Linking Social and Ecological Systems
Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience

Investigates how management systems and their dynamics can improve stewardship of selected ecosystems.

Fikret Berkes (Edited by), Carl Folke (Edited by), Johan Colding (Assisted by)

9780521785624, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 April 2000

476 pages, 49 b/w illus. 15 tables
22.9 x 15.3 x 3.2 cm, 0.707 kg

'A welcome contribution to the debate on the sustainable use of natural resources.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institution

It is usually the case that scientists examine either ecological systems or social systems, yet the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the problems of environmental management and sustainable development is becoming increasingly obvious. Developed under the auspices of the Beijer Institute in Stockholm, this new book analyses social and ecological linkages in selected ecosystems using an international and interdisciplinary case study approach. The chapters provide detailed information on a variety of management practices for dealing with environmental change. Taken as a whole, the book will contribute to the greater understanding of essential social responses to changes in ecosystems, including the generation, accumulation and transmission of ecological knowledge, structure and dynamics of institutions, and the cultural values underlying these responses. A set of new (or rediscovered) principles for sustainable ecosystem management is also presented. Linking Social and Ecological Systems will be of value to natural and social scientists interested in sustainability.

1. Linking social and ecological systems for resilience and sustainability Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke
Part I. Learning from Locally Devised Systems: 2. People, refugia and resilience Madhav Gadgil, Natabar S. Hemam and B. Mohan Reddy
3. Learning by fishing: practical engagement and environemntal concerns Gíslí Palsson
4. Dalecarlia in Central Sweden before 1800: a society of social and ecological resilience Ulf Sporrong
Part II. Emergence of Resource Management Adaptations: 5. Learning to design reslilient resource management: indigenous systems in the Canadian subarctic Fikret Berkes
6. Resilience and neotraditional populations: the caiçaras of the Atlantic forest and caboclos of the Amazon (Brazil) Alpina Begossi
7. Indigenous African resource management of a tropical rain forest ecosystem: a case study of the Yoruba of Ara, Nigeria D. Michael Warren and Jennifer Pinkson
8. Managing for human and ecological context in the Maine soft shell clam fishery Susan S. Hanna
Part III. Success and Failure in Regional Systems: 9. Resilient resource management in Mexico's forest ecosystems: the contribution of property rights Janis B. Alcorn and Victor M. Toledo
10. The resilience of pastoral herding in Sahelian Africa Maryam Niamir-Fuller
11. Reviving the social system-ecosystem links in the Himalayas Narpat S. Jodha
12. Crossing the threshold of ecosystem resilience: the commercial extinction of northern cod A. Christopher Finlayson and Bonnie J. McCay
Part IV. Designing New Approaches to Management: 13. Science, sustainability and resource management C. S. Holling, Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke
14. Integrated management of a temperate montane forest ecosystem through holistic forestry: a British Columbia example Evelyn Pinkerton
15. Managing chaotic fisheries James M. Acheson, James A. Wilson and Robert S. Steneck
16. Social mechanisms and institutional learning for resilience and sustainability Carl Folke, Fikret Berkes and Johan Colding
Index.

Subject Areas: Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]