Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
migrants and refugees may have arrived with practices
and beliefs that do not fi t their new environment.
Recent work has highlighted the importance of
tra-
ditional ecological knowledge
as a key to success
in arid land management and restoration (Committee
on Science and Technology 2005; Youlin 2005). The
UN Convention of Parties to Combat Desertifi cation
(UNCCD) fi rst established an ad hoc committee on tra-
ditional knowledge in 1999 (UNCCD 1999, 2005).
This represented a major turning point as the value of
knowledge acquired over generations of experimenta-
tion was recognized. Understanding traditional prac-
tices should be the fi rst step in any large - scale restoration
or management programme for the drylands.
to reach across disciplines from employment to ecosys-
tem resilience. Even when environmental and eco-
nomic models of management activities are developed,
they are rarely integrated. But to develop solutions
that will work, they must be integrated and include
feedback and interactions that more accurately rep-
resent the complexity of real-life systems (Reynolds
et al
. 2007 ). A
transdisciplinary
systems approach is
essential for unravelling these types of complex prob-
lems (Meadows 2008; Chapters 2 and 22). NGOs with
long-term experience in an area may be able to provide
very useful insight and information about restoration
and management opportunities and challenges. This
will require new types of funding and support within
government, academia and nongovernmental organi-
zations (NGOs).
The elements needed for success include involving
all affected stakeholders, conducting research to im-
prove understanding of social and biophysical proc-
esses and developing long-term programmes to suggest,
demonstrate, test and refi ne solutions. These are des-
cribed in the following section on management.
10.3.4 Transdisciplinary integrated
restoration research with stakeholder
engagement
Although I was trained as an ecologist and spent much
of my career working on ecotechnical solutions to
resource management and restoration problems and
basic research, it became increasingly clear to me that
the social factors that drive behaviour are more impor-
tant than the ecological factors (Bainbridge 2007a,
2009). Including local people in research and demon-
stration adds strength but complexity. The residents of
the arid and semi-arid lands, often portrayed as victims,
typically have excellent coping capacities, are innova-
tive and are extremely responsive to economic signals
and opportunities (Dobie 2001 ; Critchley 2010 ). They
often do a remarkable job with what they have, as
Thomas Sheridan (1996) showed in his ecological and
cultural analysis of a small town in Sonora, Mexico.
The farmers, ranchers and pastoralists causing damage
are often well aware of the environmental problems
they are creating but are typically caught in a system
with drivers and incentives that discourage sustainable
management. Arid and semi-arid lands restoration
may depend more on government economic policy
(including reduction or removal of farm subsidies in
developed countries), international trade agreements
and World Trade Organization policy than on ecologi-
cal research. More emphasis in restoration must be
placed on policy change at this level.
Stakeholder
engagement is essential to understand
and address the complex problems of desertifi cation
and dryland restoration. The boundaries of the problem
analysis must be large enough to capture the system,
10.4
THE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGE
The need for integrated approaches to arid and semi-
arid lands research and management has been in-
creasingly recognized by research groups, NGOs and
advocates (Haberl
et al
. 2006 ; Reynolds
et al
. 2007 ).
Since the 1990s, a number of initiatives have been
started to encourage more interdisciplinary, multidis-
ciplinary and transdisciplinary research, but the
results overall have been disappointing (Glenn
et al
.
1998). In part this is the result of limited funding, but
even the money that has been spent has yielded less
than expected, often because local communities have
not been engaged, encouraged and empowered (Cham-
bers
et al
. 1991). Stakeholder outreach is critical (Par-
tridge
et al
. 2005 ; Prell
et al
. 2007 ). When stakeholder
engagement is managed well, I have also seen it ease
confl icts between competing groups.
10.4.1
Setting sustainability goals
The importance of setting sustainability goals for a
community or region cannot be underestimated (van
Dresser 1976). Putting people fi rst can help promote
