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Catchment resilience is the capacity of a combined social ecological system, comprised of water, land, ecological resources and communities in a river basin, to deal with sudden shocks and gradual changes, and to adapt and self-organize for progressive change and transform itself for sustainability. This paper proposes that analysis of catchments as social ecological systems can provide key insights into how social and ecological dynamics interact and how some of the negative consequences of unsustainable resource use or environmental degradation can be ameliorated. This requires recognition of the potential for community resilience as a core element of catchment resilience, and moves beyond more structural approaches to emphasize social dynamics. The proposals are based on a review of social ecological systems research, on methods for analyzing community resilience, and a review of social science and action research that suggest ways of generating resilience through community engagement. These methods and approaches maximize insights into the social dynamics of catchments as complex adaptive systems to inform science and practice.

Many commentators have raised questions about the recent focus on ecosystem services (ES) concepts in conservation, but little empirical analysis exists. We present a novel empirical analysis using interviews and Q Methodology to examine how conservation practitioners and organisations are interpreting and using ES concepts and associated approaches. We find that these concepts are being adopted for instrumental imperatives to broaden constituencies and with an expectation of extending funding sources. We uncover concerns within conservation that the utilitarian emphases of ES concepts may compromise the ability to make non-utilitarian arguments for nature in the future. In relation to changing practice, we examine shifts in partnerships and funding, where ES ideas provide a shared language about flows of value, apparently accelerating the integration of conservation and the private sector. Whilst many respondents noted the significance of shifts related to ES ideas, some attempted to play these down, presenting their organisation's adoption of these ideas as ‘just a rhetorical tool’. However, we argue that the adoption of ES concepts cannot be presented as solely rhetorical, given that these increasingly underpin and inform planning tools and policy instruments.

Coastlines are very often places where the impacts of global change are felt most keenly,\ud and they are also often sites of high values and intense use for industry, human habitation, nature\ud conservation and recreation. In many countries, coastlines are a key contested territory for planning\ud for climate change, and also locations where development and conservation conflicts play out. As\ud a “test bed” for climate change adaptation, coastal regions provide valuable, but highly diverse\ud experiences and lessons. This paper sets out to explore the lessons of coastal planning and\ud development for the implementation of proactive adaptation, and the possibility to move from\ud adaptation visions to actual adaptation governance and planning. Using qualitative analysis of\ud interviews and workshops, we first examine what the barriers are to proactive adaptation at the coast,\ud and how current policy and practice frames are leading to avoidable lock-ins and other maladaptive\ud decisions that are narrowing our adaptation options. Using examples from UK, we then identify\ud adaptation windows that can be opened, reframed or transformed to set the course for proactive\ud adaptation which links high level top-down legislative requirements with local bottom-up actions.\ud We explore how these windows can be harnessed so that space for proactive adaptation increases\ud and maladaptive decisions are reduced.

Polycentric governance involves multiple actors at multiple scales beyond the state. The potential of polycentric governance for promoting both climate mitigation and adaptation is well established. Yet, dominant conceptualizations of polycentric governance pay scant attention to how power dynamics affect the structure and the outcomes of climate action. We review emerging evidence on power within polycentric and distributed governance across the climate, forestry, marine, coastal, urban, and water sectors, and relate them to established positions on power within research on federalism, decentralization, international relations, and networked governance. We develop a typology of design, pragmatic, and framing power that focuses on how and in whose interests power is mobilized to achieve outcomes. We propose that the conceptual model helps to explain power dynamics across different sectors and across both climate change mitigation and adaptation. Significant research challenges arising from the analysis include the measurement and monitoring of the outcomes of power asymmetries over time. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e479. doi: 10.1002/wcc.479. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

We discuss the use of participatory drama and transformative theatre to understand the sources of risk and resilience with coastal communities. We analyze and describe two performances developed as part of a project exploring people's resilience to extreme weather events and to coastal dynamics in the face of climate change. We examine the process of devising the performance, which used various elicitation techniques to examine what matters to people in times of change and how people are able to respond to changes now and in the future. We discuss how creative practices such as participatory drama may contribute to the understanding of resilience, challenge assumptions, and bring new perspectives. Finally, we discuss how participatory drama informs action- and solutions-oriented work around resilience, poverty, and change.

Resilience is everywhere in contemporary debates about global environmental change. The application of resilience concepts to social and ecological systems and dilemmas has been roundly critiqued for under-theorizing social dimensions, and human geographers particularly have been an important critical voice in highlighting the omission of social, political and cultural dynamics from different resilience literatures. Here I examine whether and how resilience theory and applications are addressing these shortcomings and incorporating these social and political dimensions. My premise is that within the emerging field of resilience there are many voices expressing multiple and often contested interpretations and meanings. The field is rapidly evolving and new ideas are being tested and introduced. Importantly, resilience is here to stay and is being widely taken up and applied in policy and practice. I review theoretical and empirical published research across fields of geography, environmental change, natural resource management, and international development, concentrating on new work since 2010. I examine three emerging topics: community resilience; transformations; and resilience as an organizing concept for radical change. I find that there is still relatively little analysis of social difference and resilience, and there are continuing tensions between normative and analytical stances on resilience. These characteristics are mirrored in policy discourses and local level actions on resilience.

Although ecosystem services are increasingly recognized as benefits people obtain from nature, we still have a poor understanding of how they actually enhance multidimensional human well-being, and how well-being is affected by ecosystem change. We develop a concept of “ecosystem service elasticity” (ES elasticity) that describes the sensitivity of human well-being to changes in ecosystems. ES Elasticity is a result of complex social and ecological dynamics and is context dependent, individually variable, and likely to demonstrate nonlinear dynamics such as thresholds and hysteresis. We present a conceptual framework that unpacks the chain of causality from ecosystem stocks through flows, goods, value, and shares to contribute to the well-being of different people. This framework builds on previous conceptualizations, but places multidimensional well-being of different people as the final element. This ultimately disaggregated approach emphasizes how different people access benefits and how benefits match their needs or aspirations. Applying this framework to case studies of individual coastal ecosystem services in East Africa illustrates a wide range of social and ecological factors that can affect ES elasticity. For example, food web and habitat dynamics affect the sensitivity of different fisheries ecosystem services to ecological change. Meanwhile high cultural significance, or lack of alternatives enhance ES elasticity, while social mechanisms that prevent access can reduce elasticity. Mapping out how chains are interlinked illustrates how different types of value and the well-being of different people are linked to each other and to common ecological stocks. We suggest that examining chains for individual ecosystem services can suggest potential interventions aimed at poverty alleviation and sustainable ecosystems while mapping out of interlinkages between chains can help to identify possible ecosystem service trade-offs and winners and losers. We discuss conceptual and practical challenges of applying such a framework and conclude on its utility as a heuristic for structuring interdisciplinary analysis of ecosystem services and human wellbeing., This paper results from the project Sustainable Poverty Alleviation from Coastal Ecosystem Services (SPACES) project number NE-K010484-1, funded by the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme. The ESPA programme is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). W

"Conservation designations such as protected areas are increasing in numbers around the world, yet it is widely reported that many are failing to reach their objectives. They are frequently promoted as opportunities for win-win outcomes that can both protect biodiversity and lead to economic benefits for affected communities. This win-win view characterizes the dominant discourse surrounding many protected areas. Although this discourse and the arguments derived from it may lead to initial acceptance of conservation interventions, this study shows how it does not necessarily result in compliance and positive attitudes toward specific protected areas. Consequently, the discourse has important implications not just for making the case for protected area implementation, but also for the likelihood of protected areas reaching their objectives. We explain how the win-win discourse influences support for marine protected areas (MPAs) and, ultimately, their success. Using data from focus groups, questionnaires, and in-depth interviews at three MPA sites in the Philippines, we identified three reasons why the win-win discourse can negatively influence prolonged support for MPAs: dashed expectations, inequity, and temptation. Through an understanding of these issues, it becomes possible to suggest improvements that can be made pre-MPA implementation that can lead to prolonged support of MPAs. A focus on less tangible and economic MPA benefits, aligning MPA goals with cultural and social values, and higher levels of transparency when describing MPA outcomes are all ways in which prolonged support of MPAs can be bolstered."

Society's response to climate change is inevitably mediated by culture. In a Review Article that analyses important new research from across the social sciences, climate change is shown to threaten important cultural dimensions of people's lives and livelihoods — including material and lived aspects of culture, identity, community cohesion and sense of place.

Human agency is considered a key factor in determining how individuals and society respond to environmental change. This article synthesizes knowledge on agency, capacity, and resilience across human development, well-being, and disasters literature to provide insights to support more integrated and human-centered approaches to understanding environmental change. It draws out the key areas of agreement across these diverse fields and identifies the main points of contestation and uncertainty. This highlights the need to consider subjective and relational factors in addition to objective measures of capacity and to view these as reflexive and dynamic, as well as differentiated socially and temporally. These findings can help distinguish between coping, adaptation, and transformation as responses to environmental and other stressors.

SUMMARYThe concept of ecosystem services (ES), the benefits humans derive from ecosystems, is increasingly applied to environmental conservation, human well-being and poverty alleviation, and to inform the development of interventions. Payments for ecosystem services (PES) implicitly recognize the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of maintaining ES, through monetary compensation from ‘winners’ to ‘losers’. Some research into PES has examined how such schemes affect poverty, while other literature addresses trade-offs between different ES. However, much evolving ES literature adopts an aggregated perspective of humans and their well-being, which can disregard critical issues for poverty alleviation. This paper identifies four issues with examples from coastal ES in developing countries. First, different groups derive well-being benefits from different ES, creating winners and losers as ES, change. Second, dynamic mechanisms of access determine who can benefit. Third, individuals' contexts and needs determine how ES contribute to well-being. Fourth, aggregated analyses may neglect crucial poverty alleviation mechanisms such as cash-based livelihoods. To inform the development of ES interventions that contribute to poverty alleviation, disaggregated analysis is needed that focuses on who derives which benefits from ecosystems, and how such benefits contribute to the well-being of the poor. These issues present challenges in data availability and selection of how and at which scales to disaggregate. Disaggregation can be applied spatially, but should also include social groupings, such as gender, age and ethnicity, and is most important where inequality is greatest. Existing tools, such as stakeholder analysis and equity weights, can improve the relevance of ES research to poverty alleviation.

This article examines whether some response strategies to climate variability and change have the potential to undermine long-term resilience of social–ecological systems. We define the parameters of a resilience approach, suggesting that resilience is characterized by the ability to absorb perturbations without changing overall system function, the ability to adapt within the resources of the system itself, and the ability to learn, innovate, and change. We evaluate nine current regional climate change policy responses and examine governance, sensitivity to feedbacks, and problem framing to evaluate impacts on characteristics of a resilient system. We find that some responses, such as the increase in harvest rates to deal with pine beetle infestations in Canada and expansion of biofuels globally, have the potential to undermine long-term resilience of resource systems. Other responses, such as decentralized water planning in Brazil and tropical storm disaster management in Caribbean islands, have the potential to increase long-term resilience. We argue that there are multiple sources of resilience in most systems and hence policy should identify such sources and strengthen capacities to adapt and learn.  2011

Many developing countries are expanding their network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to meet ambitious marine conservation targets set globally and to develop tourism nationally. This study explores the human dimensions of MPA planning in Mozambique by engaging local resource users in a series of structured discussions about marine resource use, pressures on marine resources, ways to address such pressures, and the potential positive and negative impacts of MPAs on the management of marine resources and livelihoods, from a community perspective. Findings show that the groups and communities interviewed are at best ambivalent towards MPAs while at the same time supporting increased government regulation, including conventional fisheries management measures. The study suggests that without significant community involvement in the choice of marine conservation tools, the drive to establish MPAs to achieve biodiversity conservation and tourism development goals may be counterproductive, at least in terms of poverty alleviation and sustainable resource use. It argues that a wider range of marine conservation approaches and tools needs to be considered in addition to MPAs, taking into consideration local views and institutional capacities.

This article provides critical reflection on the notion of sustainable adaptation. It discusses how the concept resonates with debates on sustainable development, and how the key elements of sustainable adaptation presented in the literature relate to sustainable development. It discusses three major challenges to the promotion and implementation of sustainable adaptation and achievement of its objectives. First, many current approaches to adaptation are far from sustainable. Second, the relationships between poverty reduction and adaptation to climate change are complex and highly context specific. Third, sustainable adaptation may be co-opted to support development-as-usual rather than more radical options which put social justice, equity and environmental sustainability at the core.

Coastal social ecological systems in eastern Africa are subject to a range of environmental, social and economic changes. They are already vulnerable to these multiple stressors, and the impacts of climate change are likely to further exacerbate their vulnerabilities. Some of these impacts may be observed and experienced already. The analysis presented in this paper is based on mixed methods empirical research exploring local perceptions of recent changes at four sites in coastal Tanzania and Mozambique. People recognise and rank a number of climate and non-climate stressors which have contributed towards more risky and less diverse livelihoods. Importantly, regional and international policy initiatives – in the form of river basin management in Mozambique and South Africa, and development of a Marine Protected Area in Tanzania – are perceived to further erode resilience and exacerbate vulnerabilities. We suggest this is a form of policy misfit, where policies developed to address a specific issue do not take account of cross-scale dynamics of change, the interactions between multiple stressors, nor longer term climate change. This policy misfit may be remedied by a move towards adaptive forms of governance, and necessitates an explicit focus on building the adaptive capacity of the poor and most vulnerable in society.

Emissions trading has created new forms of exchangeable property which become commodities when traded in markets designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and mitigate climate change. This paper analyzes a set of social processes which influence who benefits from reductions in emissions generated by primary production from forest ecosystems. Informed by commodification literature, and property and access theory, we suggest that farmers and rural communities cannot derive full benefits from carbon sequestration because they lack key structural and relational mechanisms, such as capital, knowledge, expertise, technology, and, in some cases, even labour. We illustrate this argument by examining three ongoing carbon-forestry projects in China, Ecuador, and Mexico and we highlight its implications for future forestry mitigation projects and programmes.

Climate change poses a challenge to the dominant development paradigm with its concepts of modernisation, economic growth and globalisation which treat the environment as an externality and largely ignore climate variability. This article explores the extent of the challenge, drawing on archaeological evidence showing that adaptation to severe climate change can involve much more radical changes in human societies than are currently envisaged. Furthermore, short-term adaptation can result in long-term maladaptation, increasing vulnerability to climate shocks. The article argues that development urgently needs to shift its focus away from prevailing growth and yield-maximisation models towards alternatives encouraging resilience and risk-spreading.

Studies of multiple stressors in Africa often focus on vulnerable inland communities. Rising concentrations of the world’s poor live in coastal rural–urban areas with direct dependencies on marine as well as terrestrial ecosystem goods and services. Using participatory methods we elicited perceptions of stressors and their sources, impacts and consequences held by coastal communities in eastern Africa (Mtwara in Tanzania and Maputo in Mozambique). Respondent-informed timelines suggest wars, economic policies and natural increase have led to natural resource-dependent populations in marginal, previously little-inhabited lowland coastal areas. Respondents (n = 91) in interviews and focus groups rank climate stressors (temperature rise/erratic rain) highest amongst human/natural stressors having negative impacts on livelihoods and wellbeing (e.g., cross-scale cost of living increases including food and fuel prices). Sources of stress and impacts were mixed in time and space, complicating objective identification of causal chains. Some appeared to be specific to coastal areas. Respondents reported farms failing and rising dependence on stressed marine resources, food and fuel prices and related dependence on traders and credit shrunk by negative global market trends. Development in the guise of tourism and conservation projects limited access to land–sea livelihoods and resources in rural–urban areas (coastal squeeze). Mental modelling clarified resource user perceptions of complex linkages from local to international levels. We underline risks of the poor in marginal coastal areas facing double or multiple exposures to multiple stressors, with climate variability suggesting the risks of climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has become a key instrument for climate change mitigation. Parties with emission targets are using it to buy greenhouse gas (GHG) emission red...

Climate change poses many challenges for ecosystem and resource management. In particular, coastal planners are struggling to find ways to prepare for the potential impacts of future climate change while dealing with immediate pressures. Decisions on how to respond to future risks are complicated by the long time horizons and the uncertainty associated with the distribution of impacts. Existing coastal zone management approaches in the UK either do not adequately incorporate changing stakeholder preferences, or effectively ensure that stakeholders are aware of the trade-offs inherent in any coastal management decision. Using a novel method, scenario-based stakeholder engagement, which brings together stakeholder analysis, climate change management scenarios and deliberative techniques, the necessary trade-offs associated with long term coastal planning are explored. The method is applied to two case studies of coastal planning in Christchurch Bay on the south coast of England and the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. A range of conflicting preferences exist on the ideal governance structure to manage the coast under different climate change scenarios. In addition, the results show that public understanding of the trade-offs that have to be made is critical in gaining some degree of public support for long term coastal decision-making. We conclude that scenario-based stakeholder engagement is a useful tool to facilitate coastal management planning that takes into account the complexities and challenges of climate change, and could be used in conjunction with existing approaches such as the Shoreline Management Planning process.

Climate change will pose new challenges to conserving Earth's natural ecosystems, due to incremental changes in temperature and weather patterns, and to increased frequency and intensity of extreme climate events. Addressing these challenges will require pragmatic conservation actions informed by site-specific understanding of susceptibility to climate change and capacity of societies to cope with and adapt to change. Depending on a location's environmental susceptibility and social adaptive capacity, appropriate conservation actions will require some combination of: (1) large-scale protection of ecosystems; (2) actively transforming and adapting social-ecological systems; (3) building the capacity of communities to cope with change; and (4) government assistance focused on de-coupling communities from dependence on natural resources. We apply a novel analytical framework to examine conservation actions in five western Indian Ocean countries, where climate-mediated disturbance has impacted coral reefs and where adaptive capacity differs markedly. We find that current conservation strategies do not reflect adaptive capacity and are, therefore, ill prepared for climate change. We provide a vision for conservation policies that considers social adaptive capacity that copes with complexities of climate change better than the singular emphasis on government control and the creation of no-take areas.

Adaptation is a process of deliberate change in anticipation of or in reaction to external stimuli and stress. The dominant research tradition on adaptation to environmental change primarily takes an actor-centered view, focusing on the agency of social actors to respond to specific environmental stimuli and emphasizing the reduction of vulnerabilities. The resilience approach is systems orientated, takes a more dynamic view, and sees adaptive capacity as a core feature of resilient social-ecological systems. The two approaches converge in identifying necessary components of adaptation. We argue that resilience provides a useful framework to analyze adaptation processes and to identify appropriate policy responses. We distinguish between incremental adjustments and transformative action and demonstrate that the sources of resilience for taking adaptive action are common across scales. These are the inherent system characteristics that absorb perturbations without losing function, networks and social capital that allow autonomous action, and resources that promote institutional learning.

Public participation is commonly advocated in policy responses to climate change. Here we discuss prospects for inclusive approaches to adaptation, drawing particularly on studies of long-term coastal management in the UK and elsewhere. We affirm that public participation is an important normative goal in formulating response to climate change risks, but argue that its practice must learn from existing critiques of participatory processes in other contexts. Involving a wide range of stakeholders in decision-making presents fundamental challenges for climate policy, many of which are embedded in relations of power. In the case of anticipatory responses to climate change, these challenges are magnified because of the long-term and uncertain nature of the problem. Without due consideration of these issues, a tension between principles of public participation and anticipatory adaptation is likely to emerge and may result in an overly managed form of inclusion that is unlikely to satisfy either participatory o...

Resource management regulations, such as those associated with the establishment of protected areas, can increase vulnerability and compromise individual and collective agency for adaptation. In this article, we comparatively analyse how four rural communities located within two biosphere reserves in Mexico and Bolivia experience vulnerability and adaptation to global change. We use focus groups, interviews and scoring exercises to analyse the influence of reserve management practices on locally perceived changes and stresses on livelihoods, and to discuss communities' coping and adaptation strategies. We show that both reserves are perceived as a source of stress but somewhat differently. In Mexico, communities feel vulnerable to the reserve's regulations but less to climatic and economic stresses, whereas in Bolivia communities perceive the insufficient enforcement of the reserve's rules as the most relevant stress to their livelihoods. Most of household-based and collective adaptations to environmental change have been adopted without the support of the biosphere reserves. We discuss how and why the biosphere reserves contribute to local vulnerability and why their role in enhancing local adaptation is limited.

Designing appropriate management institutions for the successful integration of conservation and development has proven very difficult. It appears that these activities and interventions often fail to meet either ecological or social objectives. But does this mean that we should abandon our attempts? This paper explores the concept of institutional fit to explain these problems, using an example of a protected area in the Terai region of Nepal. Integration of conservation and development goals is constrained by a lack of fit between the institutions and ecosystems, and between sets of stakeholders. To succeed, we need innovative institutions based on adaptive management, as well as more equitable and inclusionary decision making.

Many commentators attest to a paradigm shift in biodiversity conservation, away from exclusive protected areas towards more people-centred or community-based conservation. This has been referred to as 'new conservation'. However, new conservation could be thought of as an attempt to re-label and re-package conservation and to 'get people on board' existing strategies. According to its critics even so-called new conservation policy, practice and institutions remain expert-driven, undemocratic and autocratic. I argue that for new conservation to become reality, then more fundamental changes in priority-setting, decision-making and organization are required. This paper presents three challenges for a real people-centred conservation: a more pluralist approach to understanding knowledge and values of different actors, greater deliberation and inclusion in decision-making, and a remodelling of institutions to support conservation.

This paper examines attempts to integrate the objectives of biodiversity conservation and social and economic development through a variety of approaches associated with different forms of protected areas and generally labelled as ‘integrated conservation and development’. It examines how the linkages between conservation and development are conceptualized, and the types of policy prescriptions and associated models and practice of integrating conservation and development. It identifies misconceptions about four key aspects that are common in conventional integrated conservation and development approaches. These difficulties involve the conceptualization of community, participation, empowerment and sustainability. Integrated conservation and development projects have often floundered as a result of over-simplification of these factors. It assesses attempts made to overcome these common misconceptions through examining the experiences of two innovative approaches to integrating conservation and development in the Caribbean and in Amazonia. It concludes that fundamental changes are necessary to institutions and management and decision-making strategies to address these issues and to effectively meet conservation and development objectives.

This paper outlines an approach to natural resource management that incorporates multiple objectives for protected area management within a decision-making framework. Both regulators and other major stakeholders are directly incorporated into the approach to enhance decision-making processes. We call this approach trade-off analysis. The approach uses a framework based on multi-criteria analysis (MCA) but involves stakeholders at all stages. This holistic approach is appropriate for multiple use, complex systems such as marine protected areas (MPAs), where many different users are apparently in conflict and where linkages and feedbacks between different aspects of the ecosystem and economy exist. The paper applies trade-off analysis to the case of Buccoo Reef Marine Park (BRMP) in Tobago. Stakeholder analysis is undertaken, and social, economic and ecological criteria identified. The impacts of four different development scenarios are evaluated for these criteria. Stakeholders are asked to weight different criteria and then the outcomes of different stakeholder weightings in the MCA are used to explore different management options. For BRMP, the MCA suggests consensus around development options characterised as limited tourism development for the area surrounding the park in association with the implementation of complementary environmental management. The approach has been used to enhance stakeholder involvement in decision-making and develop consensus-based approaches to management of the MPA. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

This article investigates how different actors and agents of forest change interact, and whether their interactions have an enhanced impact on forest management or on livelihoods of local villagers. Studies of forest cover change indicate that multiple agents and causes may speed deforestation. We disaggregate and interrogate the conventional polarization of local villagers versus external loggers and show how multiple actors interact in a dynamic context. We investigate these issues through studies of three villages in the Humid Forest Zone of Cameroon in Central Africa. We examine different actors' strategies in the face of external and internal pressures and stimuli. Economic crisis in Cameroon has impacted on local livelihoods as well as logging strategies of timber companies, and this has led to diverse alliances, conflicts, and outcomes. Our study shows that the combined action of local actors has synergistic or enhanced impacts in three ways. First, impacts are enhanced through accelerated extensif...

This paper examines the evolution and development of institutions involved in the establishment of extractive reserves. It focuses on the different actors, organisations and projects concerned with extractive reserves in Rondonia in western Amazonia, Brazil. Extractive reserves are supported by a wide range of different actors and agencies, within a rapidly evolving institutional context. Extractive reserves are widely seen as a means of integrating forest conservation and local socio-economic development. As such, they have gained the support to the international environmental movement, multilateral and state development organisations, and grassroots community and producer organisations. These institutions represent a vast array of diverse interest which range from conservation of biodiversity, economic and social cohesion, and regional and national development. Extractive reserves are promoted as a means to achieve each of these objectives. However these ends are not necessarily complementary or compatible, and the integration of conservation and development is by no means easy to achieve. Whilst the various actors and institutions claim mutual and complementary interest, they form shifting alliances and coalitions in order to further their interests. This paper maps these institutions and interests and describes how alliances have been formed and broken, and how this has contributed to the currently observed implementation of extractive reserves. It analyses how the evolving institutions have been able to forward sustainable development in Amazonia and who benefits from alliances and coalitions. The paper argues that extractive reserves are constrained by the dissonance or misfit in discourses and underlying worldviews, reflected by the aims and objectives of the institutions which promote, oppose and lose or benefit from their implementation. This misfit is overcome, in part, by alliances formed between the different institutions, and in part by the creation of new institutions and projects.

This paper synthesizes the findings of a workshop which sought to consider the issues of poor uptake, adoption and adaptation of soil and water conservation techniques by farmers post-project by examining the experiences of projects which had research and extension elements. Critical factors contributing to the adoption and adaptation of soil and water conservation techniques by farmers are identified as a more flexible approach and which enables learning within projects; a process rather than output driven approach to soil and water conservation; demonstration of immediate and tangible benefits of soil and water conservation to farmers (production, income, risk-minimization); and avoiding a narrow focus on soil and water conservation—alternatives are ‘better land husbandry’ or ‘sustainable rural livelihoods’ approaches. A number of areas are identified as priorities for further research which would aid the successful adoption of sustainable agricultural techniques and which should guide future research, development and extension, bringing more sustained benefits to farmers, particularly in humid and subhumid hillside regions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The term biodiversity is now prominent in the global environment and development discourse, and increasingly influences conservation and development policy. Yet biodiversity is fraught with contested definitions and uncertainty. This paper examines some of the difficulties that the multi-dimensional nature of the concept poses in devising conservation and development policies. It explores these issues with reference to field-based research in Nepal. The case study identifies the different interest groups and stakeholders involved in biodiversity conservation and analyses the policy prescriptions they promote. It highlights inadequacies in scientific understanding of the dynamics of complex systems; the lack of historic data on resource use; and crucially, the use/misuse of existing data by different interests. Conventional wisdom dictates that local people's utilisation of resources in areas where biodiversity is high is in conflict with conservation and tourism. Access to and extraction of resources are therefore strictly controlled. The conceptualisation of biodiversity, the causes of its degradation and the solutions offered by conservation stakeholders thus has implications not only for conservation, but critically for the livelihoods and welfare of people in poor countries.

Local knowledge (LK) cannot be assumed to be a necessary resource in development. The case must be argued successfully in the face of other development approaches which are indifferent or hostile to it. This paper identifies three distinct development approaches (or paradigms), the classic, neo-liberal, and neo-populist, which view the role of LK in the dynamics of technical change in different ways. Each approach often incorporates elements of various paradigms into strategy statements and policy or project documents. This paper focuses on the role of LK in natural resource (NR) research and development at the ‘development interface’. Here, stakeholders bring both local and scientific knowledge to the interface and, in relation to the dominant paradigm within which external actors operate, together produce an outcome termed ‘Knowledge-in-Action’ (KIA). Six ways in which KIA is produced are characterised, and it is recommended that priority be given to those likely to produce synergy. The paper also reviews the degree to which the ODA (UK) has so far integrated LK into natural resource development projects. The paper identifies a number of structural and behavioural barriers to a greater role for LK in natural resource research and development.

Climate change is altering the productivity of natural resources with far-reaching implications for those who depend on them. Resource-dependent industries and communities need the capacity to adapt to a range of climate risks if they are to remain viable. In some instances, the scale and nature of the likely impacts means that transformations of function or structure will be required. Transformations represent a switch to a distinct new system where a different suite of factors become important in the design and implementation of response strategies. There is a critical gap in knowledge on understanding transformational capacity and its influences. On the basis of current knowledge on adaptive capacity we propose four foundations for measuring transformational capacity: (1) how risks and uncertainty are managed, (2) the extent of skills in planning, learning and reorganizing, (3) the level of financial and psychological flexibility to undertake change and (4) the willingness to undertake change. We test the influence of place attachment and occupational identity on transformational capacity using the Australian peanut industry, which is presently assessing significant structural change in response to predicted climatic changes. Survey data from 88% of peanut farmers in Queensland show a strong negative correlation between transformational capacity and both place attachment and occupational attachment, suggesting that whilst these factors may be important positive influences on the capacity to adapt to incremental change, they act as barriers to transformational change.

with many different geographical settings and scales. The issues discussed and the interrogation of methods have much broader applicability. The methods themselves and the investigation of mental models can be applied to communities of place as well as communities of practice. In addition, some of the methods have been tested in other contexts and the reports of these applications greatly enrich the learning that is reflected in this special feature. In 2006 a mental models group was established within the Resilience Alliance to explore the contributions that different stakeholders and stakeholder groupings make to natural resources dynamics and the resilience of social-ecological systems. A study of water management practices associated with the National Water Act in South Africa provided an excellent opportunity to study mental models, and to assess the application of different methods for studying them, and the role that improved understanding of mental models could make in integrated water resource management at the catchment and other scales. It was felt in particular that the development of multistakeholder water management in the form of Catchment Management Agencies within the context of the National Water Act increased the potential relevance of understanding mental models and their consequences for water resource management. A central part of the collaborative research process that produced these papers was a 10-day long intensive workshop held in Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. The workshop was not only a data gathering and method testing exercise. Importantly it was an interdisciplinary learning experience with shared explorations of methods, theory, and ultimately the analysis of mental models of human-environment interactions. There were good reasons to choose the Inkomati Catchment as the site for the empirical research reported in these papers. Among these were the extent of existing research and good access to and knowledge of social and professional networks. However, even with the links to these established networks of knowledge and practice and with the direct involvement of individuals with long experience of the context, there was still not enough time to complete a full suite of techniques prescribed by the methods tested. This highlights one of the core lessons from this research exercise: that the process of

This chapter focuses on the implications of changing climate extremes for development, and considers how disaster risk management and climate change adaptation together can contribute to a sustainable and resilient future. Changes in the frequency, timing, magnitude, and characteristics of extreme events pose challenges to the goals of reducing disaster risk and vulnerability, both in the present and in the future. Enhancing the capacity of social-ecological systems to cope with, adapt to, and shape change is central to building sustainable and resilient development pathways in the face of climate change. The concept for social-ecological systems recognizes the interdependence of social and ecological factors in the generation and management of risk, as well as in the pursuit of sustainable development. Despite 20 years on the policy agenda, sustainable development remains contested and elusive. However, within the context of climate change, it is becoming increasingly clear that the sustainability of humans on the Earth is closely linked to resilient social-ecological systems, which is influenced by social institutions, human agency, and human capabilities.

Coral reefs support the livelihood of millions of people especially those engaged in marine fisheries activities. Coral reefs are highly vulnerable to climate change induced stresses that have led to substantial coral mortality over large spatial scales. Such climate change impacts have the potential to lead to declines in marine fish production and compromise the livelihoods of fisheries dependent communities. Yet few studies have examined social vulnerability in the context of changes specific to coral reef ecosystems. In this paper, we examine three dimensions of vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity) of 29 coastal communities across five western Indian Ocean countries to the impacts of coral bleaching on fishery returns. A key contribution is the development of a novel, network-based approach to examining sensitivity to changes in the fishery that incorporates linkages between fishery and non-fishery occupations. We find that key sources of vulnerability differ considerably within and between the five countries. Our approach allows the visualization of how these dimensions of vulnerability differ from site to site, providing important insights into the types of nuanced policy interventions that may help to reduce vulnerability at a specific location. To complement this, we develop framework of policy actions thought to reduce different aspects of vulnerability at varying spatial and temporal scales. Although our results are specific to reef fisheries impacts from coral bleaching, this approach provides a framework for other types of threats and different social-ecological systems more broadly.

"Adaptive governance can be conceptualized as distinct phases of: 1) understanding environmental change; 2) using this understanding to inform decision making; and 3) acting on decisions in a manner that sustains resilience of desirable system states. Using this analytical framework, we explore governance in practice in two case studies in Kenya, that reflect the 'messiness' of contemporary coastal governance in many developing country contexts. Findings suggest that adaptive marine governance is unlikely to be a smooth process of learning, knowledge sharing, and responding. There are institutional, sociocultural, and political factors, past and present, that influence each phase of both local and state decision making. New local institutions related to fisher associations and Beach Management Units influence learning and knowledge sharing in ways contrary to those expected of institutions that enable collaborative fisheries management. Similarly, state decision making is relatively uninformed by the diverse knowledge systems available in the coastal zone, despite the rhetoric of participation. Historical relations and modes of working continue to play a significant role in mediating the potential for adaptive governance in the future. The case studies are illustrative and point to a number of institutional and political issues that would need to be addressed in processes of governance reform towards more adaptive management in developing country contexts."

The Comment by Lindberg and McCool (1998) makes a useful contribution to the debate on carrying capacity and reaffirms the observations and conclusions of our original paper, which include the fact that carrying capacity may be conceptually controversial, is problematic in its application and is of limited use in devising policy guidelines (Brown et al. 1997).

This article proposes a multi-dimensional framework for understanding the development and effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, framed around the notions of institutional design, performance and interplay. The framework is applied in the context of Mexico's Programme of Payments for Carbon, Biodiversity and Agro-forestry Services (PSA-CABSA), with an emphasis on its carbon component. The analysis shows that PSA-CABSA was promoted by civil society and its rules have been subject to continuous modifications over time. In the case of the carbon component, changes have been due to an original misunderstanding of how carbon projects should be designed, implemented, and carbon traded in actual markets. From a performance point of view, the paper shows that the programme has been well received by rural communities, and carbon payments have contributed to increase household income and to enhance forest management practices and organisational skills. The paper also highlights sources of institutional interplay with local institutions and international climate policy, and it reveals the importance of capacity and scale issues in securing an effective and fair implementation of PES. The conclusion provides some policy recommendations for the future development of PES initiatives in Mexico and elsewhere.