Resilience in agroecosystems: an index based on a socioecological systems approach

This article presents an agroecosystem resilience index (ARI) relative to two types of exogenous drivers: biophysical and socioeconomic threats. The ARI is based on a theoretical framework of socioecological systems and draws upon multicriteria analysis. The multicriteria consists of variables related to natural, productive, socioeconomic, and institutional systems that are weighted and grouped through expert judgment. The index was operationalized in the Rio Grande Basin (RGB), in the Colombian Andes. The ARI was evaluated at the household level using information from 99 RGB households obtained through workshops, individual semistructured interviews, and surveys. The ARI is a continuous variable that ranges between zero and one and results in five categories of resilience: very low, low, medium, high, and very high. When faced with climate change impacts, 19% of households showed low resilience, 64% medium resilience, and 16% high resilience according to the ARI. When faced with price fluctuations, 23% of households showed low resilience, 65% medium resilience, and 11% high resilience. Key variables associated with high resilience include the diversity of vegetation cover, households that have forests on their properties, a high degree of connectivity with other patches of forest, diversification of household economic activities, profitability of economic activities, availability of water sources, and good relationship with local institutions.

Enabling Systems Innovation in Climate Change Adaptation: Exploring the Role for MEL

Traditional monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) approaches, methods, and tools no longer reflect the dynamic complexity of the severe (or “super-wicked”) problems that define the Anthropocene: climate change, environmental degradation, and global pandemics. In late 2019, the Adaptation Fund’s Technical Evaluation Reference Group (AF-TERG) commissioned a study to identify and assess innovative MEL approaches, methods, and technologies to better support and enable climate change adaptation (CCA) and to inform the Fund’s own approach to MEL. This chapter presents key findings from the study, with seven recommendations to support a systems innovation approach to CCA: Promote and lead with a CCA systems innovation approach, engaging with key concepts of complex systems, super-wicked problems, the Anthropocene, and socioecological systems. Engage better with participation, inclusivity, and voice in MEL. Overcome risk aversion in CCA and CCA MEL through field testing new, innovative, and often more risky MEL approaches. Demonstrate and promote using MEL to support and integrate adaptive management. Work across socioecological systems and scales. Advance MEL approaches to better support systematic evidence and learning for scaling and replicability. Adapt or develop MEL approaches, methods, and tools tailored to CCA systems innovation.

Socioecology and Biodiversity Conservation

The discipline of Socioecological Systems (SES) was conceptualized in 1998 with the intention of understanding the effects of human activities on natural ecosystems by analyzing resilience in local resource management systems [...]

Reflections on the perspectives of environmental and institutional sustainability for territorial planning of the socioecological systems of the páramo and high Andean forest in Colombia

Los sistemas socioecológicos (SSE) de páramo y bosque altoandino en Colombia son sistemas ecológicos que se caracterizan por sus particularidades de estructura, composición y funcionamiento. Son espacios que se han desarrollado como parte de procesos históricos de relación entre los humanos y la naturaleza, lo cual ha determinado lo que son al día de hoy. Este artículo realiza un análisis de las perspectivas y discursos producidos desde los gobiernos y las políticas públicas en torno a la sostenibilidad ambiental, la institucionalidad y la planeación territorial que se emplean para gestionar los territorios con presencia de estos socioecosistemas.

Análisis bibliométrico del conocimiento científico sobre resiliencia de agroecosistemas

Global phenomena such as climate change threaten the resilience of agroecosystems and therefore food security. Thus, the objective of this paper was to analyze the cumulative nature and outstanding advances in the knowledge of the resilience of agroecosystems as a basis for the development of new trends in the subject. A literature review was conducted using the Web of Science database, considering criteria such as date of publication, disciplines and scientific journals. The search covers the period from 1993 to 2020. One hundred eighty-eight publications were identified, with 2018 and 2019 being the years with the highest number of articles published. The research areas with the most publications on resilience are ecology (71), agriculture (52) and environmental sciences (44). Regarding the connectivity based on the value of intermediate centrality, the areas of greatest interrelationship are mainly: agriculture (0.45), science and technology (0.28), environmental sciences (0.2) and ecology (0.12). In the dynamics and study of resilience, the adaptability of the agroecosystem stands out. The conceptual model of resilience analyzed facilitates its study and is composed of: precariousness, latitude, resistance and panarchy. Therefore, the indicators for quantifying resilience in agroecosystems are heterogeneous and multidimensional. It is concluded that resilience has been conceptually studied as an emerging property from the agroecological approach, recently from the socioecological systems approach, where adaptability and interdiscipline are highlighted as a means to solve complex problems.

QUALITY OF LIFE AS AN INDICATOR OF THE SUSTAINABILITY OF SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

The question of a systematic approach to the study of the sustainability of socioecological systems using indicators of the quality of life is considered

COVID-19 as Eco-Pandemic Injustice: Opportunities for Collective and Antiracist Approaches to Environmental Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with a powerful upsurge in antiracist activism in the United States, linking many forms and consequences of racism to public and environmental health. This commentary develops the concept of eco-pandemic injustice to explain interrelationships between the pandemic and socioecological systems, demonstrating how COVID-19 both reveals and deepens structural inequalities that form along lines of environmental health. Using Pellow’s critical environmental justice theory, we examine how the crisis has made more visible and exacerbated links between racism, poverty, and health while providing opportunities to enact change through collective embodied health movements. We describe new collaborations and the potential for meaningful opportunities at the intersections between health, antiracist, environmental, and political movements that are advocating for the types of transformational change described by critical environmental justice.

Community-Based Actors and Participation in Rangeland Management. Lessons from the Western Highlands of Cameroon

Participation is a key component in socioecological systems (especially rangeland) governance. Yet, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this attribute is yet to be fully understood and/or mainstreamed in natural resource management. This suggests the need for renewed learning on how actors are (dis)engaged in rangeland governance. With a litany of studies focusing on rangeland transformation, complementary evidence which unpacks actor’s participation in rangeland management are required in SSA. Through a survey of 333 households from 12 pastoral communities in Cameroon’s Western Highlands, this paper (i) maps the interactions of rangeland actors, (ii) analyzes actors’ participation in rangeland institutions and in the implementation of management approaches, and (iii) discusses their potential implications for rangeland governance. Using the socioecological coevolution approach as analytical lens, the study revealed the following: (1) state and non-state actors demonstrate overlapping interests, and form temporary alliances to pursue these interests, (2) pastoral households’ participation demonstrate a wavy tendency—with activity-specific participation in decision making and grazing activities (facilitated by catalyzing agents) as opposed to nominal and passive participation in arbitrary boundary setting. (3) The wavy participation spectrum translates to suboptimal resource use, differential and fragmented engagements, and adaptation to changing resource circumstances. The results enhance our understanding of actor dynamics in socioecological systems, and provides relevant information to support Cameroon’s environmental management policy with emphasis on her cattle rearing kingdoms.