Resilience Thinking walks us through the backbone of resilience theory, including discussions of thresholds and adaptive cycles, by using natural resource management case studies. Instead of re-hashing the aspects of resilience theory, I wanted to point out some common perceptions and assumptions on how people conceptualize natural resource management, as outlined by the authors: -we are short term optimizers -we think it’s possible to hold a system in an “optimal” state -we think that an ecological system will adapt to changes unless we outright destroy or convert it It’s essential to recognize our assumptions and perceptions of natural resources because they shape our management actions, as depicted in the case studies. In the example of the Florida Everglades, people viewed it as “abominable, pestilence-ridden swamp” (pg 19). As a result of these negative perceptions, the everglades was subject to various engineering projects that rerouted the water to dry up the area for farming, ridding of the “big mean, swamp”. I wonder if the same engineering projects would’ve been employed if people viewed the swamp as beautiful, bountiful resource. In the case of the Australian Goulburn-Broken Catchment one of the first European explorers described the area as beautiful, different, inviting and acknowledged that his discovery would lead to great change, “that our steps would soon be followed by the men and the animals for which it seemed to have been prepared” (p41-emphasis from me). He perceived this land to be prepared for man to be on it-which is exactly what happened next as the landscape was altered for farming and irrigation. Again, if the perceptions had been different (perhaps if it was viewed as a dull, unprepared environment) would the management outcome have been the same?

In response to Annette’s inquire to our reactions, so far I think the book is a good example of scientific communication. Purely scientific writing, such as the previous literature we read, can be entrenched with scientific jargon and complicated graphs that don’t appeal to the general public or people not well-versed in interpreting such literature. This book discusses resilience theory in a manner of practicality by including various real-world examples and case studies of socio-ecological systems crossing thresholds and moving through the adaptive cycle of resilience. The case studies were easy to understand and many of the events resonated with natural resource management issues that occur here in the Philippines.

However, in my opinion, there were a few specific instances in which I felt ideas was oversimplified. When discussing coral reefs as social-ecological systems, the authors mention that failures of MPAs to protect coral reefs in the Caribbean “reflect a traditional approach to natural resource management in which there is little acknowledgement of the linkages between the social and ecological domains of a system.” (p 73) At the risk of being “nit-picky”, I think this argument needs to be developed more because currently it underestimates the ability of people living in coastal communities to recognize how human actions are reflected in the surrounding natural environment. As Andrew and I previously discussed, people here in our coastal communities acknowledge and understand the links between society and the environment and think of humans as part of the ecosystem. So I don’t think it’s necessarily the acknowledgement of the linkages aka the traditional approach that leads to failure, but the capacity to change the approach and create policies and management practices that provide solutions for both ecological concerns and socio-economic or political constraints. In the examples provided we see that capacity for management can have various effects: in the Caribbean there are many different political jurisdictions, several of which are extremely poor and unable to provide resources for coral reef management. As a result of these social and political constraints and a heavy amount of over-exploitation, the reef management was dubbed a failure. Yet in the Great Barrier Reef, an area controlled by one political jurisdiction with adequate resources/capacity to govern and a lesser degree of over-exploitation, coral reef management was a success. People in the Caribbean coastal communities may acknowledge human-environment linkages, but due to do circumstances of poverty, lack of political will or coordination, and lack of management resources they don’t have the capacity to change the current management approach and address the social and political constraints.

While examining the case studies and examples discussed by Walker and Salt (2006), I was drawn back to my prior research and current status here in the Philippines.  Prior to leaving Charleston, my graduate school research focused on stormwater retention pond quality and algal growth, a similar problem to Walker and Salt’s phosphorus/lake example.  They also discussed commercial (and municipal) fisheries management, a concern worldwide but one contributing directly to my current work as a Peace Corps volunteer.  All of these examples center on the need for the identification of system variables and effectively communicating them to a wide range of audiences.  I have been working with a Philippine Local Government Unit (LGU) for the past five months now and have noticed the need to accomplish more instead of effectively communicating less, thus limiting the sustainability of our projects.   Although dissemination is often hard for me (language barriers, cultural differences, etc.), contributing factors may include: political pressure, upcoming local and national elections, personal goals/desires, etc.  This is all part of an adaptive cycle.  Maybe there are system variables that I can’t see, or maybe the adaptive cycle progresses quicker, particularly in the release and reorganization phases.  Touched on by Laura last week, it seems a good starting point for communicating knowledge and system dynamics is at the individual level through capacity building, making sure those involved are sustainable (“bottom-up” approach).  This is beneficial for both me, as the scientist, and my co-workers, particularly after my service.  Every action has a response (Newton’s third law of motion) and these, sometimes invisible initially, are all interconnected over multiple scales.  As Walker and Salt state, “ignoring the effects of one scale on another (cross-scale effects) is one of the most common reasons for failures in natural resource management systems (2006).”  And this is true for those studying the system as well.  Sometimes individuals place themselves outside the system, ignoring the fact that they too are a contributing variable.  With this attitude, the system is already failing, and the communication of ideas is impossible.

I recently gave a talk to a local barangay (neighborhood) on climate change and the importance of solid waste management.  The majority of my talk focused on local examples because they were relatable to my audience: local fisherfolk.  If I had used pictures or facts from another province or country, the interest level would have decreased because my examples didn’t occur “in their backyard.”  Further conversation is stimulated because participants feel connected to the issue of interest, and they can also feel a sense of accountability.  This coincides with the “bottom-up” approach (individual to local level) and gives voice to those directly involved while allowing for knowledge collaboration.  Future management practices don’t seem realistic or resilient without local people and adaptive learning (2006).

So for this week, we are all reading the first half of the book, Resilience Thinking, by Brian Walker and David Salt, the book from where our blog’s title is borrowed. We read their first chapter for our very first discussion in January. It is an appropriate time to return to this volume, after our discussions on the basics of the theory–what I find appealing about this volume is that it is not just written by a resilience theorist and natural scientist. The natural scientist is Brian Walker, who appeared in the YouTube video that also began this blog. Walker however knew that to really “apply” resilience thinking, it had to be made much more understandable to a general public–that is why he co-authored this volume with David Salt, a science writer. Communicating complicated theories like resilience–especially theories that go against how most people conceptualize nature and management “working”–requires skill. So the chapters that we read this week return to the same theories that we have been reading in the peer review literature, but they are being discussed in ways that attempt to “democratize” knowledge about social-ecological resilience. How can we change toward more sustainable practices if the general (voting!) public does not shift its ways of thinking about how nature and society works? I wonder whether Andrew, Nicole, and Laura will think they simplify things too much, or if the narratives are successful examples of good scientific communication?

The main focus of our readings this week was to explore a little bit more on how resilience theory can be applied in natural resource management. Briske et al. advocate the application of non-equilibrium ecology (discussed a bit last week) in order to identify alternative stable states of ecosystems and implement adaptive management practices in order to prevent  a system from crossing a threshold into another state or to move the system towards a “desirable state”  (2010). Others recognized the importance of managers identifying exactly what system states, disturbances, and time frames are being considered when evaluating if a system is resilient  (Carpenter et al 2001, Hagerman et al 2010).

The issue for me this week was thinking about how we can practically link resilience theory to natural resource management practices in a place where managers might not be well versed in ecological theories and environmental policies not always followed (or are absent). One way this is being done in the Philippines is through information dissemination via literature (books, manuals, etc.) and workshops to train managers in resilience management practices. Recently I found a book on my supervisor’s shelf entitled “Safe, Resilient Communities: The ACCORD Model” which is basically a guide on how to create social structures that are resilient to natural disasters by focusing on livelihood development, capacity building, and disaster education, awareness, and preparedness. The objective of this book relates very much to the topic this week- bridging the gap between theory and practice.  In this particular case, larger organizations with resources and access to information have digested all the theory and created a simple management model for community-based disaster risk reduction to be implemented on a local scale. In my experience these types of books and projects are indispensable for getting from theory to practice for areas like the Philippines that have limited resources such as time, capacity and access to information.

More information about ACCORD and resiliency in the Philippines can be found here: http://accord.org.ph/ and there’s also a link to a pdf of the book I mentioned: http://accord.org.ph/node/520

What is our role in resilient systems? Many of the resilience authors argue that a single equilibrium is not real, and that socio-ecological systems (SESs) are instead dynamic and can exist at a variety of stable states (Carpenter et al., 2001; Sheffer and Carpenter, 2003; Briske et al., 2010).  The idea is analogous to the alternate universes that we find in our favorite science fiction shows, where external factors can change impact the adaptive cycle and move systems past different thresholds (Briske et al., 2010).  Some authors even acknowledge that humans tend to seek dominance and control over systems, and that in management regimes conservation is endorsed as keeping the system in one eternal state.  I suspect that this might be evident in many “natural” forest systems, like loblolly pine, where humans have attempted to maintain the system for so long that if our iron-fist management persists, these ephemeral ecosystems will cease to cycle back.  With this I conclude that practices that attempt to stifle the adaptive cycle are poor.  What should now rise above these outdated practices are policies that support the natural change of systems. So with all of this reflection in the practice and with the rigorous theoretical development of resilience, it still seems unclear as to what *our* role is in SES management. Moreover, it seems clear that humans do have a role within the resilience conversation — but to what end?

A practical answer came to me within the closing statement from Carpenter et al.’s (2001) work: “The best way to cope with surprise is resilience—that is a broad basin of attraction for the socially preferred ecosystem state and the social flexibility to change and adapt whenever ecosystem services are altered in an unexpected way.”  This lone sentence embedded within the many great works of Carpenter, Walker, and the other resilience leaders, is attractive for two reasons. First, the authors expound the concept socially preferred ecosystems from real world observations.  In turn, the phrase unites the theory to the practical, which ultimately emplaces a social context to management.  Basically, I interpret it to simply mean that it is okay for humans to impact ecosystems, because humans will impacts SESs and as Briske et al. (2010) note, some resilience facets may not always be socially favored.  Second, it emphasizes the necessity of flexible social components within SESs.  I find that these two points resolve my restlessness of identifying analytical possibilities in the theory.  It is somewhere within these ideas that I would like to investigate Resilience within my host community while serving as a PC volunteer abroad.

Some complexities still remain after reading the works from Carpenter et al. (2001), Sheffer and Carpenter (2003), and Briske et al. (2010).  How do scalar and temporal components of the adaptive cycle fit into the understanding of resilience?  This inquiry becomes ever more pressing in my mind as I wonder if the patterns of adaptive cycles are beyond temporal scales of human comprehension. What are practical implications, if biophysical evidence does suggest that in some systems phase changes may take grander periods of time?  I suspect that this inability to perceive cycles effectively has led to our poor management regimes that attempt to lock ecosystems into stable states – historically and ethically we came to believe that the state at which we perceived them was the state in which we believed they should stay.  It is evident that over the few decades this belief has evolved.

This week’s postings and readings have led me to a lot of questions.  First, to expand on the concept that Annette proposed earlier, how do you apply the concept of resilience in environmental management practices? First, it is important to mention that the resilience framework that we used for this week seems to only apply to ecological resilience – and not the grander socio-ecological systems resilience. Even beyond the conceptual model that we have discussed earlier, is the evidence that Hull et al. (2002) provided that suggests that the practitioners in Virginia surveyed believe that they are in some way separate from nature. Respondents stated that they either believed that nature should be or should not be controlled by humans. Regardless, both responses insinuate that humans are outside of the system and never within it.  It is clear from the responses from Laura and Andrew that humans *are* part of the system, which leads me to believe that to the first step in incorporating resilience into new management regimes is to acknowledge and incorporate the direct and indirect activities of humans. Moreover, this means that management must move beyond a solely ecological approach to a systems approach, which I briefly reviewed in my earlier post.

Next, should management practices be revised? I think the answer resonates within the words of my peers as well as the ideas from the readings; yes! To merge the ideas from Schafer & Carpeneter (2003) and Bengtsson et al. (2003), environmental systems are always undergoing some sort of change at different spatial and temporal scales at the whim of different drivers.  Moreover, the latter authors outline the reasons for this need clearly throughout their work.  They explicitly state that there is no environmental system that fits in a perfectly prescribed box by management practitioners or policy makers. Therefore, it makes no sense to impose management regimes that create static reserves – especially ones that remove human activities from the equation. Here I wonder if our management practices were born from the observations of “stable states”, which are actually snapshots of larger cyclical behaviors and regime shifts, and therefore appear static when isolated by typical human subjectivity. Is seems that only recently have humans begun to understand the fallacy of this perspective.

Now, the more difficult question becomes how do we manage dynamic and unpredictable environments? Yes, Schafer & Carpenter suggests using models, but I’m unsatisfied. From the onset, the idea seems a bit contradictory – to manage something that you barely understand, but know is wild, erratic, and latently volatile.  Also, this idea might explain why Hull et al. discovered the data that they did from their survey, what Bengtsson et al. identify as a “classic view”.  Is it too difficult to manage something that you are a part of, yet seemingly separate? This is especially the case in environments like those described by Bengtsson et al., where the reserve separates people from the physical space, again seemingly so and not actually so.  This of course lies in contrast to environments like those described by Laura, Andrew, and Annette, where people’s existence is so obviously tied into the physical natural environment. It possibly makes more sense that the answer to the question lies somewhere in the middle of all of this – somewhere between observing the lessons from nature and acknowledging our place as well. What stands out to me this week is that the goal of management should not be to retain systems, but to somehow support their resiliency.  I suppose this is the golden question of the week, of the year, and even of the decade.  However, both Schafer & Carpenter and Bengtsson et al. bring us a little bit closer to an answer when they note that multiple approaches should be used in parallel. This ideal may seem commonsense to many of us, but clearly is not adopted on a mainstream scale.

As previously mentioned by myself and Andrew, people in our coastal communities are very in tune to what’ s going on in their environment. They see the fluxes of nature. They see the short-term AND long-term effects of disturbances caused by typhoons, dynamite fishing, and pollution. But they also see how nature can sometimes “bounce back” after these disturbances and they can again catch fish or yield crops. They see themselves as a part of the ecosystem. They really don’t have any other choice. They are so connected to the resources: the water they drink, the fish they eat, the trees they use to build homes. Their entire survival lies in the fact that they are a part of this system.

Based on this description, my community demonstrates one particular set of assumptions pointed about by Hull et al.: that nature is dynamic and resilient yet ruthless (2002). The researchers characterized this set of assumptions for people that think nature is not perfect and needs to be managed. I fully recognize that being in a management position myself I probably have some bias, by I find myself, and from conversations with locals, that others in my community fall into this “nature needs to be managed” category.

The other school of thought- one in which “nature knows best”- is founded on a set of different assumptions: that nature is self-regulating, unpredictable, progressive, and perfect (Hull et al. 2002). Being in one school of thought does not exclude you from having assumptions of the other group- in fact Hull et al. found that people often had multiple and conflicting assumptions about nature.  For example, even though I just categorized my community as being the in the “nature needs to be managed group”, this is an extremely devout Catholic community and while I haven’t asked specifically, I wouldn’t be surprised to find if people who think nature should be managed also share the views that God (supernatural being) created a perfect nature and we need to keep it in that condition.

The main point of identifying these assumptions was realizing that which assumptions you exhibit will effect environmental policy and management decisions. This could by why my community is very supportive of our marine protected area (MPA) system and our artificial reef project-both with goals to manage environmental resources and the people that use them. If my co-workers and community members were in the other school of thought (“nature knows best”) we probably wouldn’t have these programs, although I’m not quiet sure what the other outcome would be.

Seeing that I do most of my work with our MPAs, I was very intrigued by the suggestions made by Bengssten et al. 2003. They pointed out that the “classical view”, or assumption, has been that nature has one point of equilibrium and as a result our management regimes have implemented mostly static parks and reserves that are unchanging even in the wake of a disturbance or shift from one part of the “ecological renewal cycle” to the next. Yet, because nature is dynamic our reserves should be as well, in order to maintain resilience. The MPAs (sometimes also called marine reserves or marine sanctuaries) here in Baybay fall somewhere in the middle. We have static reserves in the sense that when the location and size is agreed upon, it pretty much stays “as is” regardless of disturbances (at least this has been the case so far). However, we do embrace some qualities of dynamic reserves such as having various zones that allow or prohibit various activities (aka the entire MPA is not off limits to fishing- certain areas allow hook and line or net fishing for fisherfolk registered with the City). Bengssten et al. made a point that dynamic reserves can be difficult to implement when working with multiple stakeholders, such as private landowners, but I think they can also be difficult in developing countries (such as the Philippines) that might not have enough resources to manage a more complex reserve. I think most of the obstacles to creating dynamic reserves are the social constraints- capacity of the managers to implement such a dynamic reserve, proper communication so people know when/where they can fish, etc. Maybe this article just gave me something new to work on during my time here in the Philippines…

I am a second-year graduate student at the College of Charleston, pursuing my master’s degree in environmental studies. This summer my husband and I will depart for our Peace Corps assignment, where I will serve as a volunteer while collecting my data for my master’s thesis project. I hope to explore and expand my knowledge of resiliency in a social context, a gap that was identified many times at the NCSE’s 13th National Conference on Disasters and Environment: Science, Preparedness, and Resilience. Between the information presented at the conference, the posts below, and the assigned readings, my brain has been in a resilience-overload this week.

Everyone has brought up, indirectly at least, one of the main problems within the environmental studies field; the evolution of concepts and definitions, which has led to subjective interpretation and inconsistency of terms — such as with nature or sustainability, hinders effective and equitable management and policies. Resilience is no different. Hollings’ definition (mentioned earlier) and Walker and Salt’s definition are both similar to a definition that I heard repeated twice at the NCSE conference: resilience is the capability to survive, adapt, and *flourish* in the face of gradual or sudden changes. Now, this is similar to that found in our readings for the week, but the difference here is the component of growth. This facet surely changes the scope at which we consider resilience, and reveals an underlying difference in ideology that is held by those in positions of power. Personally, I wonder what is meant by flourish in this definition and if flourishing can oppose the principles of resiliency and sustainability – basically, whose definition of flourishing will be used?

Now, there are two concepts that I’ve encountered that address some of the concerns mentioned by Andrew and Watson – that humans are not separated from nature in typical conversations of resilience. Both of these concepts divide economic, social equity, and ecology into different systems. I’ve seen it listed as a fractal triangle for design(1) or as the pillars of sustainability(2). This links to Joseph Fiksel, Executive Director at The Center for Resilience at Ohio State University and a presenter at the NCSE conference, who shared what he called a systems approach (I’m pretty sure at least) to analyzing and managing resilience of a system. My interpretation from his presentation is that resilience as an outcome is dependent on the strength components of each of the three pillars, or sub-systems, and the links between them; I’ve drawn a very poor example below, just to elucidate the idea. According to this approach, you can map out the components, identify ones that are weak, and mitigate them to improve the resiliency of the system. I just thought this was a really useful and applicable framework for thinking about resilience as an environmental practitioner.

Finally, I’d like to respond to some valuable points made in the earlier posts. Watson’s statement about subsistence regimes reminds me of a few quotes that I heard at the conference, which I believe echo by her words. To paraphrase, the poor are the best at accomplishing resilience and society wants to be resilient, and they become resilient to what they know and understand. I think this is really important from a planning and managing perspective; the overall lesson becomes that community members are pivotal to becoming resilient and are unlike the Coase model, which assumes that people are selfish and cannot, or care not, to manage themselves. Andrew said that the concept of resilience has moved from being theoretical to experimental, and I’d like to know more! In regards to Laura’s last comment about coastal communities, I’ll be attending another conference in March that focuses mainly on coastal communities, so I will be able to share those notes later as well.

1 William McDonough & Michael Braungart. Cradle to cradle : remaking the way we make things. New York : North Point Press, 2002.

2 Alan Hecht, Joseph Fiksel. Environment & Security. In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). Retrieved 01.20.13. www.eoearth.org/article/Environment__Security?topic=49564