scholarly journals Systems Approaches to Combating Wildlife Trafficking: Expanding Existing Frameworks to Facilitate Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Browne ◽  
Emily M. Ronis ◽  
Jennifer R. B. Miller ◽  
Yula Kapetanakos ◽  
Samantha Gibbs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Wildlife Trafficking ◽  
Learning And Collaboration ◽  
The Continuum

Wildlife trafficking is a complex conservation issue that threatens thousands of species around the world and, in turn, negatively affects biodiversity and human well-being. It occurs in varied social-ecological contexts; includes numerous and diverse actors along the source-transit-destination trade chain, who are involved in illicit and often covert human behaviors driven by interacting social, economic, cultural, and political factors; and involves numerous stakeholders comprising multiple sectors and disciplines. Such wicked problems can be difficult to define and usually lack simple, clear solutions. Systems thinking is a way to understand and address complex issues such as wildlife trafficking and requires multisectoral, cross-disciplinary collaboration to comprehensively understand today's increasingly complex problems and develop holistic and novel solutions. We review methods utilized to date to combat wildlife trafficking and discuss their strengths and limitations. Next, we describe the continuum of cross-disciplinarity and present two frameworks for understanding complex environmental issues, including the illegal trade in wildlife, that can facilitate collaboration across sectors and disciplines. The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation provides guidance and tools for defining complex social-ecological systems and identifying strategic points of intervention. One Health focuses on the nexus of human, wildlife, and environmental health, and can provide a framework to address concerns around human-wildlife interactions, including those associated with the illegal wildlife trade. Finally, we provide recommendations for expanding these and similar frameworks to better support communication, learning, and collaboration in cross-disciplinary efforts aimed at addressing international wildlife trafficking and its intersections with other complex, global conservation issues.

scholarly journals Revisiting the relationships between human well-being and ecosystems in dynamic social-ecological systems: Implications for stewardship and development

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa A. Masterson ◽  
Susanne Vetter ◽  
Tomas Chaigneau ◽  
Tim M. Daw ◽  
Odirilwe Selomane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Natural Beauty

Non-technical summaryWe argue that the ways in which we as humans derive well-being from nature – for example by harvesting firewood, selling fish or enjoying natural beauty – feed back into how we behave towards the environment. This feedback is mediated by institutions (rules, regulations) and by individual capacities to act. Understanding these relationships can guide better interventions for sustainably improving well-being and alleviating poverty. However, more attention needs to be paid to how experience-related benefits from nature influence attitudes and actions towards the environment, and how these relationships can be reflected in more environmentally sustainable development projects.

scholarly journals Revisiting the relationships between human well-being and ecosystems in dynamic social-ecological systems: Implications for stewardship and development

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa A. Masterson ◽  
Susanne Vetter ◽  
Tomas Chaigneau ◽  
Tim M. Daw ◽  
Odirilwe Selomane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Natural Beauty

Non-technical summary We argue that the ways in which we as humans derive well-being from nature – for example by harvesting firewood, selling fish or enjoying natural beauty – feed back into how we behave towards the environment. This feedback is mediated by institutions (rules, regulations) and by individual capacities to act. Understanding these relationships can guide better interventions for sustainably improving well-being and alleviating poverty. However, more attention needs to be paid to how experience-related benefits from nature influence attitudes and actions towards the environment, and how these relationships can be reflected in more environmentally sustainable development projects.

Social-ecological Systems and Human Well-Being

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Luisa E. Delgado ◽  
Iskra Alejandra Rojo Negrete ◽  
Marcela Torres-Gómez ◽  
Amanda Alfonso ◽  
Francisco Zorondo-Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

Resilience

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Folke
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ecological Dynamics ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Resilience Thinking ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Individual

Resilience thinking in relation to the environment has emerged as a lens of inquiry that serves a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. Resilience is about cultivating the capacity to sustain development in the face of expected and surprising change and diverse pathways of development and potential thresholds between them. The evolution of resilience thinking is coupled to social-ecological systems and a truly intertwined human-environment planet. Resilience as persistence, adaptability and, transformability of complex adaptive social-ecological systems is the focus, clarifying the dynamic and forward-looking nature of the concept. Resilience thinking emphasizes that social-ecological systems, from the individual, to community, to society as a whole, are embedded in the biosphere. The biosphere connection is an essential observation if sustainability is to be taken seriously. In the continuous advancement of resilience thinking there are efforts aimed at capturing resilience of social-ecological systems and finding ways for people and institutions to govern social-ecological dynamics for improved human well-being, at the local, across levels and scales, to the global. Consequently, in resilience thinking, development issues for human well-being, for people and planet, are framed in a context of understanding and governing complex social-ecological dynamics for sustainability as part of a dynamic biosphere.

scholarly journals Assessing the Complexity of Social-Ecological Systems: Taking Stock of the Cross-Scale Dependence

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leandra R. Gonçalves ◽  
Mayara Oliveira ◽  
Alexander Turra
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Response Assessment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Impact

Human demands and activities introduce cross-scale pressures in different systems and scales, affecting the provision of ecosystem services and causing an unbalanced effect on human well-being within the territory. The existing institutions are frequently considered panaceas since they do not take into account the different spatial and jurisdictional scales of the social-ecological systems (SES). This paper aims to broaden the existing DPSIR (Drivers–Pressures–State–Impact–Response) assessment frameworks to strengthen the ecosystem approach and promote an integrated cross-scale perspective. The concept of the Cross-scale Ecosystem-Based Assessment (DIET) was developed and applied to a case study on the demand of seafood provisions. The assessment has indicated that the activities related to the specified demand occur at different scales and generate cumulative impacts and pressures on other scales, especially in the coastal zone. The existing responses to address this issue are highly fragmented, both spatially and among sectors. DIET was applied here to the land–sea interface to illustrate how coastal zone governance and management can be improved and how the impact of certain drivers or activities in the SES can be reduced. DIET may help to reduce the governance morbidity and prevent panaceas by fostering the integration of institutions in pursuing flexible, adaptive and fit-for-purpose policies to address complex issues so as to secure social-ecological justice and well-being for all humans.

scholarly journals Forest roads planning and management in terms of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 899 (1) ◽  
pp. 012052
Author(s):  
A Kantartzis ◽  
G Arabatzis ◽  
O Christopoulou ◽  
A Sfougaris ◽  
S Sakellariou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Forest Operations ◽  
Forest Roads ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Planning And Management

Abstract Adaptation to climate change as well as the increasing demand for a new approach in post fire socioecological resilience and Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in forest management requires a different way of thinking of forest roads planning, in terms of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) Framework. Social-ecological systems are complex, adaptive and emphasize that social and ecological systems are linked through feedback mechanisms, and that both display resilience and complexity. In this frame, it is important to clarify the considerable dynamic elements for the future development of forest roads planning and management that promote natural, socio-economic, and cultural well-being. The main objective of this paper is to identify important new challenges concerning the forest roads planning and management and to propose a conceptual paradigm towards SES in a continuing changing climate, social needs and environmental conditions. Hence, a newly developed concept under the prism of SES forest roads planning, is presented. Eight key performance areas to ensure the forest operations as SES include: (i) nature’s services; (ii) ergonomics; (iii) environmental economics; (iv) quality optimization of products and production based on NBS; (v) the use as evacuation routes; (vi) access to renewable energy sources; (vii) people and society; and (viii) resilience. The conceptual frame of SES provides a close to nature perspective which addresses the ongoing and foreseeable challenges that the global forest ecosystems face, based on harmonized forest operations performance across economic, environmental and social sustainability. In this new concept, we demonstrate how these eight interconnected principles interact to each other and are related to forest operations achieving Nature Based Solutions in forest management and climate change mitigation.

scholarly journals A social-ecological approach to identify and quantify biodiversity tipping points in South America's seasonal dry ecosystems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Thonicke ◽  
Fanny Langerwisch ◽  
Matthias Baumann ◽  
Pedro J. Leitão ◽  
Tomáš Václavík ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Natural Vegetation ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Tipping Points ◽  
Dry Forests ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological

Abstract. Tropical dry forests and savannas harbour unique biodiversity and provide critical ES, yet they are under severe pressure globally. We need to improve our understanding of how and when this pressure provokes tipping points in biodiversity and the associated social-ecological systems. We propose an approach to investigate how drivers leading to natural vegetation decline trigger biodiversity tipping and illustrate it using the example of the Dry Diagonal in South America, an understudied deforestation frontier. The Dry Diagonal represents the largest continuous area of dry forests and savannas in South America, extending over three million km² across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Natural vegetation in the Dry Diagonal has been undergoing large-scale transformations for the past 30 years due to massive agricultural expansion and intensification. Many signs indicate that natural vegetation decline has reached critical levels. Major research gaps prevail, however, in our understanding of how these transformations affect the unique and rich biodiversity of the Dry Diagonal, and how this affects the ecological integrity and the provisioning of ES that are critical both for local livelihoods and commercial agriculture. Inspired by social-ecological systems theory, our approach helps to explain: (i) how drivers of natural vegetation decline affect the functioning of ecosystems, and thus ecological integrity, (ii) under which conditions, where, and at which scales the loss of ecological integrity may lead to biodiversity tipping points, and (iii) how these biodiversity tipping points may impact human well-being. Implementing such an approach with the greater aim of furthering more sustainable land use in the Dry Diagonal requires a transdisciplinary collaborative network, which in a first step integrates extensive observational data from the field and remote sensing with advanced ecosystem and biodiversity models. Secondly, it integrates knowledge obtained from dialogue processes with local and regional actors as well as meta-models describing the actor network. The co-designed methodological framework can be applied not only to define, detect, and map biodiversity tipping points across spatial and temporal scales, but also to evaluate the effects of tipping points on ES and livelihoods. This framework could be used to inform policy making, enrich planning processes at various levels of governance, and potentially contribute to prevent biodiversity tipping points in the Dry Diagonal and beyond.

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