Recently published in the journal Ecosystem Services, the paper describes a framework and process for shedding light on actor's disatisfaction with the type, amount or quality of ecosystem services available to them. Through a combination of a survey and workshop, the authors identify actions that can be taken to address the discrepancies between desired and provided ecosystem services.

Working with local organizations and diverse stakeholders, and deliberately designing a process to enable learning and the co-production of knowledge, the researchers hope that this type of approach can reduce conflict among actors and more generally foster better relationships between people and nature.

Reference:
Hanna, Dalal, D.J. Roux, B. Currie, and E.M. Bennett. 2020. Identifying pathways to reduce discrepancies between desired and provided ecosystem services. Ecosystem Services 43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101119

RA members Dirac Twidwell and Craig Allen are contributing authors on a recent paper in E&S that explores the idea of coerced regimes, that may result from a 'command and control' style of management. The concept of maintaining systems through constant management to support a desirable regime (e.g., in the sense of supplying a flow of goods and services) has been approached from different scientific fields in the past and the authors assert that this new concept of coerced regimes "motivates discussions about what we know and envision versus what we do not know and therefore cannot envision". This line of research helps direct attention at social dynamics as part of the feedbacks of managed social-ecological systems.

Reference:

Angeler, D. G., B. C. Chaffin, S. M. Sundstrom, A. Garmestani, K. L. Pope, D. Uden, D. Twidwell, and C. R. Allen. 2020. Coerced regimes: management challenges in the Anthropocene. Ecology and Society 25(1):4.
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11286-250104

Understanding tipping points and the potential transition pathways they create is challenging because of the non-linear interactions of social and ecological systems.

In a new paper by J.D. Mathias & colleagues, the authors analyze the potential effect of tipping points on transition pathways using a stylized model composed of agents exploiting resources in an ecosystem and interacting with other agents.

The researcher's model suggests people's perceptions of an ecosystem's state interacts in complex ways with how resources are exploited, sometimes leading to counter-intuitive outcomes.

The study highlights the complexity of managing long-term and short-term benefits and how understanding social-ecological interactions is critical to identifying sustainable transition pathways.

Reference:

Mathias, J.D., J.M. Anderies, J. Baggio, J. Hodbod, S. Huet, M.A. Janssen, M. Milkoreit, and M. Schoon. 2020. Exploring non-linear transition pathways in social-ecological systems. Scientific Reports 10:4136. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59713-w

SES research is a rapdily growing field that uses multiple methods, which can make it challenging for those entering the field to know where to start. A comprehensive review that focuses on SES as complex adaptive systems reveals a significant increase in SES research over the past three decades and also describes and organizes into categories the main types of methods being used (311 methods from an initial 632, grouped into a manageable 27 categories).

The authors also note the key role that the journal Ecology and Society continues to play in the development of this field, as the first open access, online journal in the SES field.

"Our timeline analysis shows the most significant inflection point in the rise of SES research to lie between 1999 and 2000, which coincides with the establishment of the Resilience Alliance in 1999 (Folke 2006, Parker and Hackett 2012), and the initial publication of their affiliate journal Ecology and Society, which has published more SES research than any other journal."

In addition to providing some welcome guidance to the abundance of methods commonly used in SES research, the authors note how the key words identified in their study reveal "a focus of SES research on pressing sustainability issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, livelihoods, poverty, policy, land use change, water, and social and environmental justice" and advances how SES research is defined and practiced.

De Vos, A., R. Biggs, and R. Preiser. 2019. Methods for understanding social-ecological systems: a review of place-based studies. Ecology and Society 24(4):16.
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11236-240416

"the only way to approach such a period -- where uncertainty is very large and one cannot predict what the future holds - is not to predict, but to act inventively and exuberantly in diverse, adventures in living and experiment." CS Holling

C.S. 'Buzz' Holling passed away on August 16 2019. He lived a remarkable life of creativity, discovery, scholarship and service to humanity. He was a rare combination of artist, scientist, teacher and practitioner who touched and inspired many colleagues. One of his talents was an ability to bring people together to understand, assess and act on new solutions to complex problems of people and nature. Indeed, the Resilience Alliance was one of his 'experiments', set up as a flexible, nimble institution that would bring scientists, academics and practitioners together as a crucible for creating novel solutions that would contribute to sustainable futures for people and the planet. Since the RA and the scholarly journal Ecology and Society would not be here without Buzz, we hope to honor and memorialize his passing with a short (and inadequate) tribute to his life and many contributions.

The image above, shows Buzz touching a sculpture by his friend and colleague Lee Gass. The piece is a three-dimensional depiction of Buzz's adaptive cycle. The RA logo is a stylized depiction of the same heuristic or mental model which was derived from integrating and simplifying decades of ecosystem research. While appearing as an infinity or continuous loop, these representations stylize the abstract concepts of phases, discontinuities, non-linearities imbedded in the model. At the heart of the model is an overly simplified representation of systems (ecological, biological, social and biophysical) that change in different ways. In the model, change occurs as systems go through distinct periods or phases. First is growth and development of structure, capital and ideas. Over time the system becomes senescent and vulnerable to external influences, resulting in periods of destructive creation followed quickly by renewal into a new or different system. Buzz's life was indeed a series of adaptive cycles, as indicated by his memoir (Bubbles and Spirals).

Crawford Stanley Holling was born on December 6, 1930 in Elmira New York. He spent his formative years in Toronto and Ontario, where he collected bugs, watched birds and honed his naturalist's skills. His preferred name of Buzz was given to him by his older sister (short form of Buzzer) and it stuck through his life. Indeed, he insisted on being called Buzz throughout his life. He earned a BA and MSc at the University of Toronto in 1952. He traveled west and earned a PhD at the University of British Columbia in 1957. He began his career as a forest entomologist in the Canadian Dept. of Forestry in Ontario, where he built upon his PhD work on predator-prey interactions. Buzz was Professor and Director of the Institute of Animal Resource Ecology at UBC. He was the Director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, Austria, before assuming a position as an Eminent Scholar, holding the Arthur R. Marshall Jr. Chair in Ecological Sciences in the Dept. of Zoology at the University of Florida. He retired from the University of Florida in 2000 but remained active as an Emeritus Scholar.

Buzz received many national and international awards over his professional career. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in Animal Biology in 1970. He received two honorary Doctor of Science degrees; one from the University of Guelph (1998), and another from UBC (2007). He was foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and was also awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Arts and Science. The Ecological Society of America bestowed the Mercer Award in 1966 and an Eminent Ecologist Award in 1999. In 2008 he received the Volvo Environmental Prize.

A few years ago, as he was facing declining health, I shared an adage with Buzz: 'Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift--that is why it is called the present'. I think there are three reasons why this resonated with him. One is that I don't think he liked to reminisce and talk about the past, yet saw the value in applying historical information to recognize and explain patterns of change. Buzz embraced the uncertainty of the future, as indicated by his recognition of inherent complexity and unpredictability of the future, now manifest in the manifold resilience programs and the adoption of adaptive management throughout the world. Over the arc of his life, his leadership, friendship, support and ideas were gifts to those of us who were lucky enough to work with him. As we are now in the second or third generation of resilience scientists and practitioners, this provides us with the hope that his intellectual legacy will survive for years to come.

-Lance Gunderson

UPDATE: A Memorial fund for "Buzz" Holling has been established to support the ongoing engagement of Resilience Alliance young scholars (RAYS) in research network activities. Visit the Holling Fund page for more information.

See also Stockholm Resilience Centre's Obituary: Pioneering the science of surprise