Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
altering global carbon and nitrogen cycles are classic 'slow variable' impacts on
many of the world's ecosystems.
The second interaction comes from the impact of ecosystem state changes on the
availability of ecosystem services to society. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(2005) demonstrated that all ecosystems contribute to the well-being of humanity
in providing or regulating services that provide the basic needs for everyone on the
planet, what they termed, a 'good quality of life'. Clearly, this step into ecosystem
services involves values that are socially contingent and change over time and space.
It also raises the issue of whether ecosystem services have intrinsic value above and
beyond any human use or appreciation of them. Clearly, when ecosystems undergo
regime shifts, the fl ow of ecosystem services is altered. Folke (2006) and others argue
that the majority of such changes observed indeed reduce the fl ow of ecosystem
services in aggregate, a threat to human well-being.
The third interaction between ecological resilience and society is refl ected in the
question of whether whole systems, incorporating ecological and social elements,
are themselves resilient. In other words, do the characteristics that make ecosystems
resilient also make social-ecological systems (such as ocean ecosystems, fi sheries and
fi shing communities taken together) resilient to change? Interdisciplinary research
spanning the social and ecological sciences in these areas increasingly argues that
environments co-evolve with the institutions and rules that mediate human use of
resources. Rapid changes in either can create vulnerabilities as well as opportunities
for both ecosystems and humans alike (Folke et al., 2005). The social elements of
resilience are bound up with the ability of groups or communities to adapt in the
face of external social, political or environmental stresses and disturbances (Adger,
2000). If formal and informal institutions (such as local-level watershed manage-
ment committees, fi sheries collectives and the like) themselves are resilient, they can
promote wider resilience.
Institutions can be persistent, sustainable and resilient, but clearly not always for
the benefi t of everyone. Anderies et al. (2004) and Walker et al. (2004) suggest that
there are inherent trade-offs involved in making resource use more effi cient at pro-
viding goods and services to human users, which can often make them less resilient
or able to adapt to changing circumstances. In northeast Brazil, for example, inter-
ventions to reduce the risk of periodic drought on the farming community have
been carried to such an extreme that the principal government adaptation to
drought is now humanitarian aid (Nelson et al., 2007). Efforts to reduce the level
of vulnerability or to increase resilience are overshadowed by the levels of resources
dedicated to maintaining the food and water supply during droughts.
In beginning to analyse the social implications of changes in ecosystems and in
their resilience, there is no escaping the social construction of demands for environ-
mental services, and increasingly, the construction of markets designed to promote
the conservation or enhancement of such services. Advocates of creating markets
for ecosystem services argue that they make use of natural resources more effi cient
by making explicit the linkages between ecosystem services and human development
(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The benefi ts provided by ecosystem
services are, in most cases, public goods: in other words, the benefi ts do not accrue
exclusively to those people managing the resources.
There have been increasing numbers of markets created associated with forest
services, particularly watershed regulation, biodiversity conservation, and especially
the carbon sink function of forests (Pagiola et al., 2002). In the case of carbon sinks,
