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Resilience-based governance of social-ecological systems.
Citation:
Garmestani, A. Resilience-based governance of social-ecological systems. Pathways to Sustainability Conference Day - Making change happen, Utrecht, NETHERLANDS, October 11 - 14, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
· This presentation advances understanding of how to improve environmental governance for linked social-ecological systems, which has critical ramifications for improving environmental outcomes. This talk moves the research on environmental governance forward by analyzing the issue, and providing guidance for moving forward. In the long-term, improving environmental governance has broad-scale implications for the environment in the United States, with particular interest for Regions (Region 2), communities (Puerto Rico, USVI, Florida) and the general public.
Description:
Law determines the boundaries and rules for environmental governance. Unfortunately, many environmental laws (in the U.S.) were developed around the prevailing scientific understanding that there is a “balance of nature” that could be sustained in perpetuity or mitigated if out of balance; a dated conception 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, more frequent and larger wildfires), 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.
