You are here:
Resilience-based governance of social-ecological systems
Citation:
Garmestani, A. Resilience-based governance of social-ecological systems. Managing Responsibilities for Climate Change Risks, Utrecht, Online, NETHERLANDS, January 21 - 22, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
This study advances understanding of how to improve management of coral reef systems. This presentation moves research on coral reefs forward by analyzing the issue, and providing guidance for moving forward. In the long-term, improving management of coral reefs has broad-scale implications for the environment in the United States, with particular interest for Regions (Region 2; also Regions 4 and 9), communities and the general public.
Description:
Law determines the boundaries and rules for environmental governance. Unfortunately, many environmental laws (in the U.S. and the EU) were developed around the prevailing scientific understanding that there is a “balance of nature” that could be managed and sustained, or mitigated if out of balance; a dated conception of social-ecological systems that is at odds with the dynamics of social-ecological systems. Accelerating environmental change will likely result in more frequent non-linear change in social-ecological systems (e.g., regime shifts in coral reef systems, emergence of novel viruses), and thus formal institutions are now just one piece of the puzzle for governing social-ecological systems. In order to better account for cross-scale dynamics of social-ecological systems, governance should further tap adaptive and transformative approaches to governance, as well as subsidiarity principles in order to improve environmental governance.