar socio-political-ecological environments?

The workbook is a great way to get people thinking about their adaptive capacity and provide some insight into what types of things might need to be improved, but without a way to someone measure resilience on the ground and compare it to other systems, managers may be left confused on the actual state of the system. Additionally, there wasn’t much discussion related to how resilience approaches might be difficult to incorporate with some cultures. Resilience thinking requires people to think in the past, future and the present. There must be a clearly defined vision of what people want their social-ecological system to be like and how it will be able to respond to disturbances. However, there are many cultures that live more “in the now”. I’ve found it sometimes difficult to get people in the Philippines to think critically about future disturbances because they very much live in the present and have a “Bahala na” attitude (Idea that whatever happens, happens. It’s God’s will.) This type of attitude also makes it difficult to instill a sense of urgency to act now. However, with all that being said, I sill believe a resilience-based approach to be advantageous for natural resource management. This approach pushes people to think critically about processes going on around them and if/how they might be vulnerable to changes in any aspect of the system.

Thinking Resilience…summarizing thoughts

So now Nicole, Andrew, and Laura are about to enter your final posts for the semester, after finishing the Workbook as well as the Resilience Thinking book.

All of your comments about the Workbook I thought were quite insightful–I was involved in one of the review processes of the workbook as a graduate student many years ago. At the time, it was presented to me to be a workbook specifically for land managers, say of arbitrarily bounded areas like National Parks (or perhaps Marine Protected Areas?), and as you all suspected, it is indeed supposed to be desiged for a team of professionals to talk about the system that they are supposed to manage. But, there are assumptions about the knowledge of those workers, certainly–it is not made for academics, but actual people working in an actual institution…and the assumption is that the people working in that institution actually know about the system they are hired to manage. I was wondering if it was applicable to MPA frameworks, since those are about ocean spaces–but perhaps the actual contrast then, based on your blog entries, is that the people managing MPAs do not have knowledge about their systems appropriate enough to manage and make decisions? Is that what I’m hearing you all say? If not the people who work for a land/ocean management institution, then what sorts of people would you have at the table to work through the exercises in the workbook?

One of my own critiques about the Resilience approach on the whole actually extends from all of your critiques of the Workbook: there is little recognition of actual power dynamics in the social side of the system. But politics matter–as you say, competing agendas and visions and varying abilities to influence policy. And some people have very little say, while others have everything to say–and the point of actual adaptation to environmental problems is to find the “right” people to listen to, not just the people who happen to have the loudest voice. How might the workbook be deployed more effectively to listen to those who might better know the answers sought in the workbook…?

So in your final entry for the semester, reflect on the last part of the Workbook in your respective contexts, reflect on the remainder of the Resilience Thinking book, and reflect on the ideas of power dynamics and knowledge production–what I also think has been missing when we are tasked to think about resilience…. Reflect on both the advantages and the oversights of this approach to thinking about adaptation and human well-being…and what you take away after a semester of thinking resilience.

Developing my own resilience

I’m a little late to the party this week.  Living in the Philippines forces me to handle some “resilience” issues of my own at times.  This past week has forced me out of the office (arrival of project materials!) quite a bit.  Additionally, community “brownouts” are common occurrences that virtually shut down the work place and make the already stifling heat (it’s dry season here) even worse.   Without duplicating the aforementioned posts, both Laura and Nicole touched on some important challenges the workbook (and resiliency all together) faces.   Overall, the workbook allowed me to think through and gather preliminary data on my focal system, the Bombon River in Tabaco City, which I hope to expand upon as a resiliency program for my Peace Corps and Master’s work.  There are two river systems in Tabaco, stemming from natural springs at the foot of Mount Mayon.  The Bombon River is the product of one of these and flows through the urban center of Tabaco, eventually emptying into local mangrove forests and Tabaco Gulf.  It serves as a primary water supplier for Tabaco, a nutrient supplier for the local coastal habitats, and, unfortunately, a trashcan for nearby residents.  It interacts with croplands, mangroves, and marine life, while playing a role in subsistence, local, and regional economies.  Its governance primarily lies at the local level, with the LGU of Tabaco and the Barangay Councils having the largest management roles, while local universities actively contribute in research and community activism.  However, the system is greatly impacted at the individual level, particularly through farming, solid waste, and urination, and the global level, by typhoons/tsunamis/flooding and volcanic eruptions.

The biggest issue I struggled with was the belief that those utilizing the workbook have a firm understanding of their focal system and scale and knowledge of dynamics of socio-ecological systems.  My agriculture office that I work for is made up of 20 year olds to 70 year olds, all with different educational backgrounds.  For example, my counterpart has a B.S. in Fisheries Management, while others have a high school degree or less.  The unequal distribution of knowledge coupled with various political and individual agendas creates an undesirable way to manage systems on an individual or organizational basis. It also leads to disconnect between people and their surroundings.  In the case of my focal system, many fail to see the importance of the rivers both up and downstream.  How does cropland runoff affect marine habitats and fish catch? What impact does the buildup of basura (trash) have on river flow and erosion control?  And how do these practices, coupled with seasonal storms and flooding, contribute to crop yields and the city water supply?  A viable alternative = technical working groups or workshops, briefly mentioned in the intro of the workbook, which allow for organization and individual collaboration and system knowledge sharing  (both past and present).

Today marks six months for me at my permanent site, and I’ve seen many decisions made at the last minute or rushed into in order to look good on paper, without taking into account system or design sustainability.  Earlier, efficiency was mentioned as a means to achieve short-term success without looking at future challenges.  But besides efficiency, what about political agendas and will as detriments to system resiliency?  It seems they too can pose significant obstacles towards effective management.

 

Thinking about Resilience in the Lowcountry

While reading though the Resilience Workbook, I appreciated the authors’ note that the workbook is an “organic” document; they acknowledge that there is room to improve the workbook in future versions.  Moreover, I found the flexibility of the assessment tool to be useful.  It makes sense that such a resource should be adaptable to the unique environments of each assessor.  With that said, I repeatedly had to remind myself of these points, because I found the practitioner workbook to fall short, especially while considering my own work that I have done in the Lowcountry, SC.  I applied this lens to the “work” sections.  Initially, I had problems identifying the focal system of the assessment – perhaps this was because I was not actually working within an organization.  I ultimately supposed that because I have worked on a grant-funded project that focused on the Lowcountry, this would become my focal system.  However, I pondered if this would be the right scale to work at.  I am skeptical about the effectiveness of the tool when the focal system is at too large of a scale – but then what defines the boundary of too large and not?

Next I ran through the second group of “Resilience Assessments.” As best as I could, I identified the natural resources of the Lowcountry: seafood, water, waterways, sweetgrass, shoreline, forests, etc. I did the same for the people: residents (long-term white, long-term Gullah, newcomers), local government, state and federal agencies, non-profits, corporations, etc.  Finally, I thought about the governance of my focal system – it seems that there is mixed governance, the system is greatly impacted by local decisions (e.g. zoning and development) and federal laws (e.g. protected wetlands).  Now, there are two major critiques that I have.  First, the flexibility of the workbook allows it to be a tool for anyone. I challenge the value of this sort of flexibility.  As Laura said, I feel that this workbook is best as a group effort, however I think only with multiple stakeholders.   I fear that if one stakeholder takes on the task of completing this assessment they’re going to push the issues from their agenda.  Second, what is missing thus far is that the workbook has you identify who the stakeholders are, but not much more about them. How does health, education, or other aspects of social welfare fit into this assessment? To me they clearly have a role, especially when considering the Lowcountry. Especially when considering that there are many different sorts of constituents in the Lowcountry and their histories and futures are relevant when talking about natural resources.

Overall, this workbook to me seems like a Band-Aid approach.  I fail to see how this approach will improve the status of social-ecological systems (SESs).  Can you address issues of one sector of a SES but not another, as the workbook is designed to do? The creators mention improving these multiple-dimensioned systems, but I fail to see how this can be accomplished when only one sub-sector is the analyzed.  This assessment seeks to look at natural resource management, but not the cultural, political, social, economic, ecological, or technological components that they themselves mention.  To me, this seems to be a revamped version of typical impact assessments. I think that from this perspective the workbook is great.  However, I think that there can still be a protocol out there that can focus on one sector of SESs, while incorporating all others.

Practicing Resilience

During my first year of grad school, discussions on how to “bridge the gap” between science and management were brought up in every single course. Many times scientists are the ones with the “expert knowledge” but that formal knowledge may not always be adequately shared with the people managing our resources. Besides more effective forms of communication, guidebooks and workbooks like the Resilience Alliance Practitioner’s Workbook are another way to not only disperse information but also guide managers with how to use this information. Overall this workbook appears to be a simple, effective way to introduce resilience thinking into natural resource project management.

When reading through the workbook, it appeared to me that the authors assume that practitioners have a pretty solid understanding of their social-ecological systems. While this probably true in most cases, in my experience working in a developing country- this is not always the case. As a result of how jobs are attained, practitioners may not always have a related educational background or even experience working in the natural resource management field. This is not to say that people don’t have valuable local knowledge regarding systems here; just an observation that not all practitioners necessarily have a firm understanding of how social-ecological systems work, evolve, and adapt. This may become a problem with some of the specific questions in the workbook, like in Section 2.3 when the practitioner is asked to describe possible alternative stable states and trajectories of a system (page 47). Yet, if someone doesn’t have knowledge or understanding of how social-ecological systems work, then how can they realistically map out scenarios of future events? I think the problems of this assumption can be addressed in how the assessment is carried out.

The authors mentioned that the resilience assessment can be completed by one person or a group of people, possibly in a workshop format (workbook 1, page 5-6). To me, completing the assessment as a group seems to be the most effective, logical choice and it will address issues of potential bias or lack of information. A group of individuals involved in the management of a particular system can bring their own expertise and perspectives (whether economic, ecological or social) to the discussions. The collective knowledge then makes the group unit an “expert” on the social-ecological system and better equips the managers/practitioners to complete the resilience assessment, in comparison to having it completed by one individual. The authors state that “when management fails it is frequently because managers have considered too much detail of a narrow aspect of the system and too little detail of the rest” (workbook 2). Since resilience theory is bound in the idea that social and ecological systems are inherently linked, management activities should incorporate several perspectives and be carried out by a diverse group of individuals in order to avoid such failures.

“Scaling” back a bit

Reid at al pose the question, “how can knowledge concerning environment and development be best mobilized in support of decision making (2006)?”  This has implications for both scientists and policy makers, who are constantly altering managerial strategies (based on resilience or optimization?) as systems move through their adaptive cycles.  Scales are utilized to connect knowledge systems through time and place.  Choosing the right scale can often dictate how effective a particular assessment or management process is.  As I briefly mentioned last week, elaborated upon by Wilbanks (2006), proper communication is achieved when the audience is directly connected.  Sharing global climate change data with a small neighborhood/barangay might seem beneficial to a scientist, but community members are more likely to feel empowered if they can correlate that information to their own environment.  Thus, knowing your audience and when to scale things up or down is crucial.  But its also important to remember not to re-scale assessments with impunity (Lebel 2006).

As was mentioned by Laura and this weeks’ readings, politics often dictate what particular scale is chosen for an assessment (Lebel 2006), or if an one is conducted at all.  Here in the Philippines, dynasties are commonly found within political institutions.  This influences decision making over a long period of time (opportunity for historical analysis?).  Similar to changing the axis or type of graph or plot, scales can be altered to display the information important to those in control.  In addition, scales are often chosen based on immediate benefit for the contributing parties instead of focusing on the resilience at the regional/local scale.  This brings me to my last thought this week and one of the concluding remarks mentioned by Wilbanks (2006): how can we show that indigenous/local knowledge is just as important to various scalar/cross-scale assessments and systems? Our current assessment process (outside of the MA, etc.) appears to inhibit the integration of these valuable pieces of information into our analyses.

Politics of Scale

As a CRM (coastal resource management) extension worker, a lot of my work entails conducting both socioeconomic and biophysical assessments. Up until this point, I never really questioned the scale of the assessments- most of my focus was on the questions being asked and the anticipated output. Yet from this weeks readings we see that there are a lot of considerations for scale choice, particularly for social-ecological assessments like the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.The choice of scale matters for assessments because environmental and social processes occur over varying spaces and time frames, and in order to capture a more complete picture we need to assess what’s happening at these different scales (Wilbanks 2006)

As the authors pointed out, there are pros and cons to conducting a local (small scale) vs. a global (large scale) assessment. For example, a local socio-ecological assessment will miss the larger scale interactions and trends occurring in the area while a global assessment may “lose valuable information” that can only be seen on a finer scale (Wilbanks 2006). These issues need to be taken into consideration when interpreting results in order to address the factors that may be ‘left out’. It seems the question is not just asking whether we should conduct local or global assessments, but should we even pick one scale at all to focus on at all? The researchers of the MA report argue that multi-level assessments are the way to go to avoid leaving out factors like the ‘cons’ I just mentioned above. “Adopting a particular scale limits the types of problems that can be addressed, modes of explanation, and generalizations that are likely to be used in analysis” (Reid et al. 2006). So by working at multiple levels you can take into account the local, regional or global issues, knowledge systems, and politics. At the forefront this seems like a practical solution, as long as the “assessors” have the capacity and resources to conduct assessments at several scales.

The idea that information may be “left out” is not simply to say that knowledge was unintentionally looked over or not included. As mentioned several times throughout the readings, “choice of scale for an assessment is not politically neutral”, meaning that politics behind an assessment can direct what scale is chosen (Reid et al. 2006, Lebel 2006). Therefore, political influence may result in particular issues being investigated (or not!). Additionally, political influence provides the opportunity to frame a social-ecological assessment a particular way. An example of this is given by (Lebel 2006) in which feasibility studies for a “Thai water grid policy” were nationalized (only done in Thailand). The scale of this issue was framed to support national assessments when a regional or multi-scale assessment might be more appropriate for a resource that crosses political boundaries and also affects neighboring countries.

So we have a lot to think about when it comes to scale choice: What is the appropriate scale? Who will choose the scale? How are issues of scale framed? And what are the implications of the scale choice? This may seem like a lot to consider, but I think one of the main points of these readings was being aware of scale politics when planning, conducting and analysis social- ecological assessments.

Sources:

Reid et al, 2006. “Chapter 1: Introduction,” in Reid et al, eds, Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in Ecological Assessment, A Contribution to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Island Press.

Wilbanks, Thomas. 2006. “Chapter 2: How Scale Matters: Some Concepts and Findings,” in Reid et al, eds, Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in Ecological Assessment, A Contribution to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Island Press.

Lebel, Louis. 2006. “Chapter 3: The Politics of Scale in Environmental Assessment,” in Reid et al, eds, Millennium Assessment: Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in Ecological Assessment, A Contribution to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Island Press

The Power of Social Construction

Regrettably, I do not have the applicable experience that Laura and Andrew have engaged in throughout the last many months. However, I can speak to the part of the problem that I think have perpetuated the unfortunate “best practices” that Walker and Salt speak to in their book. Our education system, both K-12 and post-secondary, propagate everyday citizens and practitioners who believe in social constructs like “optimization” and similar beliefs. Just to speak to how everyday citizens buy-in to the propaganda they hear, I heard someone once say that people should not be allowed to grow their own food in home gardens because it takes away business from farmers. Where does the value lie in this anecdote and is this okay? I think this speaks to one of the largest problems that environmentalists have to face – perhaps even a philosophical debate amongst themselves – how do you convince a society, like that of the US, to value physical and environmental health above capitalistic values like efficiency and growth?

I’ve liked the book so far for the reason that Walker and Salt clearly articulate the problems of traditional management approaches and ways to incorporate resilience thinking into new regimes, all supported by interesting case studies. I think this book contributes to the spread of the resilience movement. Throughout my last 10-years at post-secondary educational institutions focused on environmental issues, it is clear to me that I am part of this changing paradigm. It’s sad, however, that because of “traditional” conventions like traditional education and traditional management practices that this movement could not be spread any faster.