Nurturing Resilience in social-ecological systems

Nurturing resilience in social-ecological systems Lessons learned from bridging organizations

Lisen Schultz

ŠLisen Schultz, Stockholm 2009 ISBN 978-91-7155-892-3 Printed in Sweden by US-AB, Stockholm 2009 Distributor: Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University Cover: Ellen Schultz and Isaiah Sullivan

To Pontus

Abstract

In an increasingly complex, rapidly changing world, the capacity to cope with, adapt to, and shape change is vital. This thesis investigates how natural resource management can be organized and practiced to nurture this capacity, referred to as resilience, in social-ecological systems. Based on case studies and large-N data sets from UNESCO Biosphere Reserves (BRs) and the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), it analyzes actors and social processes involved in adaptive co-management on the ground. Papers I and II use Kristianstads Vattenrike BR to analyze the roles of local stewards and bridging organizations. Here, local stewards, such as farmers, bird watchers and angler associations, provide on-site management, detailed, long-term monitoring, and local ecological knowledge, build public support for ecosystem management, and hold unique links to specialized networks that can be mobilized when needed. A bridging organization strengthens their initiatives. Building and drawing on multi-level networks, it gathers different types of ecological knowledge, builds moral, political, legal and financial support from various institutions and organizations, and identifies windows of opportunity for ecosystem management. Paper III synthesizes the MA community-based assessments and points to the importance of bridging organizations, leadership and vision, knowledge networks, institutions nested across scales, enabling policies, and high levels of motivation among actors for adaptive co-management. Paper IV explores learning processes catalyzed by bridging organizations in BRs. Seventy-nine of the 148 BRs analyzed bridge local and scientific knowledge in efforts to conserve biodiversity and foster sustainable development, provide platforms for mutual and collective learning, support knowledge generation through research, monitoring and experimentation, and frame information and education to target groups. Paper V draws on a global survey to test the effects of participation and adaptive co-management in BRs. Adaptive comanagement, found in 46 BRs, is associated with higher levels of selfevaluated effectiveness in achieving developmental goals, but not at the expense of biodiversity conservation. Local participation seems to enhance support by local inhabitants, improve integration of conservation and development, and have a positive effect on fostering sustainable development. Participation of scientists increases the effectiveness in achieving ‘conventional’ conservation goals and policy-makers enhance the integration of conservation and development. The thesis concludes that

adaptive collaboration and learning processes are central for nurturing resilience in social-ecological systems. Such processes often need to be catalyzed, supported and protected in order to survive, and therefore, bridging organizations play crucial roles in adaptive co-management.

Key words: adaptive co-management, social-ecological resilience, local stewards, bridging organizations, learning, participation, Kristianstads Vattenrike, Biosphere Reserves, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management

Reflections and thanks

In 1989, I was thirteen. I lay sleepless at nights, filled with rage over the evilness and stupidity of my own species. Stories about the Chernobyl disaster, the ozone hole, massive seal deaths in the Baltic Sea, starvation of children in Ethiopia, and never ending wars, haunted me with questions about what it actually means to be human. Are we (am I?!) just a parasite on Earth that would better be eradicated as soon as possible? Or is it possible to be human and do good? After many nights in agony, my teenager mind gave me a way out that helped me live on as a human being. It said, that without humans, there would be no one to enjoy the beauty of life, and no one to give it meaning. We are the sense-makers of this planet. And if we have gotten the world into a mess, it is our duty to make things right again. I decided to try and help, and with that I went back to sleep.

Little did I know, that in that same year, a municipality in Southern Sweden decided to support an initiative taken by a few individuals to restore a tiny part of the biosphere in collaboration with farmers, birdwatchers, school children and entrepreneurs. And little did I know, that 20 years later, I would again lay sleepless, this time over the defense of a doctoral thesis in natural resource management that would analyze this initiative. But here I am now, with this book finished. Needless to say, I have learned a lot during the course of my studies. But if there is one lesson that I will carry along, it is that people are part of nature, and that in general, they want to do good, to each other and to other living creatures. And even though I have found that many problems are more complex and serious than I first thought, I have also found that people are more complex and innovative than I had ever imagined.

Before we dive into the thesis, there are some people that I would like to thank. Carl Folke, my supervisor, for providing the context and the very foundation of this thesis, for opening doors to so many worlds, and for being a wise friend. Klas Ă…mark, for always being there when I needed your insights and experience. Frances Westley, for teaching me and others about deep communication and what it means to lead. Per Olsson, I owe so many of my thoughts to you! Thanks for being such a generous, funny and talented friend. To my other co-authors Thomas Hahn, Christo Fabricius, Georgina Cundill, Cecilia Lundholm and Andreas Duit, many thanks for fun and productive collaboration. I could not have done the papers without you. The survey project involved many people that deserve a special thanks: Maricela

de la Torre Castro, Miriam Huitric and Li Wang for translations, Thomas Elmqvist for opening the doors to the MAB program, and Ioan Fazey, who gave invaluable comments on the survey project during thoughtful conversations in Stockholm and Madrid. In the last minute of thesis writing, my colleagues Maricela (again), Stephan, Matilda, Charlotte and Per spent their leisure time to provide crucial input on the kappa. Thank you for making it so much better! Long-term room-mates Stephan (again) and Jacob, I could not have wished for more clever, warm-hearted and pleasant company. Thanks also to Henrik E for your warm support, Björn for your sharp questions and advice on statistical language, Jerker for helping out with last-minute improvements of figures, Elin for good company in the marsh of thesis writing, and to all my colleagues at Natural Resource Management for creating a friendly, supporting and creative work atmosphere. I also want to thank Louise and Fredrik at Albaeco and Christina Schaffer at the Stockholm Resilience Center for all the opportunities you have given me to interact with society, and for your endless energy in turning research into something useful. In fact, everyone at the Stockholm Resilience Center deserves special thanks for the efforts you put into the field of research that has shaped this thesis.

Then, I do have some friends outside my workplace that I would like to mention… Johanna, Lina W, Nina, Niklas, Jakob, Emma, Pontus B., Lina E, Viktor and Mia – through ups and downs, you are all there, and I would not be me without you. And then I am lucky to have an enormous family.

Gudrun, Christel, Tobbe, Idde, Irma, Linda, Ellen, Gustav and Agnes, with spouses and children, thanks for always keeping a safety net and a spring board ready. I love you. Special thanks to dad for intellectual coaching and mum for loving support, Ellen and Isaiah who self-organized and made the beautiful cover photo, Hans, who is a friendly devil’s advocate, and Eva, who is always there for our children, and who never forgets how to play.

Finally: Pontus, love of my life. I am so proud of us! We can obviously do anything together. And enjoy it (well, most of the time). Thanks for never pitying me, but urging me to finish before summer. And thanks for making our life beautiful. My dearest children, Miranda, Elvira and little one.

Thanks for coming to us. I will always be your mother, even when I am a doctor. I will always try to make this world a place where you can play and love and live safely. And if you ever lie sleepless at night over things you can’t solve, come to me and we will find a way together.

Stockholm, May 2009

List of papers

This thesis is based on the following papers, referred to by their Roman numerals. Papers I and II are reproduced with the kind permission of the copy right holders.

I

II

III

IV

V

Schultz, L., C. Folke and P. Olsson. 2007. Enhancing ecosystem management through social-ecological inventories: Lessons from Kristianstads Vattenrike, Sweden. Environmental Conservation 34(2): 140–152. Cambridge University Press.

Hahn, T., L. Schultz, C, Folke and P. Olsson. 2008. Social networks as sources of resilience in social-ecological systems. In Norberg J and Cumming G (eds.) Complexity theory for a sustainable future, pp. 119–148. New York: Columbia University Press.

Fabricius, C., C. Folke, G. Cundill and L. Schultz. 2007.

Powerless spectators, coping actors, and adaptive co-managers: a synthesis of the role of communities in ecosystem management.

Ecology and Society 12(1): 29.

Schultz, L. and C. Lundholm. Learning for resilience? Exploring learning opportunities in Biosphere Reserves. In review, Environmental Education Research.

Schultz, L., A. Duit. and C. Folke. Participation and management performance in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

Manuscript.

In Paper I, I performed the field work and analysis and wrote most of the paper. The idea was conceived together with my co-authors. In Paper II, I helped the first author structure and write the paper and contributed with empirical data and to the analysis. In Paper III, I contributed to information gathering, analysis and writing. In Paper IV and V, I conceived the ideas with co-authors, coordinated the work, participated in gathering and coding data, and did most of the writing. Statistical analyses were performed by A. Duit.

Other publications by the author

Folke, C., C. Fabricius, G. Cundill and L. Schultz. 2005. Communities, ecosystems, and livelihoods. In Capistrano, D., C. Samper, M. Lee, and C. Raudsepp-Hearne (eds.) Ecosystems and human well-being: multiscale assessments. Volume 4, pp. 261–277. Washington, DC: Island Press Walker B., A. Kinzig, L. Gunderson, C. Folke, S. Carpenter, and L. Schultz.

2006. A handful of heuristics and some propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 11(1):13 Olsson, P., C. Folke, V. Galaz, T. Hahn and L. Schultz. 2007. Enhancing the fit through adaptive comanagement: creating and maintaining bridging functions for matching scales in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve Sweden. Ecology and Society 12(1): 28.

Fazey, I. and L. Schultz (in press). Adaptive people for adaptive management. In Allan, C. and A. Stankey (eds.) Adaptive Environmental Management: a practical guide. Amsterdam: Springer.

Schultz, L. and I. Fazey (in press): Effective leadership for adaptive management. In Allan, C. and A. Stankey (eds.) Adaptive Environmental Management: a practical guide. Amsterdam: Springer.

Contents

Abstract ....................................................................................................... vii Reflections and thanks .............................................................................. ix List of papers............................................................................................... xi Other publications by the author ........................................................... xii Contents ......................................................................................................xiii Abbreviations............................................................................................. xiv Introduction ................................................................................................15 A new orientation for management ....................................................................... 16 Shifting focus to complex adaptive social-ecological systems ................... 16 Shifting focus to learning and collaboration................................................... 19 Nurturing resilience in social-ecological systems.......................................... 21 Features of adaptive co-management .................................................................. 22 Scope of the thesis.................................................................................................... 24

Methods and study areas.........................................................................25 Summary of papers ..................................................................................30 I. Identifying local stewards of ecosystem services .......................................... 30 II. Developing and using multi-level networks ................................................... 31 III. Adaptive co-management and adaptive capacity in communities .......... 32 IV. Approaches to learning that nurture resilience ............................................ 33 V. Participation and management performance ................................................. 34

Discussion ...................................................................................................36 Identified contributions of bridging organizations.............................................. 39

Conclusions and challenges.....................................................................40 Sammanfattning p책 svenska ..................................................................41 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................43 References ..................................................................................................44

Abbreviations

BR EKV KV MAB UNESCO

Biosphere Reserve Ecomuseum Kristianstads Vattenrike Kristianstads Vattenrike Man and the Biosphere Programme United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Introduction

The last 50 years have seen the most rapid transformation of the biosphere ever occurring in human history (Steffen et al. 2004). Humans have become the largest driver of change as we have shaped the biosphere to fulfill our needs and aspirations for food, water, shelter and transportation (Vitousek et al. 1997, Turner et al. 2008). From a biocentric standpoint, this situation of human dominance is severe enough in itself to call for deep changes in the way we relate to and use other species. But the current trajectory is undesirable also from an anthropocentric perspective, as illustrated by the largest assessment ever undertaken of the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005, Paper III).

This assessment focused on ecosystem services, defined as the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, and it showed that indeed, the anthropogenic alteration of the biosphere has increased the production of some of these services, such as food and timber, to some of the people on the planet. But at the same time, the generation of most other services has deteriorated, posing particularly severe risks for people in poor, rural areas, whose livelihoods depend on local ecosystems (Paper III). What is more, the loss of biological diversity is eroding the self-repairing capacity of many ecosystems that has hitherto buffered some of the changes induced by human activities (Folke et al. 2004). Climate change, land-use change, biodiversity loss, eutrophication, alteration of freshwater flows, and the spread of toxic chemicals are some of the large-scale side-effects of human development that now threaten to destroy our life-support systems.

In this context, the new task for natural resource management is to restore, enhance and support the ecosystems’ capacity to generate ecosystem services that sustain human well-being in the face of change and uncertainty (Carpenter et al. 2009b). This thesis argues that doing this is as much of a social endeavor as it is an ecological endeavor, and as much about managing relationships as it is about managing ecosystems (Natcher et al. 2005, Stenseke 2009). Furthermore, it argues that because natural resource management is embedded in living systems that are complex and adaptive (Levin 1998), it is more about navigating and enabling than managing and controlling. In other words, the challenge for natural resource managers is to nurture resilience in the social-ecological systems they are embedded in.

Resilience, a concept under much debate and continuous development (e.g.

Holling 1973, Carpenter et al. 2001, Walker et al. 2004, Folke 2006, 15

Resilience Alliance official website), is relevant in the context of complex adaptive systems, where tipping points, thresholds and regime shifts prevail (Gundershon and Holling 2002). Social-ecological resilience is suggested to consist of three features; persistence of the current development pathway in the face of change, or the capacity to buffer shocks; adaptability, the capacity of people to maintain persistence of the current development pathway (e.g. through collective action); and transformability, the capacity of people to change the pathway of development when ecological, political, social or economic conditions make the existing one untenable (e.g. Folke 2006). In this thesis, I focus on resilience as the ability of a social-ecological system to cope with, adapt to, and shape change, while maintaining its basic identity. Defining this identity is a matter of societal choice, but at the same time, these choices are ultimately framed and dependent on the life-support capacity of the biosphere (Odum 1989, Millennium Ecosystem Assessement 2005).

This thesis investigates what actors and social processes are involved in resilience-based management of ecosystem services on the ground in socialecological systems, with a specific focus on the coordinating actors – i.e. bridging organizations. Using empirical data from case studies as well as large-N data-sets, I analyze with whom such organizations collaborate, how they collaborate, and the results of the collaboration. I begin with a short literature review of the research that frames this new orientation of management. Then, I give an overview of what constitutes adaptive comanagement and adaptive governance, which could be seen as a ‘state of the art’ approach to resilience-based management of ecosystem services in social-ecological systems (Chapin et al. 2009). After framing the scope of the thesis and discussing my choice of methods and study areas, I present the main findings from the five papers and discuss what they mean in relation to adaptive co-management. Lastly, I provide a summary of lessons learned from bridging organizations, and conclude with some challenges for future research.

A new orientation for management Shifting focus to complex adaptive social-ecological systems During the last few decades, ecological research has shifted from describing nature as predictable and balanced, to emphasizing its complexity, with multiple states and non-linear behavior (e.g. Levin 1998). However, the notion of a balanced and predictable nature is still prevalent among managers and the public as well as among some ecologists (Hull et al. 2002).

This idea of a nature in balance can be traced in legends and myths, and was scientifically underpinned by for example the theory of ecological 16

succession (Clements 1916), resulting in both the notion that an ecosystem develops towards a predictable climax, and that this climax is an equilibrium to which the system will return after disturbance (Pimm 1984).

The assumptions of balance and predictability have led to several management failures. A well-known example is the strategy to prevent fire in boreal forests to increase timber production, which in several cases has lead to accumulation of fuel and the disappearance of fire resistant species, resulting in larger effects when fire finally occurs. Another example is the attempt to rehabilitate collapsed cod populations along the Canadian coast through intensified seal hunting (because seals eat cod), which had no positive effect on cod numbers and possibly even led to further decrease of cod populations, due to complex food web interactions (Buchanan 2002).

Furthermore, the ‘balanced nature’ view has led many to believe that a maximum sustainable yield can be calculated for a particular product in an ecosystem, and that well-functioning markets can adjust the extraction of products to a sustainable level. Such strategies assume that, should the extraction of products or the load of waste exceed carrying capacity, exclusion of harvest and human impact for a period of time would allow the ecosystem to recover and reach the same climax again (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Some examples of this strategy are the attempts to cure depleted fish stocks with a ban on fisheries, or to reverse eutrophication by reducing phosphorous input. However, such responses often come too late.

There is very little evidence for recovery among depleted marine fish stocks, as much as 15 years after their collapse (Hutchings 2000). Eutrophication of lakes can be almost irreversible, due to internal feed-backs that sustain the eutrophied regime (Scheffer et al. 1993). Consequently, there are no simple ways of capturing ‘maximum sustainable yield’, and it is difficult to set rules for a market when the commodity in concern is generated by a complex adaptive system (Brock et al. 2002). ‘Command and control’ measures often do not have the intended effects, and ecosystems may not easily be brought back to a certain configuration (Gunderson et al. 1995, Holling and Meffe 1996).

During the 70’s and 80’, accumulated evidence showed that the classical view of ecological succession represented only part of the dynamic behavior of ecosystems (eg West et al. 1981, Delcourt et al. 1983, Walker 1988).

Longer periods of slow and fairly predictable change are interrupted by shorter periods of rapid and unpredictable change, in what Holling (1986) refers to as the adaptive cycle. Because the periods of slow change are longer, humans in general have more experience of these phases, leading some to believe that ecosystem change is always incremental, and that societies and markets will always have the time to adapt if necessary.

However, many ecosystems have multiple equilibria, meaning that change can be practically irreversible (Scheffer et al. 2001). Following the phases of release and reorganization, the ecosystem can continue in the former 17

trajectory and stay within the same regime, but it can also ‘flip’, shifting into another trajectory or regime (Folke et al. 2004).

Although it is convenient and rational in certain areas during periods of time to assume predictability and rely on ecosystems’ capacity for selfreorganization, this approach to management tends to fail in the longer term (Holling and Meffe 1996), as ecosystems in general are neither predictable nor balanced, but complex and adaptive (Levin 1998). They are also nested across scales, meaning that each ecosystem is affected by drivers operating at the scale above and below it, in what Gunderson and Holling (2002) refer to as ‘panarchies’.

A second shift in mindsets concerns the relationship between humans and nature, and the goals of natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. Classical conservationists often treat humans and nature as separate entities, arguing that conservation efforts should concentrate on pristine ecosystems for the sake of biodiversity, and on restoring other areas to pre-human states, with the main ambition to ensure the viability of nonhuman species (Noss 1990, Foreman 1995 and Grumbine 1996). This thesis is placed in another school of thought, that argues that almost no landscapes can be considered unaffected by humans (Pickett and Ostfeld 1995, Foley et al. 2005), and emphasizes the co-evolution of human societies and ecosystems (cf. Norgaard 1994, van der Leeuw 2000, Kinzig 2001).

According to these scholars, preserving wilderness for biodiversity is a subset of the challenge to manage linked social-ecological systems for sustainable development (Costanza et al. 1993, Berkes and Folke 1998).

Two examples of co-evolved, social-ecological systems are the network of sacred forests in Madagascar, which have been preserved through social taboo systems (Tengö 2004, Bodin et al. 2006), and the wet grasslands of Kristianstad in Southern Sweden, a cultural landscape which is a result of mowing and domestic grazing as well as annual floods (Figure 1, Paper I and II).

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Figure 1. Cows grazing flooded meadows in front of the city of Kristianstad.

Photo: Sven-Erik Magnusson/Biosfärkontoret

Shifting focus to learning and collaboration As described above, the behaviors of complex adaptive systems can neither be predicted, nor controlled as a whole. Nevertheless, what humans do in social-ecological systems matters, and we have two capabilities that are particularly important for our ability to both erode and nurture resilience in social-ecological systems: the ability to learn from experience, our own as well as others’, and the capability of collective action. The literature described in this section focuses on how to enhance these two capacities in natural resource management, and how to make sure they are used to nurture resilience rather than to erode it.

The ever-changing nature of complex adaptive systems demands continuous reality-checks, where mental models, management practices and institutions are refined, adapted and transformed to better reflect the system they are embedded in. In such systems, individual managers as well as organizations and institutions need to be flexible and attentive enough to adapt to slow and rapid changes in a process of intentional learning-bydoing, or ‘adaptive management’ (Holling 1978, Walters 1986). Many scholars emphasize the need for multiple-loop social learning, that not only corrects errors in current routines and practices (single-loop learning), but

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questions the routines themselves, and the conceptions and worldviews shaping those routines (Lee 1993, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007, Armitage et al.

2008, Paper IV). Complexity further implies that no single perspective gives the full picture of a social-ecological system (Berkes 2002, Brown 2003, Gadgil et al. 2003, Olsson et al. 2004a, Carlsson and Berkes, 2005).

Combining different sources of information, and integrating knowledge from a diversity of mental models then becomes critical (Carpenter et al. 2009a).

For example, scientific knowledge and experiential knowledge (i.e. local ecological knowledge, traditional knowledge and indigenous knowledge) often provide complementary insights on ecological processes, as do placebased knowledge and knowledge generated at other scales (Berkes 2009).

Of course, failures of natural resource management are not always the result of lack of knowledge. The importance of collective action and norms and rules (i.e. institutions, North 1990) to avoid erosion of resilience is well illustrated by Hardin (1968), who described what happens when users of a resource act in isolation from each other. Although labeled ‘the tragedy of the commons’ the story describes the problems of open access (Hanna et al.

1996). In Hardin’s example, a common pasture is over-grazed because whereas the profit of increasing a herd falls only on the individual owning the herd, the cost is shared by everyone. Consequently, each herder has the incentive to increase his herd on the others’ expense, even though overexploitation is in no ones long-term interest. What Hardin missed, was that in reality, many local communities have self-organized to set rules and deal with the commons in a way that benefits long-term sustainability of the resource base (Ostrom 1990). Local commons often have well-defined property rights, ranging from ownership to authorized use, giving the people associated to the ecosystem incentives to use and manage it sustainably (Ostrom and Schlager 1996). These local institutions make use of local ecological knowledge, building on long-term memories of the landscape, as well as current experiences (Colding et al. 2000, Olsson and Folke 2001, Barthel et al. unpublished). As such, they tend to be more flexible and respond more quickly to changes noticed by direct users and managers of the ecosystem services than centralized institutions (Scoones 1999).

However, because ecosystems and societies are nested across seascapes and landscapes, many environmental challenges can not be addressed only at the local scale. Some issues call for collaboration and coordination within watersheds, some cross national borders, and issues like global warming need to be addressed at the global scale (Young et al. 2008). Accordingly, governmental bodies as well as non-state actors, at scales from local, national and international are crucial participants in natural resource management that nurture resilience (e.g. Olsson and Galaz, unpublished).

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Nurturing resilience in social-ecological systems From the literature presented so far, it seems that natural resource management that nurtures resilience in social-ecological systems involves • a recognition of the interdependence between ecosystems and human societies • close monitoring and interpretation of slow and rapid changes, using all sources of observations, experiences and knowledge • experimentation and learning-by-doing • mobilization of action to respond appropriate ecological scales An innovation in natural resource management that seems particularly appropriate for this purpose is adaptive co-management.

Figure 2. Children learning about Helge å River, as part of the nature school in Kristianstads Vattenrike. Photo: Sven-Erik Magnusson, Biosfärkontoret.

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Features of adaptive co-management Adaptive co-management as defined by Olsson et al. (2004a), and further developed in e.g. Armitage et al. (2007), aims at turning resilience thinking in natural resource management into practice, enhancing the fit between ecosystems and institutions (Olsson et al. 2007). Combining the dynamic learning characteristic of adaptive management with the linking characteristic of collaborative management (Wollenberg et al. 2000, Gadgil et al. 2000, Ruitenbeek and Cartier 2001, Folke et al. 2003, BorriniFeyerabend et al. 2004), it can be seen as the state of the art of the new orientation of management described above. Adaptive co-management looks different in different settings, as it is tailored to specific places and situations, but commonly, it is envisioned to be performed by a diverse network of actors to enable a balance between the coordination capacity of centralized structures, and the learning capacity of decentralized structures (Folke et al. 2005, Duit and Galaz 2008, Figure 3). Core features are learning, collaboration, and multi-level governance (Armitage et al. 2007).

Even though the prefixes ‘adaptive’ and ‘co-‘ have added complexity and flexibility to the word ‘management’, its conventional sense implies control and predictability, assuming that management operates within an agreed vision and a given institutional setting (Hatfield-Dodds et al. 2007).

However, as stated earlier, social-ecological systems are notoriously unpredictable, uncontrollable, and changing, and institutions (norms and rules) need to adapt accordingly. For addressing the social structures and processes by which people in societies make decisions and share power, setting the visions and the institutions, ‘governance’ is perhaps a more useful term (Lebel et al. 2006). Lately, the concept of adaptive governance has gained attention, as a way of addressing and conveying the difficulty of control, the need for management to proceed in the face of substantial uncertainty, and the importance of dealing with diversity and reconciling conflict among people who differ in values, interests, perspectives, power, and the kinds of information they bring to situations (Dietz et al. 2003, Paper II). Adaptive governance addresses the broader social context that enables ecosystem-based management, such as adaptive co-management (Folke et al.

2005, Paper II), dealing with the development of rules and norms that shape the behavior of actors and their interactions (Armitage et al. 2007).

A core feature of adaptive co-management and adaptive governance is the participation of non-state actors in both decision-making and implementation. In short, the arguments put forward for such participation include improved accuracy (as a more diverse and broader base of knowledge, experiences and observations is utilized), strengthened legitimacy (as people affected by decisions are invited into the process of making them), and increased efficiency (as people are more likely to support and implement decisions they have participated in making) (see Paper V).

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However, there is a need for more empirical research to establish the validity of these arguments and under what circumstances such positive results can be achieved through adaptive co-management. For example, participatory decision-making made without awareness of ecological processes may result in decisions that erode the resource-base. Participatory processes designed without awareness of social dynamics such as power asymmetries may result in illegitimate decisions and erosion of trust. In addition, participatory decision-making is often time consuming, whereas many environmental problems require urgent responses.

Figure 3. Stylized image of adaptive co-management, which involves a suitable range of actors across scales and knowledge systems in learning-oriented collaboration around management of ecosystems.

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Scope of the thesis With the ambition of understanding how natural resource management can be organized and practiced to nurture resilience in social-ecological systems, this thesis explores both adaptive governance and adaptive co-management, with a focus on the latter. Seeing the appeal of these concepts in theory, I was curious to what extent these ideas could indeed be achieved in practice.

What are the advantages of the adaptive co-management approach? What are the challenges, and how may they be overcome? Throughout the thesis, I have concentrated my efforts on the actors (both individuals and organizations) that catalyze, coordinate and maintain adaptive comanagement of social-ecological systems, i.e. what I refer to as ‘bridging organizations’ (Brown 1991, Westley 1995, Folke et al. 2005, Hahn et al.

2006, Olsson et al. 2007, Berkes 2009).

The specific questions of this thesis are: • • • • •

What actors participate in adaptive co-management processes, and what do they contribute (Paper I, II and V)?

What can a bridging organization do to initiate and sustain participation of various actors in adaptive co-management (Paper II and III)?

What can bridging organizations do to facilitate learning in adaptive comanagement (Paper II, IV)?

How does adaptive co-management affect adaptive capacity in local communities (Paper III)?

How does adaptive co-management compare to conventional biodiversity conservation in terms of management performance (Paper V)?

My ambition was to improve and refine adaptive co-management theory, based on experiences from practitioners. Furthermore, I wanted to take the opportunity that the research situation provides, namely to assess the impacts of adaptive co-management processes based on a larger comparative material (Paper III-V), thus testing to what extent there are generic features of adaptive co-management and bridging organizations that can be generally recommended.

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Methods and study areas

Resilience theory and my training as a systems ecologist have framed my questions and my conclusions from the results. However, for gathering and analyzing information to illuminate these questions, I have relied on methods developed in the social sciences. The resilience perspective gives room for both qualitative and quantitative approaches, and encourages studies of structures as well as processes. In this thesis, I have used both qualitative and quantitative methods, beginning in the former to derive hypotheses, develop my understanding of actual processes at play in adaptive co-management on the ground, and build theory, and ending in the latter to test whether findings are generalizable, and to refine the theory of adaptive co-management and adaptive governance. Paper I and II builds on a case study, using document analysis, participant observation, informal conversations and semi-structured interviews with key informants identified by the snow-ball method (Jørgensen 1989, Patton 2002, Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981). Paper III is based on a literature review, a qualitative synthesis of seven papers published in a Special Issue, and a chapter on community-based assessments which in turn was co-authored by representatives from all cited assessments.

Paper IV and V builds on a self-administered, written questionnaire (Kasunik 2005), which was complemented in Paper IV with follow-up telephone interviews with ten of the respondents, using an interview guide (Patton 2002).

Throughout the thesis, I have studied adaptive co-management from the perspective of natural resource managers, who either work with on-site management and monitoring of ecosystems (‘local stewards’, Paper I), or who work to stimulate and enable such management (‘bridging organizations’, Paper II-V). The core of the field work was conducted in Kristianstads Vattenrike during 2003-2005, a site that seemed to be managed adaptively in collaboration with a range of actors (Box 1, Figure 4, Figure 6). Our research in Kristianstads Vattenrike was part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a program launched by UN to assess the links between ecosystems and human wellbeing at multiple scales, and the first comparative study between Kristianstad and other sites was done in this context, synthesizing findings from the community-based assessments of MA (Paper III, Figure 5). In June 2005, Kristianstads Vattenrike was designated a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. The designation inspired comparative studies within the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, 25

which now spans 531 sites in 105 countries (April 2009, UNESCO 2009).

Biosphere Reserves have the shared mission of securing ecosystem services for human well-being, and act as learning sites for this endeavor. They serve three functions: in-situ conservation of biodiversity, fostering sustainable development and supporting monitoring, education and research (UNESCO 1996, 2008). The World Network encompasses a range of management approaches, including conventional conservation led by scientists and government administrations as well as adaptive co-management coordinated by bridging organizations (‘Biosphere Reserve Centers’, Paper IV). The comparative studies built on the experiences of Biosphere Reserve Centers, the coordinating bodies operating in each Biosphere Reserve, captured in 148 survey responses, including one from Kristianstads Vattenrike (Paper IV and V, Figure 5).

Figure 4. Case study of Kristianstads Vattenrike. Paper I focuses on local stewards.

Paper II focuses on how a bridging organization (the Ecomuseum, now called the Biosphere Office) builds and draws on social networks, providing a platform for learning and collaboration around ecosystem management.

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Figure 5. Global comparisons of lessons learned from the Kristianstads Vattenrike case study. Paper III focuses on the adaptive capacity of communities and the relation to adaptive co-management, comparing results from community-based assessments in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Paper IV focuses on the learning aspect of adaptive co-management, comparing Biosphere Reserves. Paper V focuses on the participation aspect of adaptive co-management, assessing the effects of stakeholder participation in Biosphere Reserves.

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Figure 6. Study area.

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Box 1. Study area The social-ecological system in focus of Paper I and II includes the ecosystems of Kristianstads Vattenrike, and the managers and users of the ecosystem services generated by these ecosystems. As all ecosystems are connected and nested, drawing boundaries for management is a question of what is meaningful to the people benefiting from the ecosystem services of the area (Lackey 1998).

Kristianstads Vattenrike has political and hydrological borders, encompassing the catchment area of Helgeå river within the municipality of Kristianstad (Figure 6). The name roughly translates as Kristianstad’s Water Realm and represents both a geographical area and a municipal initiative for ecosystem management. The 1100 sq km includes Sweden’s largest wet grassland landscape used for grazing and hay-making. Many of the unique biological and cultural values of the area are associated with these social-ecological systems, which require active management and annual flooding to be sustained. Other habitats include two shallow lakes, large beech forests, wet forests and willow bushes in the lowlands and sandy grasslands with unique flora and fauna. Much of the area is agricultural land; the sandy and clay soils around Kristianstad have been and still are important for agricultural production and the area is one of the most productive in Sweden.

The area also holds the largest groundwater reserve in northern Europe, and the city Kristianstad with 23,000 inhabitants.

The KV is known for its rich fauna and flora and in 1975, the 35 km stretch of wetlands along the lower Helgeå River from Torsebro to the Hanö Bay in the Baltic Sea was granted protection by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. It became known as the Ramsar Convention Site, RCS and the County Administration Board became responsible for the management. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands provided a framework for protecting the wetland areas from further exploitation. In its official plan from 1975, the Kristianstad County Administrative Board (now Scania County Administrative Board) suggested that almost the whole area, 49 square kilometers, should become a nature reserve. In 1989, only three percent of the RCS were protected by reserves (Magnusson et al. 1989). Ownership within the KV area is mixed between private and public.

Despite a number of biological inventories, plans, policy documents, and protection efforts several biological inventories and observations during the 1980’s indicated that the values of the lower Helgeå River and the RCS continued to disappear. A major reason was that the area of wet grasslands used for haymaking and grazing had decreased dramatically (Magnusson et al. 1989). Even wet grasslands in nature reserves on state owned land were deteriorating. There was a growing concern that giving the wetlands of the lower Helgeå River RCS status was not enough to sustain the natural and cultural values of the area. As a response actors started to self-organize and a multilevel governance system for the wetland landscape emerged, with the organization Ecomuseum Kristianstad Vattenrike (EKV) as a key bridge between local actors and higher levels of governance. In June 2005, area was given the status of Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, thereby becoming a model for sustainable development. From then, the EKV changed name to the Biosphere Office. The emergence of the governance systems has been described in Olsson et al. (2004b) and the multilevel organizational dynamics in Hahn et al. (2006).

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Summary of papers

All papers in the thesis highlight different aspects of adaptive comanagement on the ground. Paper I illuminates the importance of approaching the social landscape as carefully as the ecological landscape when conducting inventories for ecosystem management, identifying ongoing initiatives of management and monitoring of ecosystems, and sources of local knowledge. Paper II turns the focus to a bridging organization and how it develops and uses multi-level, multi-sector networks to enable ecosystem management. Paper III investigates how communities across the world manage local ecosystems, and how such management relates to communities’ capacity to cope with, adapt to, and shape change. Paper IV explores learning processes facilitated by bridging organizations, focusing on learning platforms, knowledge generation and retention, and targeted information. Paper V tests the relation between adaptive co-management practices and performance for achieving the goals of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Effects of different degrees of participation by local inhabitants, scientists, volunteer organizations, and policy-makers are also tested.

I. Identifying local stewards of ecosystem services Paper I presents a social-ecological inventory, a method for mapping and analyzing social structures and processes underlying ecosystem services in a landscape. The paper proposes that social-ecological inventories are useful in the preparatory phase of all conservation projects, to identify people with ecosystem knowledge that practice ecosystem management in the landscape.

The social-ecological inventory carried out in Kristianstads Vattenrike focuses on the activities and capacities of ‘local stewards’, i.e. people engaged in on-site management and monitoring of ecosystems, who act outside governmental management plans, including for example farmers, bird watchers and angler associations. Using interviews, participatory observations and a review of written material, we identify local steward groups and their ecosystem management activities, motives and links to other actors involved in ecosystem management. We found several hundred active local stewards, organized in ten local steward groups that managed and monitored a range of ecosystem services at different spatial scales.

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These local stewards provide on-site management, detailed and long-term monitoring, and local ecological knowledge, build public support for ecosystem management, and hold unique links to specialized networks that can be mobilized when needed.

Two conservation projects are used to illustrate how local steward groups come together in multilevel networks and collaborate around specific conservation issues. The paper emphasizes that the efforts of local stewards can not substitute formal management, but that local stewards and governmental administrations can play complementary roles. In KV, the Ecomuseum Kristianstads Vattenrike (EKV) has acted as a bridging organization, coordinating and connecting many of the local steward groups to organizations and institutions at other levels. The process has been guided by trust-building and shared visions for the whole landscape.

The study shows that ecosystem management likely relies on multilevel collaboration and social-ecological inventories may help identify actors that are fundamental in such management systems. We conclude that bridging organizations that recognize and build on the efforts of local stewards, and links those to resources and information generated at other levels of decision-making seem to be more successful in pursuing ecosystem management.

II. Developing and using multi-level networks Paper II focuses on the linking processes discovered in Paper I, analyzing how the bridging organization EKV builds and draws on personal relations with key individuals in various organizations to enable ecosystem management. We argue that social networks that span vertical and horizontal boundaries are important for gathering different types of ecological knowledge, building moral and political support from “non-environmental” sectors, attaining legal and financial support from various institutions and organizations, and identifying windows of opportunity, e.g. for launching new projects or strengthening on-going initiatives.

Identifying and attracting key actors was an essential first step in the development of KV. The person who later became the director of the Ecomuseum first linked to key individuals representing three separate networks, all working on different aspects of conservation, and built a common knowledge base of the current situation. He then developed a broad and attractive vision for the area, which he presented to key individuals representing different sectors and levels of society: “to preserve and develop the ecological values and cultural heritage of the area, while at the same time making careful and sustainable use of these values, turning the wetland into a water realm that would put Kristianstad on the map”. His contact with a

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politician enabled him to use a policy window and in 1989, the Ecomuseum was launched.

The network has continued to expand through strategic selection of participants in projects, focusing on individuals that can and want to contribute to ecosystem management projects. The Ecomuseum staff invests in personal relations with these individuals, listening to their concerns and knowledge, and building trust. Knowing how different groups can contribute, as well as the motives behind their contributions, the Ecomuseum are often able to create win-win situations tailored to different needs.

All collaboration that is coordinated by the Ecomuseum, horizontal (local, multi-sectoral) as well as vertical (multilevel), is voluntary which implies that there are no formal rules that forces actors to collaborate. This makes the achievements by the Ecomuseum vulnerable to internal changes in staff or to declining interest in conservation. However, formal agreements between parties, such as nature reserves do emerge from the collaborative processes. To further secure the initiative, they make an effort to communicate achievements, acknowledging good initiatives and the work of local stewards. The fact that the Ecomuseum has no legal authority to regulate or enforce rules is regarded as an asset by everyone we interviewed: a learning atmosphere has emerged where people feel free to share ideas and knowledge. Learning also enables preference formation, i.e. when actors learn how environmental stewardship and conservation can be beneficial for other interests, and how it has worked out at neighboring sites, preferences may change.

III. Adaptive co-management and adaptive capacity in communities Paper III is a synthesis of the Communities Ecosystems and Livelihoods component of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), together with seven papers in a Special Issue of Ecology and Society, and other recent publications on the adaptive capacity of communities and their role in ecosystem management. This paper is the only one that includes sites that are not Biosphere Reserves. We identify challenges that communities face, due to policies, conflicts, demographic factors, ecological change, and changes in their livelihood options, and discuss the various ways that communities respond to these challenges. Based on our synthesis, three broad categories of adaptive communities are identified. “Powerless spectator” communities have a low adaptive capacity and weak capacity to govern, do not have financial or technological options, and lack natural resources, skills, institutions, and networks. “Coping actor” communities have the capacity to adapt, but are not managing social-ecological systems.

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They lack the capacity for governance because of lack of leadership, of vision, and of motivation, and their responses are typically short term. “Adaptive co-manager� communities have both adaptive capacity and governance capacity to sustain and internalize this adaptation. They invest in the long-term management of ecosystem services. Such communities are not only aware of the threats, but also take appropriate action for long-term sustainability.

The synthesis suggests that adaptive co-management becomes possible through leadership and vision, the formation of knowledge networks, the existence or development of polycentric institutions, the establishment and maintenance of links between culture and management, the existence of enabling policies, and high levels of motivation in all role players. Adaptive co-management communities are often supported by bridging organizations at higher scales. Communities that are able to enhance their adaptive capacity can deal with challenges such as conflicts, make difficult trade-offs between their short- and long-term well-being, and implement rules for ecosystem management. This improves the capacity of the ecosystem to continue providing services.

IV. Approaches to learning that nurture resilience Paper IV explores how learning for resilience is stimulated in practice, investigating learning opportunities provided in Biosphere Reserves. A global survey (N=148) reveals that a subset of the Biosphere Reserves (79 of 148) bridge local and scientific knowledge in their efforts to conserve biodiversity and foster sustainable development. Qualitative interviews with key informants from Biosphere Reserve Centers in ten of these 79 sites reveal three approaches to learning and knowledge generation that are used to various extents. These centers provide platforms for mutual and collective learning through face-to-face interactions, coordinate and support the generation of new social-ecological knowledge through research, monitoring and experimentation, and frame information and education to local stewards, resource-based industries, policy-makers, disadvantaged groups, students, and the public.

We identify three Biosphere Reserves that seem to combine, in practice, the theoretically parallel research areas of environmental education and adaptive governance. This means that they facilitate multi-loop social learning across knowledge systems and different levels of decision-making on ecosystem management issues (i.e. adaptive governance), thus improving direct management of ecosystems, while at the same time framing information and education to the public through e.g. nature schools, guided tours, exhibitions, thus enhancing support and understanding for ecosystem management (i.e. environmental education). In the long term, such education 33

and information might prove necessary to provide space and motivation for adaptive co-management of social-ecological systems. We conclude that Biosphere Reserves have the potential to provide insights on the practical dimension of nurturing learning for social-ecological resilience. However, most of the learning opportunities are provided locally, so for their full potential as learning sites for sustainability on a global level to be released, we believe that both capacity and incentives for evaluation and communication of lessons learned need to be strengthened.

V. Participation and management performance Paper V uses the World Network of Biosphere Reserves to test some of the contradicting claims about the effects of stakeholder participation on ecosystem management. Analyzing survey-responses from 146 Biosphere Reserves in 55 countries we investigate how different degrees of participation of a range of actors relate to performance of management in relation to the objectives stated in UNESCO’s Statutory Framework for Biosphere Reserves. The analysis is based on survey respondents’ selfevaluation of management performance. We also test the effects of stakeholder participation on stakeholders’ support for Biosphere Reserve objectives and management, and the effect of adaptive co-management on management performance.

The analysis suggests that there is a weak, but statistically significant linkage between the involvement of local inhabitants in decision making and implementation, and the support from people living in the Biosphere Reserve. No other effects of participation on support were found.

Furthermore, involving local inhabitants in one additional implementation process increases the likelihood of finding a successful project that integrates conservation and development with about 1.4 times, and the participation of politicians and governmental administrators in one additional decisionmaking process increases the likelihood with about 1.3 times. No other effects of stakeholders’ participation on successful integration were found.

Turning to the issue of management performance, a factor analysis revealed two clusters among the objectives. One had strong loadings on effectiveness in conservation, research, monitoring and education, and was interpreted as related to ‘conventional’ biodiversity conservation. The other had strong loadings on fostering social and economic development, and facilitating dialogue, collaboration and integration of different objectives, and was interpreted as related to conservation for sustainable development.

Conventional conservation was positively affected by participation of scientists, but negatively affected by participation of volunteers.

Effectiveness in reaching sustainable development goals was associated to participation by local inhabitants. Adaptive co-management practices were 34

associated with a higher level of effectiveness in achieving developmental goals, but not at the expense of biodiversity conservation. A total of 46 Biosphere Reserves fulfilled the adaptive co-management criteria and provide an interesting set of cases to follow systematically in the search for deeper understanding of social-ecological systems dynamics.

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Discussion

The results from this thesis strengthen earlier indications of the benefits of an adaptive co-management approach to the management of dynamic ecosystems for the generation of ecosystem services, and points to some of the challenges of such an approach. At its best, co-management benefits both from the contributions of local stewards, including their on-site management and monitoring efforts, local ecological knowledge and specialized networks, and from the contributions of governmental administrations, such as their links to funding resources, their landscape perspective, their access to larger data-sets, maps etc, and their capacity to undertake coordinated efforts (Paper I and II). The learning-orientation of adaptive co-management enhances the ability of management to interpret and respond appropriately to changes, internal as well as external.

Previous work on adaptive governance has highlighted the following interacting processes as crucial in relation to management of ecosystem services in complex social-ecological systems (Folke et al. 2005, Paper II); 1. building knowledge and understanding of resource and ecosystem dynamics, combining different knowledge systems, to increase the capacity of detecting and responding to environmental feedback; 2. feeding ecological knowledge into adaptive management practices, continuously testing, monitoring, and reevaluating to enhance adaptive responses; 3. collaboration of a diverse set of stakeholders, operating at different levels through social networks, to gain legal, political, and financial support to ecosystem management initiatives, and; 4. developing the capacity to deal with and even create opportunities in the face of global change drivers like climate, disease outbreaks, hurricanes, global market shocks, demand, subsidies, and governmental policies.

This thesis illustrates that all of these processes can be catalyzed, sustained and protected by bridging organizations with well developed social networks. Indeed, bridging organizations seem essential for adaptive comanagement to happen.

Bridging organizations were first mentioned in the development literature

by Brown (1993), as organizations that span the gaps among diverse constituencies to work on development problems. He suggested that bridging organizations can play key roles in building local organizations, creating horizontal linkages, increasing grassroots influence on policy, and 36

disseminating new visions and organizational innovations (Brown 1991). In the literature on natural resource management, the concept of bridging organizations was developed by Westley (1995), Folke et al. (2005), Hahn et al. (2006), Paper II, Olsson et al. (2007), and Berkes (2009). In these papers, bridging organizations are discussed in relation to adaptive co-management and the authors describe the role of these organizations in creating arenas for trust-building, knowledge generation, collaborative learning, preference formation, and conflict resolution among actors in relation to specific environmental issues. Furthermore, bridging organizations facilitate vertical and horizontal collaboration, provide sense-making and identification of common interests, and filter external threats and redirect them into opportunities.

In the beginning of an adaptive co-management initiative, bridging organizations often do not exist. Paper II shows that in this phase, the bridging function may be performed by individuals in various organizations, who perceive a need for a new orientation of management, identify other individuals that can help formulate this new orientation, and mobilize action.

Later in the adaptive co-management process, if it is successful, bridging actors may be turned into formal organizations whose main function is to facilitate learning processes and sustain adaptive collective action within the vision of ecosystem-based management. At this stage, they become bridging organizations, and the adaptive co-management process can be seen as institutionalized. Unless a (resilient) bridging organization is formed, the initiative remains vulnerable to changes in key actors and staff, availability of funds, etc., and might eventually fade out.

The challenges that such formalization brings however, are for the bridging organization to remain adaptive, innovative, and legitimate. Over time, organizations tend to refine and streamline routines, increase bureaucracy, and improve efficiency at the expense of flexibility and innovation. In some cases, the organization’s own survival becomes its main purpose, and a bridging organization could potentially be used in the selfinterest of a few individuals, instead of serving a common good. These are tendencies that need to be combated within bridging organizations, which act within complex adaptive systems, and possess a powerful position in networks concerned with ecosystem management. There is a need for investments in multiple-loop learning, experimentation and critical evaluation. And even though many issues can be solved through strategic collaboration, certain issues need to be negotiated in democratic forums, such as representative boards. In Kristianstads Vattenrike, the mandate of the bridging organization was given by the municipal board on a one-year basis.

The organization has an advisory board where representatives are chosen by the different stakeholder groups, and not a result of strategic selection from the bridging organization. This forum is particularly important for issues that can not be solved in consensus (Paper II).

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Lessons captured from bridging organizations in this thesis point to some refinements that could be made to the processes identified in Folke et al.

(2005). Firstly, building knowledge about social dynamics seems as important as building knowledge about ecological dynamics, and socialecological inventories provide a useful vehicle for building such knowledge (Paper I and IV). By knowledge about social dynamics, I mean knowing about the norms, rules and social-ecological memories that underlie behaviors as well as knowing the motives, capacities, and activities of actors in the landscape. Secondly, even though the exact set of stakeholders involved must of course differ between contexts, local stewards and to some extent policy-makers at various levels seem to be particularly important partners in settings across the world (Paper V). And thirdly, the thesis highlights a fifth process that arguably underlies the others: building support and motivation for management of ecosystem services among citizens (Paper I–IV). Biosphere Reserves often provide places where people can reconnect with local ecosystems, such as outdoor museums, nature schools and walking trails (Paper IV). For natural resource management to be relevant, it seems necessary to find and communicate a connection to other social and private interests – emotional (such as sense-of-place and identity, Barthel 2008, or the joy of contributing to something meaningful, Paper I) as well as rational (such as communicating the importance of ecosystem services, and identifying win-win situations, Paper II).

This thesis aimed to develop and refine the theory and practice of adaptive co-management and adaptive governance. It has highlighted and analyzed the contributions of bridging organizations and their social networks, and pointed to some of the challenges that adaptive comanagement involves. Paper IV and V identified a set of promising cases in different settings for comparative case studies of some of the many issues that remain. For example, the Kristianstads Vattenrike case is a success story in a rich, democratic country where inhabitants do not depend on local ecosystems for their survival. Drivers of degradation of ecosystem services such as population increase, urbanization and poverty are weak compared to many other places, and there are functioning institutions, associations and resources to draw from. What would an adaptive co-management approach look like in poor, urban areas? What would be the main tasks of a bridging organization in such a setting? Another issue regards the possibility of ‘scaling up’. How do places such as Biosphere Reserves become more than ‘islands of sustainability’? How does an initiative like Kristianstads Vattenrike, which builds on trust and personal relations, and strives on the flexibility of being a small organization, expand to deal with e.g. upstream issues? And, not the least important, what are the challenges that arise when we involve international collaboration in adaptive governance?

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Identified contributions of bridging organizations It is difficult if not impossible to apply blueprint solutions for resource management of complex adaptive social-ecological systems (Holling et al.

1998, Ostrom 2007). Nevertheless, this thesis has identified a range of features of bridging organizations that seem to contribute to the ability of natural resource management to nurture resilience in social-ecological systems. These contributions are listed below.

Connect vertically as well as and horizontally • • • • •

Identify key actors, e.g through social-ecological inventories Engage in building personal relations with key individuals Provide an attractive and clear vision but a flexible approach to realizing it Identify win-win situations between natural resource management and other societal and private goals Strategic collaboration – begin with positively-minded individuals to gain momentum, but make sure to get also the more negative ones on board eventually, they have important perspectives to contribute

Generate social-ecological knowledge and learning • • • • •

Support and document research, monitoring and experimentation done by local stewards as well as researchers and governmental bodies Provide and facilitate collective learning platforms for face-to-face interactions between people with different perspectives Combine knowledge systems Frame information and education to target groups, acting as a broker of information and building capacity Support learning and retention of local ecological knowledge

Facilitate and protect adaptive action • • • • • •

Facilitate trust-building and conflict resolution among key individuals Connect innovations to resources to strengthen local initiatives Acknowledge and communicate the contributions of various participants Build public support and understanding for resilience-based management of ecosystem services, communicating the interdependence of society and nature, as well as nature’s intrinsic values Ensure political, financial and legal support for resilience-based management of ecosystem services Filter external drivers and identify windows of opportunities

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Conclusions and challenges

•

•

•

•

•

•

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It is difficult if not impossible to apply blueprint solutions for resource management of complex adaptive social-ecological systems. The thesis and its papers illustrate that such management is improved by monitoring, learning, adaptation and flexible collective action.

Natural resource management that is done in strategic collaboration with a diversity of actors, prioritizes learning processes, and frames its goals so that they link to other societal goals, such as sustainable development, seems more likely to succeed in achieving its goals than sector-based management and conservation done in isolation from societal processes.

Adaptive collaboration and learning processes often need to be catalyzed, supported and protected in order to survive the pressures for increased efficiency. Bridging actors and organizations that fulfill this nurturing role are therefore crucial components of adaptive comanagement.

Judging from experiences in Biosphere Reserves, there is no evidence that adaptive co-management would be less effective than conventional conservation in protecting biodiversity. Instead, adaptive comanagement in is linked to higher effectiveness in achieving goals related to sustainable development.

Bridging actors and organizations need inter-personal skills and communicative skills (including listening skills) to identify and attract key actors and resources from different groups. Furthermore, they need to be able to synthesize diverse information and different values into a vision that inspires action. The also need to remain flexible, adaptive and innovative without losing the overall direction.

Challenges for bridging organizations include ensuring accountability and legitimacy of the adaptive co-management process. In addition, they must be able to switch timely between reflection and action, multi-loop learning and single-loop learning, and balance the tasks of nurturing diversity and finding common ground.

Sammanfattning på svenska

Vi befinner oss i en unik tid. Vi har aldrig varit så många människor som nu, och de ekosystem som ska försörja oss med mat, vatten, fiber, virke och energi har aldrig omvandlats så snabbt som nu. Det finns tecken på att människans omvandling av ekosystemen gjort dem sårbara för störningar som de tidigare klarade av. Samtidigt har störningarna som ekosystem utsätts för ökat, i frekvens och styrka, i form av klimatförändringar, föroreningar, stora resursuttag, och ändrad markanvändning. Våra metoder för att förvalta naturresurser är helt enkelt inte anpassade till dagens komplexa situation.

Den här avhandlingen undersöker hur naturvård kan utformas för att stödja en uthållig samhällsutveckling och stärka resiliensen (förmågan att klara av störningar, återhämta sig, och vidareutvecklas) i både ekosystem och samhällen – i s.k. kopplade sociala-ekologiska system. Inom resiliensforskningen har ’adaptiv samförvaltning’ visat sig vara en lovande ansats för att lyckas med just detta. ’Adaptiv’, eftersom de ständiga förändringarna och den stora osäkerheten kring hur sociala-ekologiska system fungerar kräver en förvaltning som ständigt lär av sina erfarenheter, bygger ekologisk kunskap och förståelse och kan anpassa sig till nya omständigheter. ’Samförvaltning’, eftersom naturvård måste utföras i samarbete mellan en rad aktörer. Miljöproblem tenderar att röra sig över olika nivåer och sektorer av beslutsfattande, över kommungränser och nationsgränser. Dessutom gör ekosystemens komplexitet att ingen har den fulla bilden av hur de fungerar, och därför måste man använda alla sorters kunskap, erfarenhetsbaserad såväl som forskningsbaserad. Vad som är lätt sagt är dock inte alltid lätt gjort, och denna avhandling försöker därför analysera praktiska erfarenheter av adaptiv samförvaltning, i jakt på strategier och förutsättningar som gör sådan förvaltning möjlig. Särskilt fokus ligger på s.k. brobyggande organisationer, de som får adaptiv samförvaltning mellan olika aktörer på olika nivåer att fungera.

En fallstudie i Biosfärområde Kristianstads Vattenrike analyserar ett exempel på lyckad adaptiv samförvaltning, och undersöker dels vilka aktörer som bidragit med vad (Artikel I), och dels hur den brobryggande organisationen Biosfärkontoret arbetat för att få till stånd en ny ansats för naturvården (Artikel II). Denna fallstudie ligger sedan till grund för tre jämförelser med andra områden världen över. Den första jämförelsen, Artikel III, diskuterar olika typer av lokalt baserad förvaltning och finner att adaptiv samförvaltning är väl lämpad för att stärka resiliensen mot olika 41

typer av störningar. Viktigast för att få en sådan förvaltning att fungera är brobyggande organisationer, ledarskap och visioner, kunskapsnätverk, institutioner som verkar på olika skalor, att natur och samhälle kopplas samman, att beslutsfattare på högre nivåer stödjer adaptiv samförvaltning, och hög motivation hos inblandade aktörer.

Artikel IV gräver djupare i lärandeprocesserna, och undersöker vem som behöver lära sig vad, och hur för att adaptiv samförvaltning ska ske. Denna studie bygger på enkätsvar från 148 Biosfärområden (utnämnda av UNESCO som ’förebilder för hållbar utveckling’) i 55 länder, som både har till uppgift att faktiskt bevara biologisk mångfald och stödja den lokala samhällsutvecklingen, och att öka kunskapen om hur detta ska gå till.

Sjuttionio av de 148 områdena uppger att de kombinerar lokal, erfarenhetsbaserad och akademisk kunskap i sin förvaltning, och prioriterar ett eller flera av lärande-målen. Intervjuer med tio av dessa visar att sådana Biosfärområden jobbar på tre sätt med lärande: De genererar ny kunskap genom att stödja och dokumentera forskning, övervakning och experiment.

De underlättar ömsesidigt lärande mellan olika grupper, såsom politiker, forskare och lantbrukare genom att skapa plattformar för personliga möten.

Dessutom erbjuder de utbildning och skräddarsydd information till särskilda målgrupper, samt till allmänheten, i form av naturskolor, guidade turer, websidor etc, för att stärka stödet och förståelsen för naturvårdens uppgift.

Artikel V bemöter en del av den kritik som brukar framföras mot lokal delaktighet i förvaltning. Även denna artikel utgår från Biosfärområden, som omfattar ett spektrum av förvaltningssätt – från konventionell naturvård till adaptiv samförvaltning. I ett material av 146 områden gör vi statiska tester av sambanden mellan olika aktörers deltagande och Biosfärområdenas självbedömning av effektiviteten vad gäller att uppnå olika mål, deras upplevda stöd från allmänhet och politiker, samt deras förmåga att integrera naturvård och samhällsutveckling. Vi finner svaga, men signifikant positiva samband mellan lokalbefolkninges deltagande, det lokala stödet, och förmågan till integrering. Adaptiv samförvaltning är kopplat till högre effektivitet vad gäller hållbarutvecklingsmål, men har ingen påverkan på effektiviteten vad gäller bevarande av biologisk mångfald.

Sammanfattningsvis visar avhandlingen att adaptiv samförvaltning är praktiskt möjligt och gynnsamt ur flera aspekter. Dock verkar det nödvändigt att någon aktör tar rollen som brobyggare, och katalyserar, stödjer och skyddar de ömtåliga samarbets- och lärandeprocesser som ligger till grund för adaptiv samförvaltning. Denna aktör behöver kunskap om ekosystemen såväl som kunskap om aktörerna i landskapet, och de lagar, regler, normer och kulturer som påverkar hur dessa aktörer agerar. Dessutom krävs att direktiv och förordningar från myndigheter ger utrymme och stöd för adaptiva samförvaltningsinitiativ. Flexibelt ledarskap, kommunikativ förmåga och förmåga att se helheter är nyckelegenskaper för brobyggande aktörer på alla nivåer.

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Acknowledgements

All respondents to interviews and surveys are gratefully acknowledged for their generous sharing of time and expertise. Special thanks to Sven-Erik Magnusson, Karin Magntorn, Hans Cronert and Carina Wettemark at the Biosphere Office in Kristianstads Vattenrike – your help throughout this thesis was crucial.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provided a unique platform for international exchange of experiences and knowledge concerning ecosystem services, the state of the planet, and potential ways forward. The Resilience Alliance provided another unique platform for trans-disciplinary research and discussions on resilience, that also invites young scholars like myself.

Thanks for everything I have learned through my interactions with you!

This work was funded by The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, Formas.

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Environmental Conservation 34 (2): 140–152 © 2007 Foundation for Environmental Conservation

doi:10.1017/S0376892907003876

Enhancing ecosystem management through social-ecological inventories: lessons from Kristianstads Vattenrike, Sweden L I S E N S C H U L T Z 1 , 2 ∗, C A R L F O L K E 1 , 3 A N D P E R O L S S O N 1 1

Stockholm Resilience Centre and Centre for Transdisciplinary Environmental Research (CTM), Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden, 2 Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden, and 3 Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, PO Box 50005, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden

Date submitted: 21 April 2006 Date accepted: 4 April 2007

SUMMARY Environmental policy increasingly emphasizes involvement of local users and land owners in ecosystem management, but conservation planning is still largely a bureaucratic-scientific endeavour of identifying biological values for protection. Neither biological inventories nor stakeholder analyses, that tend to focus on conflicting interests, capture human resources in the landscape or the social structures and processes underlying biological conservation values.

Social-ecological inventories are therefore proposed during the preparation phase of conservation projects as a means to identify people with ecosystem knowledge that practise ecosystem management. The method presented here focuses on local steward groups acting outside official management plans. In a socialecological inventory of a river basin of southern Sweden, local steward groups, their ecosystem management activities, motives and links to other actors involved in ecosystem management were identified through interviews, participatory observations and a review of documents and other written material. Several hundred active local stewards were organized in 10 local steward groups that managed and monitored a range of ecosystem services at different spatial scales. Contributions of local stewards included on-site ecosystem management, long-term and detailed monitoring of species and ecosystem dynamics, local ecological knowledge, public support for ecosystem management and specialized networks.

Two conservation projects are used to illustrate how local steward groups came together in multilevel networks and collaborated around specific conservation issues. The projects have been linked to ecosystem management at the landscape level through a flexible municipality organization, the Ecomuseum Kristianstads Vattenrike (EKV). EKV has acted as a ‘bridging organization’, coordinating and connecting many of the local steward groups to organizations and institutions at other levels. The process has been guided by social capital and shared ∗ Correspondence: Lisen Schultz Tel: +46 8 16 12 90 Fax: +46 8 15 84 17 e-mail: lisen@ecology.su.se

visions for the whole landscape. The study shows that ecosystem management likely relies on multilevel collaboration and social-ecological inventories may help identify actors that are fundamental in such management systems. Social-ecological inventories should be employed in any attempt to develop and implement ecosystem management.

Keywords: ecosystem management, Kristianstads Vattenrike, local stewards, multi-level networks, participation, socialecological inventory

INTRODUCTION Conservation is an essential tool in ecosystem management and stewardship of larger dynamic landscapes and seascapes (Bengtsson et al. 2003; Hughes et al. 2005). In the management of biological diversity, conservation plays a significant role in sustaining ecosystems in desired states (Folke et al.

1996; 2004), thus ensuring essential ecosystem services for livelihoods and societal development (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Successful ecosystem management obviously requires thorough knowledge about ecosystem processes, but just as important is knowledge of the social actors and structures that make these processes viable. For example, decades of ecological and natural history research are not enough to ensure proper ecosystem management of tropical dry forests in Costa Rica (Maass et al. 2005).

Management strategies must be based on understanding of human-ecosystem interactions (Maass et al. 2005) in socialecological systems (see Berkes et al. 2003).

Many of the social processes that support or obstruct conservation take place at the local level (Folke et al. 2005a), and there are several reasons why conservation efforts need to take these processes into account. In some cases, areas of conservation interest are a result of human behaviour and culture (Nabhan 1997), and engaging local actors may lower the transaction costs of sustained conservation (for example Colding & Folke 2000, 2001; Bhagwat et al. 2005).

Involving local resource users in environmental planning and decision-making can also improve incentives for ecosystem management (Agrawal & Gibson 1999; Fabricius & Koch 2004). Local people’s knowledge of local resources and ecosystem dynamics can complement scientific knowledge in conservation efforts (see Berkes et al. 2000; Gadgil

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Figure 1 Examples of ecosystem areas in Kristianstads Vattenrike managed or monitored by local stewards. The sizes range from the 400 m2 meadow managed by Venestad’s Village association, to the River Vrams˚an project covering a tertiary watershed, and to the activities of the Bird Society, the Frog group and the Flora group, who monitor the whole area divided into smaller plots. Flooded meadows/mowed wet grasslands cover 1620 ha (Ovesson 2003), actively managed sandy grasslands cover 2 ha (EKV manager of sandy grasslands project, personal communication 2006).

et al. 2003; Aswani & Hamilton 2004; Sheil & Lawrence 2004), and stakeholder participation and the need to involve communities are explicitly stated in several official documents and agreements on ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation. Examples range from global agreements such as the Malawi principles for the ecosystem approach adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity, to European Union (EU) Directives such as the EU Water Framework Directive, and Swedish Government communications such as En samlad naturv˚ardspolitik (Swedish Government 2001).

The means to map, analyse and manage stakeholder engagement to make conservation projects participatory and viable have been discussed extensively (for example Grimble & Wellard 1997; Thyl De Lopez 2001; Mushove & Vogel 2005).

Although participation by a variety of stakeholders may be desirable from a democratic perspective, it is not in itself a recipe for successful ecosystem management. Participation has to be connected to management practices that generate ecological knowledge, draw on experience and learn about and respond to ecosystem dynamics (Berkes & Folke 1998).

Here we focus on local actor groups (Folke et al. 2005b), generally operating at the level below municipalities, who effect management of ecosystems and their services on the ground. Inspired by Nabhan’s (1997) concept of cultural stewards of wildlife habitats, we refer to those as ‘local steward

groups’ and propose that they represent an undervalued and sometimes unrecognized source of knowledge and experience for ecosystem management (Olsson & Folke 2001).

We designed a method, a social-ecological inventory, to identify these local steward groups and their activities, with the ultimate aim of drawing on their experience to enhance ecosystem management at the landscape level. Such an inventory complements stakeholder analyses and biological and ecological inventories, and assesses existing management systems behind the generation of ecosystem services, thus providing a starting point for participation.

The 1100 km2 of Kristianstads Vattenrike (KV) comprise a diversity of habitats, including Sweden’s largest area of flooded meadows used for grazing and hay-making, in the catchment of the Helge˚a River (Municipality of Kristianstad, southern Sweden) (Fig. 1). Many of the unique biological and cultural values of KV are associated with these socialecological systems, which require active management and annual flooding to be sustained. KV generates a range of ecosystem services, including highly productive sandy and clay soils, the largest groundwater reserve in northern Europe and biodiversity, including rare plant species (such as fen ragwort Senecio paludosus and river water-crowfoot Ranunculus fluitans, 40 [7 of which are IUCN red listed species] fish species, 6 [2 red listed] amphibians, 260 [31 red listed]

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bird species, 11 [4 red listed] bat species and an abundance of insects and molluscs). Some of the area’s unique flora and fauna were described by the Swedish botanist Carl von Linn´e on his journey through Scania in 1749 (Linn´e 1751).

Part of KV is a wetland protected by the Ramsar Convention since 1975, yet the area deteriorated in the early 1980s, and people of the area mobilized themselves to forestall the ecological decline. In 1989, the municipal organization Ecomuseum Kristianstads Vattenrike (EKV) was formed as a key bridge between local actors and higher levels of governance. Simultaneously, there was a shift in perception among key actors from seeing KV as ‘pristine nature’ to be set aside for conservation, to recognizing that the values resulted from a cultural landscape influenced by a variety of actors.

Currently, conservation is used as a means for social and economic development of the area (Olsson et al. 2004; Hahn et al. 2006).

In this area where conservation values are tightly connected to the cultural landscape and managed by a diversity of actors, we pursue the following questions. Who are the local steward groups involved in ecosystem management? Which practices in relation to ecosystem services do they perform? What are their motives for engaging in ecosystem management? How do their activities and abilities relate to other types of ecosystem management in the area? We discuss how official management can facilitate, complement and build on the work of local stewards.

METHODS For the social-ecological inventory, we investigated existing local management systems and assessed how they related to ecosystem services of the area. Steward groups in the landscape, key individuals in these groups and their management practices were identified. We also identified collaborative links between organizations and individuals. Methods included interviews, participatory observations and an extensive review of other information sources, including project proposals, progress reports, notes, maps, correspondence, internet sites and newspaper clippings. The inventory focused on identifying organizations and individual landowners with management practices that directly or indirectly enhanced ecosystem services or the capacity of the ecosystem to provide these services. In addition, we mapped organizations and individuals that monitored the landscape and responded to ecosystem changes (i.e. local steward groups).

Information about ecosystem management and conservation administrated by official agencies is easily accessed in Sweden, due to the principle of public access to official records. Informal or unregistered management is less known, and there is no systematic assessment of such activities in Sweden. Therefore, our study focused on the management performed outside the official management plans. It does not include management that is imposed upon landowners and steward groups, but rather focuses on on-site management that is conducted in addition to the mandatory requirements and

responsibilities, often on a voluntary basis and for a diversity of reasons.

Identifying local steward groups The inventory started with interviews of EKV staff. Being a key coordinating organization in the network of ecosystem managers, they were asked to identify groups and individuals involved in the management of KV. This led us to a number of farmers, two fishing associations, two village associations, the Bird Society of north-east Scania and the local branch of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. Following a snowball sampling technique (Biernacki & Waldorf 1981), these organizations and individuals were asked in turn to provide more examples until we had developed an overview of local steward groups.

We also used a land-use map for KV to identify stewards not explicitly involved in the EKV network. This was used to list activities that could take place in the area, such as hunting, fishing, forestry and farming. We identified the largest landowners and landowners of key habitats or ecosystems, and we contacted the largest environmental and conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Sweden to obtain information about locally active members.

Finally, we searched municipality archives and registers of associations in Kristianstad. We do not claim that the social-ecological inventory is complete, but the groups and individuals interviewed represent a diversity of stewards that may be found in a landscape.

In order to find out how the work of local stewards relates to ecosystem management at other scales, we mapped the networks of two conservation projects. The mapping was made by a run-through of each project’s development step-by-step with the respective project manager. Project reports were used to verify and complement information from the interviewees. This method only captured the primary networks, but gave an idea of how the projects brought different groups together. These groups in turn brought their networks, but these were not fully mapped.

Key informants and interviews Within each group, we asked for individuals knowledgeable about nature and the group’s management activities. In some cases, a key individual was the chairman of an association, while at other times the focal person had taken part in forming an association. One of the interviewees was chosen for being active in several organizations. The interviews were semi-structured and open-ended, using a combination of the interview guide approach and informal conversation (Patton 1980). They were conducted after an initial phone call, where the objective of our research was presented. In total, 16 individuals were interviewed.

The interviews centred around three themes. One was the local steward groups’ interactions with the ecosystem, and this was revealed through questions about (1) management

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a

Table 1 Local stewards of Kristianstads Vattenrike. Sources of information: total number of farmers in Kristianstad (Municipality of Kristianstad official website 2005, see http://www.kristianstad.se), b annual report of Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Kristianstad (Naturskyddsf¨oreningen i Kristianstad 2004), c annual report of the Bird Society of NE Scania (Nord¨ostra Sk˚anes F˚agelklubb 2006), d board member of Nedre Helge˚ans fishing society, personal communication (2006), e chair of Kristianstad-Brom¨olla hunting circuit, personal communication (2006), f board member of N¨asby hunting association, personal communication (2003), g Swedish Forestry Agency, personal communication (2005), h Nature Conservation manager at EKV, personal communication (2005), i chair of the Bird Society of NE Scania, personal communication (2005), and j chair of Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Kristianstad, personal communication (2003).

Groups and associations

Individuals active as local stewards

Farmers Sandy grasslands Flooded meadows

Total number of individuals belonging to the group 1430a

5h 50 h 1477b

Society for Nature Conservation in Kristianstad Flora group Bird group Frog group Bird Society of North-east Scania Nedre Helge˚ans fishing society Kristianstad-Brom¨olla hunting circuit N¨asby hunting association Private forest owners

practices (‘Describe what you do in this biotope during a year’ and ‘How come you do it like that?’) and (2) the result and rationale of the practices (‘What do you expect the results to be?’, ‘What have the results been so far?’ and ‘How is this species important?’). Another theme concerned cooperation and communication with other groups related to ecosystem management. To understand how the work of local steward groups could be facilitated, a third theme regarded the development of management and the motives for continuing, posing questions like ‘How did it start?’, ‘What makes you continue?’ and ‘How do you envision the future of your group?’. Interviews were tape recorded and fully transcribed.

Interviews lasted 1–2.5 hours.

When possible, we conducted participant observations (Jørgensen 1989) at sites and meetings. Annual reports, protocols and websites provided additional information on activities carried out by the groups.

RESULTS We identified several hundred active local stewards organized in 10 local steward groups ranging from place-based farmers to national NGOs (Table 1). The exact numbers of stewards and steward groups were difficult to determine; some stewards were active in several groups, some were not organized and others were supportive members of associations but not very active. However, the inventory enabled us to investigate how local stewards operate in relation to ecosystems and their services.

Interviews with the local stewards revealed a range of practices used for managing KV (Table 2). Focusing on different ecosystem components, their activities were spread across the whole area (Fig. 1). In addition to on-site

20j 20j 20j 50i 10d 1559e 12f Unknown

541c 800 householdsd 1559e 12f 2537g

management, local steward groups provided detailed and long-term monitoring of species and ecosystem conditions, in some cases on a daily basis. The groups were also interacting with individuals and organizations horizontally and vertically, including landowners, governmental agencies and other steward groups, mainly in specific conservation projects (Figs 2 and 3), but also in formal structures such as the consultancy group advising the EKV. In several cases, the activities of the steward groups complemented ecosystem management at other levels, but they were not always recognized or supported by government agencies in this role.

None of the stewards expected economic gain from their engagement, but instead emphasized the joy of learning, the satisfaction of contributing to something important, aesthetical and recreational values of interacting with nature and the social function of working together.

All of the steward groups had been in place before the bridging organization EKV was established, but the activities of many of the steward groups had been strengthened and coordinated in an adaptive manner by EKV (Olsson et al.

2004).

Local steward groups in KV Farmers constituted the group of local stewards which had the largest impact on KV ecosystems, as their management practices structured the wetland landscape and the sandy grasslands. EKV cooperated with several farmers to keep the flood plains grazed and to sustain the rotational farming system necessary to maintain the sandy grasslands. Anglers and hunters also had steward associations in KV involved in monitoring and management of the resources and supporting ecosystems. Two national conservation associations had local

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Table 2 Some examples of local stewards’ management practices, favouring different ecosystem components and enhancing different ecosystem services.

Local stewards Farmers

Forest owners

Examples of management Grazing of flooded meadows, manual removal of hawthorn bushes Harrowing the sandy grasslands in a traditional fallow farming cycle Adjusting potato farming to decrease nutrient leakage along the River Vrams˚an Saving key biotopes

Thinning or planting forest along the River Vrams˚an for appropriate proportions of light and shadow Thinning the forest to provide fodder to game Fishing associations Improving fish habitats, catch regulations Hunting associations Feeding game, improving habitats, monitoring, predator and vermin control Bird Society of Putting up nesting boxes, feeding North-east Scania birds of prey during winter Helping clear up land to improve habitats

Venestad’s village association

Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Kristianstad: (a) Flora group

(b) Frog group (c) Bird group

Suggesting and working for bird conservation projects such as the Stork project Cutting grass for hay-making according to traditional management practices in a small area

Initiated the sandy grasslands project and other conservation projects Cutting grass for hay-making according to traditional management practices in a small area Restoring and creating amphibian habitats Winter-feeding of white-tailed eagles Haliaeetus albicilla since 1968 Fetch and release of 70–150 goshawks a year caught by pheasantry owners Involved in the Stork project

Favoured ecosystem component Flooded meadows along Helge˚a river Sandy grasslands unique in Europe Water quality

Diverse habitats in deciduous forests Fish and flora habitats along the creek

Examples of associated ecosystem services Biodiversity, recreation, aesthetics, quality fodder, nutrient retention, flood buffer, part of KV’s identity Biodiversity of flora and pollinating insects, aesthetics, cultural values Biodiversity of flora and fauna in the creek, fish production Biodiversity, timber production Biodiversity, fish production

Elk and deer

Meat production, recreation

Fish

Fish production, recreation

Hare, deer, pheasants, elk

Meat production, recreation

Birds

Biodiversity, recreation, seed dispersal

Flooded meadows along Helge˚a river

Biodiversity, recreation, aesthetics, quality fodder, nutrient retention, flood buffer, part of KV’s identity Biodiversity, recreation, aesthetics, education, part of KV’s identity

A range of habitats suiting different birds Flora species associated with traditional agricultural landscape

Biodiversity of flora and pollinating insects, recreation, aesthetics, cultural values

Range of habitats suiting different plants

Biodiversity of flora and pollinating insects, recreation, aesthetics, cultural values

Flora species associated with traditional agricultural landscape

Biodiversity of flora and pollinating insects, recreation, aesthetics, cultural values

Habitats for rare amphibians White-tailed eagles

Biodiversity, indicators of ecosystem health (informational service) Biodiversity, aesthetics

Goshawks

Biodiversity

Storks

Biodiversity, symbol of Scania

Social-ecological inventories in ecosystem management groups in the area, performing a range of management practices, mainly to improve and conserve biodiversity.

In addition, one village association performed management practices that enhanced ecosystem services. Once a year they cut grass with scythes to provide a habitat to rare plant species.

Some forest owners were identified who had participated in a project on collaborative landscape analysis, initiated by the Swedish Forestry Agency and funded by the EU (M˚ars¨ater et al. 2001).

Local stewards’ contributions to ecosystem management Common features emerged from analysing the interview data, and the contributions of the different local steward groups in relation to ecosystem management could be summarized in five categories, namely on-site management, monitoring and response, local ecological knowledge, generating support for ecosystem management and specialized networks.

On-site management Local stewards used a range of management practices that structured the landscape on different scales (Table 2). Flooded meadows, sandy grasslands and key habitats in deciduous forests were dependent on management by farmers and forest owners. Habitats for rare species of birds, plants and amphibians were being sustained and improved by volunteers from the Bird Society, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Kristianstad (hereafter called the Nature Conservation Society) and a village association. Fish and game populations were being managed by members of hunting and fishing associations through habitat restoration and regulations for hunting and fishing. Hunters and a bird group of the Nature Conservation Society were also engaged in feeding animals during harsh conditions. There were also efforts to save individual wildlife. For instance, the Nature Conservation Society was saving up to 150 goshawks a year through an agreement with local pheasantries to catch and release goshawks from their traps.

Monitoring and response While the farmers’ management practices structured the landscape and formed the basis for the rich biodiversity of the area, monitoring of population changes were mainly conducted by the Bird Society and the Nature Conservation Society. These groups included knowledgeable people living in the area and spending a lot of time in the landscape. They were conducting inventories both on their own initiative and on request, and had done so for decades, covering all of KV and parts of the neighbouring municipality. For example, the Bird Society had conducted inventories in KV since 1976 and had set up a field station used for scientific studies and ringing of birds. The Flora group had conducted regular inventories of certain areas for more than 20 years and arranged 140 excursions since 1983, documentation of most of which were

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available. Hunters participated in inventories of wildlife, for example of grouse.

In addition to regular inventories, several steward groups were conducting long-term monitoring of populations and habitats. Fishing associations assisted, for example, in measuring and reporting caught catfish (protected by law) before releasing them. Individual farmers were involved in monitoring water quality of the river Vrams˚an. The Flora group guarded 550 one hectare squares, spread out across the KV, which were habitats of IUCN red-listed species. The Frog group visited all amphibian habitats regularly. Hunters monitored the health of game. Responses to ecosystem feedback ranged from changing management practices to notifying officials and conservation organizations: ‘If we see that the game’s health is deteriorating, we alert the regional and national hunting association’ (hunter, personal communication 2003). Mobilizations by the Flora group and the Frog group had several times been successful in preventing harmful activities, such as road construction in sensitive areas.

Local ecological knowledge The interviews revealed that there were many learning processes in play in the area. The local stewards acquired the knowledge that they used in management in school, in study circles, in seminars with invited scientists, from each other and through media. Some had travelled to other places in Sweden and even abroad to gain new insights, and individuals from other regions were invited to the KV area to share their knowledge and experience. The stewards combined scientific knowledge and experiential knowledge, generated as ecosystem management projects were monitored and management practices were adjusted according to the results. As the chairman of the Bird Society put it, ‘It takes knowledge about the birds’ life histories to improve their reproduction sites.’ The methods for conducting biological inventories were gained from handbooks or similar, often published by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

The stewards had specific conceptions about habitats, species, links and ecosystem functions in the area.

For example, they described population fluctuations and presented reasons behind them. A forest owner said, ‘the areas between the forest and the arable land are often very rich, but they don’t give much in production. If they were preserved they could function as migration corridors. Another way of increasing diversity is to remove only the older trees, to get a stand with mixed ages. Solitary pines on bogs should be left, since they give habitat to the black woodpecker, who in turn constructs habitats for a range of other bird species.

Species such as some insects, mosses and lichens cannot live without the forest. No one knows what would happen if they disappeared. Some organisms keep others down, that would be harmful to us. Others increase production by nitrogen fixation. Others again might have functions we don’t know of. Keeping a rich nature will be beneficial to us in the future.’

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There was a general notion that ecosystems are complex with inherent uncertainties, and that altering them may lead to irreversible changes. ‘You can do as many environmental impact assessments as you like. You will always have consequences you had not predicted. . . . You can never get back what you once have exterminated’ (member of several associations, personal communication 2002). There was also awareness of cross-scale interactions, such as effects of landuse change in the migratory bird’s winter habitats on migration patterns and survival. ‘Reserves are good, but they are not enough. You have to consider surrounding areas as well’ (member of several associations, personal communication 2002). The argument for focusing on rare species was that they are indicators or symbols of certain habitats with associated functions and services.

In addition, the local stewards were knowledge carriers of historical management practices and long-term changes in the landscape. Forest owners, farmers, hunters, fishers, bird watchers and flora group members were sources of knowledge of how the landscape has changed and how populations of different species have fluctuated. For example, Venestad’s village association had documented local knowledge and local history through literature and story-telling by elders.

Generating support for ecosystem management The local steward groups of the area were playing an important role in strengthening interest in and a sense of nature, both among their members and the public. The Bird Society and the Nature Conservation Society arranged excursions and study circles. Interviews with hunters, members of fishing associations, forest owners and farmers revealed that their participation in the local steward groups and in the ecosystem management projects increased their engagement and interest in nature and its dynamics.

Specialized networks All the local steward groups had specialized networks, often including national and international contacts. Many farmers were members of the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF).

The hunting associations, the Bird Society and the Nature Conservation Society were all local branches of national organizations. They took part in national and international inventories, and they could also get larger support for their work through their mother organizations. The Bird Society had contacts with Denmark within the Stork project. They also exchanged experiences and knowledge with a twin association in Latvia, funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).

Motives for engaging in ecosystem management Generally, the main motive for engaging in collaborative ecosystem management was not money. Aesthetic and recreational values, such as the beauty and peacefulness of flooded meadows, colourful flowers and birds in flight were appreciated by farmers and forest owners, as well as bird

watchers and Flora group members. The local steward groups also had a social function; the members enjoyed doing things together. The chairman of the Bird Society stated that in order to keep the members, ‘it is important that they feel welcome’.

Another important aspect for all groups interviewed was the joy of learning: ‘The more you learn about nature, the more interesting it gets’. Finally, the groups stressed the importance of what they were doing for ecological functions, sustainability and the responsibility they had as stewards of biodiversity, habitats and ecosystems. Consequently, ecosystem management gave self-esteem to farmers who in other contexts were considered ‘environmental bandits’. Even though stewards in general did not expect to earn income from their work with ecosystems, they were not happy about having to pay for expenses other than time. For example, it was important for the individual volunteers in conservation associations to have fuel costs covered when they conducted inventories and monitoring. Usually, these expenses were covered by member fees, support from the municipality, donations and compensation from projects. Cattle-keeping farmers claimed that grants from the EU and the Swedish government made it affordable to keep the flooded meadows grazed.

Local stewards in relation to ecosystem management at larger scales Most of the interviewees felt that local stewards’ contributions to ecosystem management were acknowledged and facilitated by the official managers in Kristianstad. Formal collaboration took place in the Consultancy Group for Nature Conservation, which advised the EKV and assembling representatives from the County Administrative Board, different municipality organizations and eight local associations three times a year.

The County Administrative Board regularly sent proposals for counselling to the different groups.

The EKV coordinated ecosystem management (Olsson et al. 2004; Hahn et al. 2006) and relied heavily on local participation. They had a well-developed local network, and were aware of how different groups could contribute to ecosystem management, as well as the motives behind their contributions. Based on this information, the staff of EKV tried to create win-win situations tailored to different needs.

They also made an effort to acknowledge good initiatives and the work of local stewards. Several groups emphasized the collaborative atmosphere in KV, and said that EKV forestalled conflicts through good communication among land owners, hunters, members of fishing associations, forest owners and conservation associations. They also stressed the importance of having a participatory approach: ‘Everybody that is affected by a decision should be called personally to participate in a discussion. Participation is not just a tool to make decisions smooth. Local people know about ecology, and they don’t accept being overrun’ (member of several organizations, personal communication 2002).

Ecosystems in the area were often being managed in projects by collaborative networks spanning multiple levels in society,

Social-ecological inventories in ecosystem management including local stewards and the EKV. We describe two such projects, investigating how the activities of local stewards fitted into a larger context of ecosystem management.

The River Vrams˚an project According to the project manager and the project report, the River Vrams˚an project aimed to restore habitats for rare species and improve water quality in one of Sweden’s most diverse and well-preserved creeks. The project also aimed to raise awareness among users and managers of the creek’s values and problems and possible responses to these problems. The creek hosts several rare species, such as river water-crowfoot Ranunculus fluitans, freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera, sea trout Salmo trutta trutta, stone loach Barbatula barbatula and natterer’s bat Myotis nattereri and, in contrast to most other creeks in Scania, it has not been straightened or deepened. It was mainly used for fishing and irrigation, and problems included nutrient loading from surrounding farms and household sewage, and water scarcity during dry periods, resulting in decline of biotopes and species. The project was initiated in 1999 by the EKV and ended in 2004. Funding was provided mainly by the WWFSweden, but Region Scania, the County Administrative Board and a potato crisp company also contributed (Dahlman 2004; manager of the River Vrams˚an project, personal communication 2006). The manager’s progress notes showed that the project involved a range of local steward groups, researchers, the private sector and governmental organizations (Fig. 2, Table 3). Local steward groups were mainly engaged in monitoring, inventories and practical management. They also provided access to land and local ecological knowledge, and some participated in an advisory group.

The sandy grasslands project The sandy grasslands project aimed at reintroducing traditional management practices to restore sandy grasslands that were disappearing in Europe (EKV manager of Sandy grasslands project, personal communication 2006). It was initiated when the Flora group suggested that the grasslands ˚ near Ahus should be restored, which catalysed the realization of an idea that had been ‘put on hold’ at the Ecomuseum for several years. After a meeting between the Flora group, ˚ the EKV, the park manager of Ahus and the Municipality ecologist, the project started. The park manager had some funding for managing the municipal lands, which could be put into the project. In addition, there was a plan to sell municipal land to a golf course entrepreneur, and the City architect could fund an inventory of valuable areas as part of the environmental impact assessment for the golf course.

EKV had some funding for their application to become a Man and the Biosphere Reserve, which was also used for the sandy grassland project.

The EKV coordinated the project, but relied on other actors for different parts of the project (Fig. 3, Table 2). The Flora group provided botanical knowledge and local knowledge about sandy grassland habitats in the area. They also had

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a well-developed network of members through which they could provide information and motivation for harrowing the sandy grasslands. Through guided tours and other activities, the Flora group hoped to inform and increase interest in the sandy grasslands among a broader public. The Flora group was also involved in long-term monitoring. To identify interesting fallow areas in the preparation phase of the project, an expert from the group was employed to ensure results would be delivered on time. ‘It is not a matter of quality, they (the local stewards) are competent enough to do good inventories, but we do not want to sponge on them or take advantage of volunteer work. You cannot demand results from volunteers on a deadline, so sometimes initially it is better to employ an expert’ (Director of EKV, personal communication 2004).

Farmers provided knowledge of management practices associated with the sandy grasslands and experimentation for further learning has been part of the process. The EKV compiled knowledge of the fallow farming through interviews with several farmers in the area, to document management practices and get an overall picture of the sandy grassland and the fallow areas in north-east Scania. Farmers also had access to land, animals and machines to perform these management practices.

The EKV has helped raise funding and intended to apply for grants from the Local Nature Conservation Funds or Region Scania. They have served as mediators and put the project in a larger context, linking it to other societal goals. For example, in the case of the golf course, the EKV were not trying to stop it, as a more radical conservation organization would have, but instead make the municipality consider environmental issues when choosing which golf entrepreneur to sell the land to. The EKV has also put a lot of effort into strengthening the public’s interest in and sense of nature, through outdoor exhibitions, an informative website, regular meetings with local media, the nature school and several other activities (Olsson et al. 2004; Hahn et al. 2006). They have provided the link between scientists and local inhabitants, making sure that research results have been conveyed to area managers and the broader public.

DISCUSSION The social-ecological inventory illustrates that ecosystem management can be enhanced through recognition and collaboration with local steward groups. These groups conduct on-site management, long-term and place-based monitoring and provide quick responses to environmental change. They also generate local ecological knowledge employed in management practices, develop new initiatives in an adaptive management fashion, help gain support for ecosystem management, and act as guardians of species and habitats. Even if some may seem to have a narrow focus, aiming at favouring certain habitats or species, their activities need to be recognized as a potential source of stewardship of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

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Figure 2 The network of the River Vrams˚an project.

Information arrows represent legal support, ecological knowledge and monitoring. Dark ellipses with white text represent NGOs, grey ellipses represent governmental organizations, rectangles represent private companies and white ellipses represent individuals acting outside organizations. Bold black outlines mark the local stewards.

WWF = Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Table 3 Contributions of different actors to the River Vrams˚an project.

×

×

× × ×

×

×

× ×

×

Nature 2000 network

Region scania

Municipality organizations

Universities

WWF

The Bird Society

The Flora group

Fishing associations

Forest owners

Mill owners

×

×

×

× ×

County Administrative Board

× ×

Potato farmers

×

Private land owners

× ×

Potato crisp company

Ecological consultancy firm

Initiating the project Coordination/ connecting actors and projects Funding Generating political support Providing institutional support Generating public support Ecological knowledge Maps Access to technology Access to land Monitoring, inventories, suggested measures Practical management Experimentation

Actors

EKV

Project components

× ×

×

× ×

×

×

×

×

×

×

× ×

×

×

×

× ×

×

×

×

Social-ecological inventories in ecosystem management

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Figure 3 Groups involved in the sandy grasslands project. Dark ellipses with white text represent NGOs, grey ellipses represent governmental organizations and white ellipses represent individuals acting outside organizations. Bold black outlines mark the local stewards.

Initiating the project Coordination/connecting actors and projects Funding × Generating political support × Providing institutional support Generating public support Experimentation Knowledge of traditional management practices Knowledge of current ecosystem condition Access to land Practical management such as plowing and harrowing Ecosystem monitoring

Steward groups are often organized in collaborative networks involving local inhabitants, other associations and contacts on other levels. Many of them take part in national and international networks for information sharing and common action. However, being local, small-scale and built

× × ×

×

× ×

Farmers

The Flora group

EKV

Municipal park manager

Municipal ecologist

City architect

Actors County AdministrativeBoard

Project components

MAB

Table 4 Contributions of different actors to the sandy grasslands project. MAB = Man and the Biosphere Network.

×

× × × ×

× × × ×

×

× × ×

×

on voluntary efforts also poses constraints such as lack of power and limitations on the time and effort that can be put into conservation and ecosystem management projects.

Thus, although local steward groups play important roles in responding to changes and managing the landscape, it

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should not be concluded that the work of these groups can be substituted for the efforts of formal management, but rather that their self-organizing ability can complement them. It seems that to be truly effective, local stewards need a larger framework and links to organizations and institutions at higher levels.

It is in this context that social-ecological inventories become useful. Such inventories help illuminate ongoing local placebased efforts for conservation and ecosystem management.

They reveal the groups’ foci, motives, knowledge and networks, generating a map of actors and links that can be revived in different phases of change in a social-ecological system (Folke et al. 2003). A social-ecological inventory is different from a stakeholder analysis in that it focuses on people with ecosystem knowledge and local stewards who practise ecosystem management, rather than analysing all stakeholder groups. In other words, it is conducted with the aim of unravelling current local capacity for ecosystem management rather than identifying conflicting interests, and emphasizes the human-in-nature perspective which is the basis for analyses of integrated social-ecological systems (Berkes et al. 2003). Because they are made with the assumption that people in the landscape can be local stewards as opposed to mere users of ecosystem services, socialecological inventories can function as vehicles for trustbuilding among stakeholders.

Using local stewards’ understanding of long-term landscape changes, gained through voluntary monitoring and management practices, and building on local institutions might lower transaction costs of conservation. Neglecting ongoing management when deciding on, for example, protected areas will surely create unnecessary conflict, remove local incentives for conservation and alienate people.

Furthermore, the generation of ecosystem services may deteriorate when local stewards and social features of ecosystem management are neglected.

An example from southern Madagascar illustrates this point. Here, the landscape is heavily fragmented, except for small forest patches that serve as refuges and hold an abundance of rare species. Analyses of movements of animals illustrate that the landscape is fairly well connected and that the forest patches support pollination of staple crops important to local livelihoods (Bodin et al. 2006). A national government or an international conservation NGO may conclude that to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services these forest patches need to be urgently protected from human use. But a social-ecological inventory would reveal that they are in fact already protected by social taboo systems (Tengo 2004). Lack of recognition of the social and cultural dimension of conservation may lead to collapse of such systems (Colding & Folke 2001). However, with this information in mind, the NGO and the national government could instead support such management institutions, for example, through what Ostrom and Schlager (1996) refer to as umbrella organizations. Incentives should be created that strengthen social networks of steward groups for

ecosystem management in multi-level governance systems (Folke et al. 2005b).

Although the need to involve local users and land owners in management is widely recognized, conservation planning is still predominantly a bureaucratic-scientific endeavour.

For example, the local-user dimension is part of the Natura 2000 directive of the European Union, yet local users have often been excluded from the process of identifying areas to be conserved. When implemented in the municipality of Karvia (Finland), the Natura 2000 process caused severe controversy and conflict (Hiedanp¨aa¨ 2002). Stakeholders were locked in old positions and felt excluded from the decisionmaking process. In other cases, local inhabitants may refuse participation because they lack interest in the special issues discussed and landowners may be precipitated into exploiting an area to be conserved to avoid its appropriation by the state. It is time to move conservation beyond confrontation to collaboration (Wondolleck & Yaffee 2000) and recognize that ecosystem management is also to a large extent people management.

In Kristianstad, the Ecomuseum plays a unique role in coordinating efforts around different projects and connecting them to larger scales. This collaboration is facilitated by and strengthens social capital in the area. Social capital is a widely discussed concept (Coleman 1988; Putnam 1993; Dasgupta & Serageldin 2000; Ostrom & Ahn 2003), but our interpretation is in line with Pretty and Ward (2001) and three of their four features of social capital are identified in our social-ecological inventory, namely relations of trust, reciprocity and exchanges, and connectedness in networks and groups. The processes and strategies used by EKV in relation to these features have been dealt with in our earlier work (Hahn et al. 2006). Here, we stress the significance of a coordinating team, like the EKV, which can bridge levels and narrow foci by providing overview and mitigating between one-sided opinions, supplying links to decision-makers and scientists, and presenting a professional framework where volunteers can contribute without being burdened with too much responsibility. The EKV interprets and provides the larger picture, mediates between special interests and supports conservation for development of the region. Furthermore, EKV can identify funding sources from organizations at higher levels and has an advisory role in societal planning processes. Local stewards often take initiatives, but they then need the EKV to take the lead for the project to gain momentum.

The EKV is an example of an organization that bridges local actors and communities with other organizational levels. Such ‘bridging organizations’ can serve as filters for external drivers (Alcorn et al. 2003) and provide opportunities by bringing in resources, knowledge and other incentives for ecosystem management. A bridging organization like the EKV provides an arena for trust-building, sense-making, learning, vertical and horizontal collaboration and conflict resolution (Olsson et al. 2004; Hahn et al. 2006). It uses networks of local steward groups to mobilize knowledge and social memory, which in

Social-ecological inventories in ecosystem management turn help deal with uncertainty and shape change (Folke et al. 2003, 2005b). Such structures of social capital need to be recognized and nurtured in conservation and ecosystem management efforts.

We propose that governmental agencies and NGOs devoted to environmental conservation should take advantage of and stimulate the self-organizing ability of local steward groups and avoid policies and actions that exclude and alienate people from the land. Social-ecological inventories complement biological inventories and stakeholder analyses, clarifying the web of social interactions in the landscape that can contribute to conservation and help develop viable ecosystem management. If they are conducted in the preparatory phase of conservation planning, through personal interactions with the local stewards, and with the intention to learn about activities and abilities, they can support a trust-building process and facilitate continuous collaboration. Therefore, they should be given high priority and be applied in programmes like the EU Water Framework Directive and UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere reserves.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank all interviewees for sharing their information and Gustav Schultz for drawing the map. Thanks also to two reviewers for valuable comments. The study was conducted as part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and financed by The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, Formas.

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Fabricius, C., C. Folke, G. Cundill, and L. Schultz. 2007. Powerless spectators, coping actors, and adaptive co-managers: a synthesis of the role of communities in ecosystem management. Ecology and Society 12(1): 29. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art29/

Guest Editorial, part of a Special Feature on Strengthening adaptive capacity

Powerless Spectators, Coping Actors, and Adaptive Co-managers: a Synthesis of the Role of Communities in Ecosystem Management Christo Fabricius 1, Carl Folke 2, Georgina Cundill 1, and Lisen Schultz 2

ABSTRACT. We provide a synthesis of the papers in the Special Issue, the Communities Ecosystems and Livelihoods component of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), and other recent publications on the adaptive capacity of communities and their role in ecosystem management. Communities adapt because they face enormous challenges due to policies, conflicts, demographic factors, ecological change, and changes in their livelihood options, but the appropriateness of their responses varies. Based on our synthesis, three broad categories of adaptive communities are identified. “Powerless spectator” communities have a low adaptive capacity and weak capacity to govern, do not have financial or technological options, and lack natural resources, skills, institutions, and networks. “Coping actor” communities have the capacity to adapt, but are not managing social–ecological systems. They lack the capacity for governance because of lack of leadership, of vision, and of motivation, and their responses are typically short term. “Adaptive manager” communities have both adaptive capacity and governance capacity to sustain and internalize this adaptation. They invest in the long-term management of ecosystem services. Such communities are not only aware of the threats, but also take appropriate action for long-term sustainability. Adaptive comanagement becomes possible through leadership and vision, the formation of knowledge networks, the existence or development of polycentric institutions, the establishment and maintenance of links between culture and management, the existence of enabling policies, and high levels of motivation in all role players.

Adaptive co-managers are empowered, but empowerment is a consequence of the capacity for governance and the capacity to adapt, rather than a starting point. Communities that are able to enhance their adaptive capacity can deal with challenges such as conflicts, make difficult trade-offs between their short- and longterm well-being, and implement rules for ecosystem management. This improves the capacity of the ecosystem to continue providing services.

Key Words: Adaptive co-management; community-based ecosystem management; governance; livelihoods; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

INTRODUCTION This paper is a synthesis of seven papers (Barthel et al. 2005, Bohensky and Lynam 2005,; Cundill et al. 2005, Lynam et al. 2004, Olsson et al. 2004b, Pereira et al. 2005, Xu et al. 2005) published in the Special Issue “Strengthening People’s Adaptive Capacity for Ecosystem Management and Human Well-being.” It synthesizes the lessons and experiences regarding local communities’ adaptive capacity, and includes lessons from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) (www.maweb.org) (Folke et al. 2005a). The ability and capacity of social–ecological systems to adapt is a key factor influencing their resilience (Armitage 2005, Folke 1

Rhodes University, South Africa, 2Stockholm University

et al. 2005b), and managers’ capacity to respond appropriately to feedbacks is, therefore, critical (Walker et al. 2004, Wilson 2006). In this paper, we assess the adaptive strategies that enable communities to cope with external political, economic, and ecological threats, and focus on those adaptations that strengthen their capacity to manage ecosystems sustainably. We adopt an integrated, social–ecological systems approach, which enables us to assess the entire system, not just its social or ecological components.

Adaptive capacity is an indication of the capacity to deal with change and disturbance, and reflects learning through knowledge sharing and responding

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to feedbacks (Walker et al. 2002, 2004, Folke et al.

2003, Olsson et al. 2004a). It is a measure of the thresholds within which systems are able to deal with change: systems with high adaptive capacities can thus retain their integrity under a broader range of conditions than systems with low adaptive capacities (Smit and Wandel 2006). In social systems, adaptive capacity refers to the ability to learn from mistakes (Adger 2003) and to generate experience of dealing with change (Berkes et al.

2003), which in turn largely depends on the ability of individuals and their social networks to innovate (Armitage 2005). The ability of individuals and organizations to learn, anticipate, and forecast is an important characteristic of the adaptive capacity of social–ecological systems. This capacity for learning and adaptation directly influences the governance of natural resources, i.e., “....the interactions among structures, processes and traditions that determine how power and responsibilities are exercised, how decisions are taken, and how citizens or other stakeholders have their say in the management of natural resources....”

(IUCN CMWG and TILCEPA 2004, p. 1).

THE NEED FOR A FINE-GRAINED, COMMUNITY-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE

We realize that the concept of “community” is fraught with problems (Ainslie 1999, Fabricius et al. 2001, Fabricius 2004, Armitage 2005, Folke et al. 2005a), and have, therefore, adopted a broad and inclusive definition of the term, following that of Capistrano et al. (2005): “A collection of human beings who have something in common. A local community is a fairly small group of people who share a common place of residence and a set of institutions....”

In accordance with its multi-scale approach (Capistrano et al. 2005), the MA included a series of fine-grained studies in addition to its global and regional perspectives (Folke et al. 2005a).

Assessments at the local scale were referred to as community-based by the MA, although they were conducted with varying degrees of community participation. The results were, however, not only expected to apply at the local level, but to have implications for the findings of the assessment at broader scales too.

In this paper, we examine the underlying causes of adaptations and adaptability in individuals and institutions, and assess the consequences for ecosystem resilience and community well-being by addressing four questions: 1. Why do communities adapt?

2. How do communities adapt, and what influences their adaptive capacity?

3. What are the benefits of adaptive capacity to communities and ecosystems?

4. What can communities do to promote their adaptive capacity?

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA; ww w.maweb.org) was designed to highlight the relationship between ecosystems and human wellbeing at several spatial scales, from the global to the local. It aimed to raise the awareness of policy makers and managers of the importance of ecosystems in defining human well-being around the globe, and strived to build the capacity of all role players to conduct integrated ecosystem assessments and to manage ecosystems to strengthen their capacity to provide goods and services (MA 2003, 2005). The MA focused on ecosystem services (the benefits people obtain from ecosystems, such as food, water, and climate regulation), how changes in these services have affected human well-being, and how such changes may affect people in the future (Carpenter and Folke 2006). It also focused on the responses that might be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management, contribute to human well-being, and alleviate poverty.

Folke et al. (2005a) concluded that a community perspective was essential because communities are often neglected, but essential parts of ecosystem management. Their roles, including knowledge, experience, institutions, and organizational capabilities, should be acknowledged and embedded in any governance system that aims at strengthening the capacity to manage ecosystems sustainably for human well-being. Community-based ecosystem assessments are, therefore, the most direct way to understand the complex relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being.

Traditional and local communities who live in and manage ecosystems are often the first to detect ecosystem change, and are most immediately and directly affected by it. There are local communities with fine-grained, contextual knowledge about

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ecosystems. Such knowledge has evolved over many generations of experimentation, trial, and error, and can be incorporated into ecosystem management policies and strategies. In addition, communities are important decision makers in ecosystem management, affecting ecosystems at all scales (Berkes 2006). It has been shown that participation by several actors in ecosystem assessments not only broadens the information base for ecosystem assessments, but also improves the legitimacy as well as the accuracy of the process (Bohensky et al. 2004).

In their synthesis of community assessments in Chile, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Peru, Portugal, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, and Sweden, Folke et al. (2005a) found that local communities “are not mere spectators, but active managers of ecosystems’ capacities to deliver services” (Folke et al. 2005a, p. 262). Local people’s knowledge about human–ecosystem interactions invariably affects the sustainability of ecosystem services. Local knowledge can be harnessed to manage and promote the ecosystem’s capacity to generate services by establishing adaptive institutions that share knowledge (Brunckhorst 2004, Carlsson and Berkes 2005). Local knowledge can also, however, be used destructively to undermine ecosystem resilience, e.g., when local experts use their superior knowledge to utilize the last remnants of dwindling wildlife or plant populations. Diversity in ecosystems and livelihood strategies is important to buffer people against shocks and surprises such as climatic and economic fluctuations. Land use and spiritual practices that nurture diversity can support the adaptive capacity of social–ecological systems, while enhancing intangible values such as a sense of place, identity, and pride. These factors are a major motivation for communities to engage proactively in ecosystem management.

An erosion of communities’ collective identity and culture can, however, have the opposite effect.

Communities are affected by macroeconomic and policy processes beyond their control, and those groups that are able to cope with these external forces have learned to adapt to, or even take advantage of them by “creating horizontal links with other groups, forming alliances with powerful actors at higher spatial scales, and linking with national or global processes such as policy forums, markets, and multinational agreements” (Folke et al. 2005a, p. 262). When adaptive capacity is low,

people respond reactively by migrating or accepting their reduced well-being and living with it. Such responses may lead to further decline and poverty traps (Gunderson and Holling 2002).

Communities can thus provide valuable information to decision makers in the management of complex social–ecological systems. These include: the value of flexible livelihoods; the importance of cultural practices in maintaining the resilience of ecosystems; the value of learning and adaptation; the role of historical events and practices in shaping contemporary ecosystem function and structure; the role of biodiversity in maintaining or enhancing ecosystem resilience and sustainable livelihoods; and the value of social and institutional networks between communities and actors or institutions at local, sub-national, national, and international levels in maintaining and enhancing adaptive capacity of social–ecological systems (Berkes 2006). An important finding, relevant to this paper, is that it is crucial for communities and other actors to strengthen the capacity of the social–ecological system to adapt to change (Adger 2006).

CHALLENGES TO COMMUNITIES INVOLVED IN ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT National and international policies and interventions, conflict, demographic factors, climatic change, ecological change, and livelihood opportunities and options constantly change, challenging communities in their management of ecosystems and their services. They are forced to cope with or adapt to these changes, without necessarily having the adaptive or governance capacity to achieve this.

National and International Policy Interventions Large-scale interventions such as dams (World Commission on Dams 2000), urban expansion, tourism infrastructure (Wang and Wall 2007), and mega-protected areas (Schmidt-Soltau 2003, Biggs et al. 2004) are a result of national and international policy interventions that are often disconnected to local contexts. Communities have to adapt to mitigate the social impacts such as resettlement, loss of access to resources (Fabricius and De Wet 2002), and loss of traditional knowledge (Xu et al. 2005).

Policies such as those that force nomadic people to become sedentary (Madzwamuse and Fabricius

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2004) may also undermine communities’ adaptive capacity, particularly when there are no effective links to larger social networks and other levels of organization that enable and support transitions.

External interventions may of course also be positive, for example the Biodiversity Convention, which protects local knowledge (Article 8j), the Indian and South African Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans, which incorporate local rights and knowledge into biodiversity planning (Folke et al.

2005a), and new policies such as those in Yunnan province, China and in Botswana, which promote indigenous cultures (Xu et al. 2005, Madzwamuse and Fabricius 2004). Their contribution to social– ecological resilience will require dynamic crosslevel and cross-scale institutional and governance arrangements (e.g., Cash et al. 2006), sometimes captured in systems of adaptive governance (Dietz et al. 2003, Folke et al. 2005b).

Conflict Large-scale armed conflicts affect people’s flexibility and curb their access to ecosystem services. Bedouin communities in the Sinai are negatively affected by conflict in the Middle East (Folke et al. 2005a). Conflicts within communities, and between communities and agencies, may limit their access to important resources such as firewood and water (Brockington 2002, Koch 2004).

Conflicts between communities and authorities over resource use can have severe negative effects on their motivation to be involved in co-management (Brockington 2002). Conflict, if appropriately managed, can also have a positive effect on communities’ capacity to deal with external threats.

A conflict at Nqabara on South Africa’s Wild Coast, for example, resulted in a more cohesive community after a prolonged conflict management process, facilitated by conflict management specialists (C. Fabricius, pers. obs.).

Demographic Factors Demographic change presents an important challenge to communities. Depopulation of rural areas such as Sistelo, Portugal (Pereira et al. 2005) and Macubeni, South Africa (Fabricius and Collins, in press) can place great stress on communities.

Young and able people are often the first to leave, leaving behind a rapidly aging population of retired

people who have neither the will nor capacity to innovate. Population increases through inmigration can have disparate effects on communities. An increase in households and users can place greater stress on natural resources, leading to scarcity. Sometimes, however, more people may result in innovative management practices and provide a larger and more diverse labor force for ecosystem management (Tiffen et al. 1994).

Ecological Change Ecological change can put pressure on local communities to adapt their livelihood strategies.

This may place great strain on traditional knowledge systems, which may not be able to keep abreast with ecosystem change (Ford et al. 2006, Krupnik and Jolly 2002). Even short-term climate fluctuations, such as floods and droughts, challenge local people to adapt their cultivation, hunting and grazing practices (Madzwamuse and Fabricius 2004, Hendricks et al. 2005).

Changes in Livelihood Options and Opportunities The diversity of options available to communities influences their ability to pursue desired livelihood activities. These services may be affected by population change, biophysical trends such as climate change (Adger 1999), broader-scale economic (Mertens et al. 2000) and policy trends (Korf 2004, Bruck 2003), and also the technological options available to individuals, households, and communities (Department for International Development (DFID) 2000). Livelihood options are equally influenced by crisis events and surprises, such as flood, drought, and conflict.

HOW DO COMMUNITIES ADAPT TO OR COPE WITH THESE CHALLENGES? Communities can adapt to change by using coping strategies, or by evolving adaptive strategies (Table 1). “Coping strategies” refer to ad hoc and reactive adaptations aimed at short-term survival, where social learning and institutional change are lacking (Smit and Wandel 2006). Examples include landuse change (e.g., stocking rates or crop types), changes in resource management, changes in assets (e.g., livestock, savings), changes in labor allocation

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(e.g., gender division of labor, migration), and changes in market relationships (e.g., reciprocal or local exchanges) (Ruben et al. 2001).

“Adaptive strategies” refer to proactive adaptations, aimed at promoting long-term ecosystem integrity and human well-being (Nayak 2004). They are associated with social learning and institutional change based on shared experiences, often over long periods and transferred over several generations (Adger 1999, Berkes and Folke 1998, Berkes and Jolly 2001, Folke et al. 2003). Examples of adaptive strategies include: ensuring mobility and flexibility, strengthening social networks, and intercommunity trade (Berkes and Jolly 2001).

During a careful analysis of the Special Issue papers, MA case studies, and other literature on communities, ecosystems, and livelihoods, it became evident that three types of communities can be identified on the basis of their capacity to adapt, and capacity for governance. The first type of community severely lacks empowerment and capacity, often because of factors beyond their control, such as political oppression, weak land and resource tenure systems, financial impoverishment, and inappropriate governance structures. They are powerless against external threats and rarely, or with great difficulty, respond to them. We call them “Powerless Spectators.” A second type of community has the capacity to respond, but lacks institutions for social learning, and has, therefore, not evolved long-term adaptive strategies. They deal with adversity through reactive coping strategies (cf. Table 1). We call them “Coping Actors.” A third type of community has both the capacity to respond to and deal with change, and possesses institutions for social learning. They take a longer-term perspective in dealing with threats, and their adaptive strategies (cf. Table 1) focus on sustainable management. They frequently collaborate with other groups and constantly invest in their own capacity, and that of the ecosystem, to deal with change. We call them “Adaptive Co-managers” (Fig. 1). A more detailed analysis follows.

Powerless spectators have weak adaptive capacity and little capacity to govern. Examples are rural, formerly politically and economically disadvantaged groups living in degraded communal areas of South Africa (Fabricius and Collins, in press), Bedouin communities affected by war in Sinai (Folke et al.

2005a), communities that are controlled by inappropriate policies forcing them to use

inappropriate agricultural practices (Xu et al. 2005), and sedentarized mobile indigenous people who are confined to villages and affected by alcoholism and oppressive policies (Chatty and Colchester 2002).

In each case, then, it appears that inappropriate outside intervention is a key determining factor in the creation of powerless spectators. Powerless spectator communities do not have financial or technological options, and lack the minimum endowments of natural resources, skills, institutions, and networks. Because of lack of knowledge, they are either unaware of the threats facing them, or have a misguided awareness.

Coping actors have the capacity to adapt to change, but are not managing social–ecological systems.

They include most urbanized people who rely on financial capital, infrastructure, and technology to cope with droughts, floods, resource scarcity, economic and political change, and conflict (Biggs et al. 2004), as well as many rural communities who rely on ecosystem services and everyday resources (Shackleton and Shackleton 2004) without investing in their management. Such communities have the capacity to adapt, have options, and are even aware of threats, but are not taking appropriate adaptive management actions. They lack the capacity for governance because of shortages in leadership and vision, and their responses are short term, e.g., to make ever-increasing investments of their time and finances in coping with scarcity (Lynam et al. 2004), moving their households or livestock, import resources from elsewhere (Bohensky et al. 2004), or exploiting ecosystems for commercial gain.

An example of coping with dry periods is mobility and nomadism, used by the Bedouin in Sinai, the San in Botswana, and pastoralists in Richtersveld, to cope with climatic change (Folke et al. 2005a, Madazwamuse and Fabricius 2004). These strategies seldom do damage and may have cultural and institutional benefits, but there is little evidence of conscious attempts to manage the ecosystem’s capacity to produce services. Another example is migration, a strategy to cope with socioeconomic challenges such as shifting markets or deteriorating infrastructure, adopted by rural communities in Sistelo, Portugal (Pereira et al. 2005) and in Macubeni, South Africa (Mafa Environment and Development 2003). Those left behind may cope with depopulation by abandoning land-based livelihoods and living off old-age pensions or remittances. Rural–urban migration is a well-

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Table 1. The characteristics of coping and adaptive strategies in communities

Coping strategies

Adaptive strategies

Aims

Survival

Both survival and sustainable management of social–ecological systems

Time frames

Short term, immediate

Long term, evolving over several generations

Response types

Reactive, opportunistic

Proactive, planned

Learning

Limited, through individual experience and innovation

Extensive, through knowledge exchange, intergenerational transfer, and institutional development

documented coping strategy in rural livelihoods around the world (Adger 1999, Sporton et al. 1999, Campbell et al. 2002, Korf 2004). In Botswana, population migration was found to be a significant coping strategy employed by communities forced to deal simultaneously with both environmental variability and externally induced land-use change (Sporton et al. 1999). Evidence from Sri Lanka (Korf 2004) and Vietnam (Adger 1999) suggests that households reduce their vulnerability by migrating, which enables them to use their different capital assets more efficiently. Households may, for example, draw on human capital, in the form of knowledge and skills, in order to increase financial capital by migrating in search of wage labor.

Many income-generating activities used by communities are less benign and may undermine the capacity of ecosystems to produce service.

Communities exploit ecosystems by cooperating with large corporations, e.g., timber or mining companies in Tibet (Xu et al. 2005), overharvesting medicinal plants in partnership with commercial extractors in South Africa (Dold and Cocks 2002, Keirungi and Fabricius 2005), and mismanaging rangelands and croplands (Rowntree et al. 2004).

People everywhere are extracting and using natural resources such as fruit, fuelwood, bushmeat, fish, and medicinal plants in their everyday lives (Shackleton and Shackleton 2004) without paying attention to the ecosystem’s capacity to generate such services. Critical landscapes such as wetlands, rivers, and other key resource areas (Illius and O’Connor 1999) are sometimes opportunistically

used without any plan or intention to maintain their capacity to generate services. Local ecological knowledge about locating and extracting resources is very well developed, but the motivation and capacity to manage the ecosystem processes behind such services frequently seems to be lacking (Magome and Fabricius 2004). Sometimes communities have to cope by changing their livelihood strategies or land-management practices in response to changes in resources on which they depend. People become aware of resource scarcity through the greater distances they have to travel to find resources (Nayak 2004), changes in the condition of their livestock (Hendricks et al. 2004), reduced yields of harvested resources, or greater vulnerability to droughts and floods (Mafa Environment and Development 2003). Communities may respond to resource scarcity by travelling greater distances to find resources, or may take greater risks by harvesting resources in taboo areas or through illegal use (Bohensky et al. 2004, Lynam et al. 2004). Increases in abundance can also precipitate livelihood change. An increase in forest land cover at Nqabara on South Africa’s Wild Coast has forced people to shift from large cultivated fields, which had become overgrown, to smaller home gardens (Chalmers and Fabricius 2007).

People may sometimes inadvertently promote ecosystem diversity to improve their incomes and reduce their vulnerability. In Papua New Guinea, for example, communities living on different islands plant different crops, which they trade between islands. This also enables them to maintain

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Fig. 1. Three types of adaptive communities along gradients of adaptive capacity and governance capacity, respectively. “Powerless spectator” communities have a low adaptive capacity and weak capacity to govern, do not have financial or technological options, and lack natural resources, skills, institutions, and networks. “Coping actor” communities have the capacity to adapt, but are not managing social–ecological systems. They lack the capacity for governance because of lack of leadership, of vision, and of motivation, and their responses are typically short term. “Adaptive manager” communities have both the capacity to adapt and the governance capacity to sustain and internalize this adaptation.

They invest in the long-term management of ecosystem services. Such communities are not only aware of the threats, but also take appropriate action for long-term sustainability. Adaptive co-management becomes possible through leadership and vision, the formation of knowledge networks, the existence or development of polycentric institutions, establishing or maintaining links between culture and management, the existence of enabling policies, and high levels of motivation in all role players.

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a larger and more resilient variety of produce. In Trinidad, turtle eggs are protected and sold, but this also has spin-offs for beach conservation (Folke et al. 2005a), whereas communities in China are generating income from the sale of cultural artefacts and non-timber forest products to tourists, which enhances their cultural identity and motivates them to conserve ecosystems (Xu et al. 2005).

Adaptive co-managers have both the capacity to adapt and the governance capacity to sustain and internalize this adaptation in the long term. They invest in the long-term management of ecosystem services. Such communities are not only aware of the threats, but also take appropriate action for longterm sustainability (Olsson et al. 2004a, Barthel et al. 2005). Their actions are generally supported by institutions at higher levels, including enabling legislation and bridging organizations (Olsson et al.

2004a,b, Hahn et al. 2006). Adaptive comanagement is possible through leadership and vision, the formation of knowledge networks, the existence or development of multiple institutions, the establishment or maintenance of links between culture and management, the existence of enabling policies, and high levels of motivation in all role players. Adaptive co-managers are empowered, but empowerment is a consequence of the capacity for governance and the capacity to adapt (Carlsson and Berkes 2005), rather than a starting point. Six key strategies can be adopted to enhance communities’ adaptive capacity and thus their empowerment: leadership and vision, knowledge networks, insitutions that are nested across scales, linking culture with management, enabling policies, and motivation. These strategies are discussed below.

Leadership and Vision It is often the “policy entrepreneurs” among adaptive managers who identify “policy windows,” which they use to precipitate change when the system is ready for it (Barthel et al. 2004, Olsson et al. 2004). Visionaries and champions build trust between different actors and organize them toward a common goal or vision, cement community cohesion, and prevent ecosystem mismanagement (Westley 2002, Olsson et al. 2004b, Folke et al.

2005b). It is, of course, possible for devious champions to manipulate interventions to suit their own needs, thereby sowing conflict in communities (C. Fabricius, pers. obs.).

Knowledge Networks Learning becomes even more effective when knowledge networks are formed, which enable adaptive actors working at different levels to share information (Olsson et al. 2006). This increases the knowledge base for management and creates new awareness about the processes underlying the functioning of social and ecological systems.

Knowledge about history, the key role players and their roles and impacts, information about the key policies and local institutions that could affect people’s well-being and ecosystem services, of threats and opportunities are critical for adaptive management (Lambin 2005). Awareness can be precipitated by an environmental crisis (Olsson et al. 2004b), but it can also be maintained through traditions, or enhanced by constant monitoring (Berkes and Jolly 2001).

Knowledge networks also enable communities to co-opt new technologies from outsiders or newcomers. For example, the practice of using Mokoro (dug-out canoes) to navigate the extensive Okavango Delta in Botswana was introduced to the resident Banoka by newcomer Bayeyi and Hambukushu-speaking people from contemporary Zambia (Madzwamuse and Fabricius 2004). Other examples are the merging of computer-based mapping technology with local ecological knowledge to create ecosystem management plans (Cundill et al. 2005), incorporating novel agricultural management practices and land-care techniques brought in by outsiders (Fabricius and Collins, in press), forest and water management practices (Becker and Ghmire 2003), selective fishing (Aswani and Hamilton 2004) or resource extraction technologies. At Kristianstad, volunteer groups played important knowledge networking roles, whereas scientists were catalysts for knowledge sharing in the MA (Cundill et al. 2005, Folke et al. 2005a).

Kinship networks (Adger 2006) are especially important in reducing people’s vulnerability to economic change, with communities in Lesotho, South Africa, and Fiji relying on family networks for income, support with agricultural production, and diversification of their sources of household income. Mobile communities such as Bedouins in Sinai or Banoka in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, who live in small groups, lack such support networks and are, therefore, more vulnerable to external forces (Madzwamuse and Fabricius 2004, Folke et al. 2005a).

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Adaptive co-managing communities are aware of the need to deal with change, often through informal monitoring and observation of resource and ecosystem dynamics. At Laguna Lake in the Philippines, for example, local observations spurred conservation action to prevent degradation of the Lake (Folke et al. 2005a), and in Peru traditional communities are able to forecast El Niño events by watching the stars (Orlove et al. 2000). Swedish fishermen use indicators to track change in marine ecosystems, thereby enhancing their capacity to manage fish stocks (Olsson 2003) and nomadic communities in Sinai and Richtersveld, South Africa, use sophisticated cues from ecosystems to decide when to move livestock (Bohensky et al.

2004, Folke et al. 2005a).

Institutions that are Nested across Scales Communities that manage adaptively are able to reorganize existing institutions, or establish new institutions to lobby for change when a policy window opens. An example is the Ecomuseum Kristianstads Vattenrike (EKV) (Olsson et al.

2004b), which emerged when local groups perceived ecosystem degradation. This discovery coincided with a general environmental awareness in Sweden and connections to individuals and networks at higher levels of organization who could implement action. Institutions like the EKV can assist in building knowledge, to improve people’s awareness of threats, through, e.g., communitybased inventories and mapping (Schultz et al., in review), People’s Biodiversity Registers (Gadgil et al. 2000), and participatory assessments of ecosystem trends (Lynam et al. 2004, Cundill et al.

2005).

Institutional networking can lead to the formation of “polycentric management networks” that cut across scales, and that may involve local communities, municipalities, and central government managing ecosystem services across scales, from the level of a village to a catchment (Xu et al. 2005).

An advantage to institutional diversity is that it promotes alignment of rules and policies at different scales, and it becomes more difficult for “free riders” to break diverse sets of rules (Dietz et al.

2003). Such networks are a key component of the India Biodiversity Strategy, but lessons from South Africa have shown that they are notoriously difficult to formalize when capacity at any tier of governance is low (Fabricius and Collins, in press). The creation of knowledge networks and polycentric institutions

across spatial scales can also hold dangers for communities involved in natural resource management. In particular, powerful stakeholders might use information and resources from crossscale interactions to undermine trust and reinforce their own authority (Adger et al. 2005). At the same time, however, institutional networks can also strengthen the power of communities to avert external policy and economic threats from local to global (Barthel et al. 2004, Smit and Wandel 2006) by, e.g., obtaining legal support to avert threats from developers. Communities in Papua New Guinea and Richtersveld have linked with national and international networks to assist them with their battles against mining companies (Folke et al.

2005a). Bridging organizations, which bridge the divide between communities and other levels of government, are often vital in ensuring that governance capacity is developed or maintained (Hahn et al. 2006).

Linking Culture with Management Communities that link culture with ecosystem management by, e.g., viewing ecosystems as deities or sacred places, show potential as adaptive managers. Mountain communities in Costa Rica, Tibet, and the Peruvian Andes see mountains as living beings or gods (Xu et al. 2005, Folke et al.

2005a) and worship mosaics of landscapes consisting of rivers, peaks, valleys, and agricultural landscapes. These links between the spiritual world, livelihoods, and ecosystem management were prevalent in many of the community-based assessments of the MA. Sacred pools (“isiziba” in South Africa’s Eastern Cape and “machhiyal” in northern India), sacred forests in India, East Africa (Ylhaisi 2003), and South Africa (Bohensky et al.

2004) or sacred grazing areas in India (Folke et al.

2005a) are subject to rigorous codes of conduct.

They can, therefore, function as remnant sources of critical natural capital during times of crisis such as severe droughts and wild fires (Bohensky et al.

2005). Many communities in India, Sweden, and South Africa offer special protection to totemic plant and animal species, which are protected through traditional institutions. Such conservation activities strengthen people’s identity with positive feedbacks for ecosystem conservation (Folke et al.

2005a). Adaptive management is possible when tradition and management interact through “mutual training” (Barthel et al. 2004, Olsson et al. 2004b) over long periods of time.

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For example, households may prepare for and respond to crises in rainfall, food supply, livestock management, and degradation by a) managing variability, b) selectively and experimentally adapting technologies, c) modifying labor allocation, and d) using markets to improve livelihoods and cope with crisis (Mortimore and Adams 2001). Over time, households and individuals may develop technical and institutional innovations in managing natural resources that are aimed at reducing risk (Tiffen et al. 1994, Forsyth et al. 1998). In Zimbabwe, reciprocity within familial networks was found to be an important factor in spreading wealth within communities during times of crisis (Campbell et al. 2002).

Trading livestock for credit at local shops during drought years, for example, indicates the conversion of one type of capital to another in order to cope with an external shock such as drought.

Enabling Policies Well-defined formal policies that are easy to understand can facilitate adaptive capacity (Lambin 2005) by, for example, making provision for secure property rights (Barthel et al. 2004), providing tax or other incentives for good ecosystem management (Lambin 2005), or enabling communities to participate in and influence policy processes (Bohensky and Lynam 2005). There must, however, be congruence in scale between policies and ecosystem processes they intend to influence (Capistrano et al. 2005), and the powers of actors to participate in policy making or implementation have to be congruent with the sphere of influence of the policy. Policies that are conducive to adaptive comanagement allow for the integration of different environmental sectors and different types of knowledge between scales, e.g., South Africa’s National Water Strategy (Bohensky and Lynam 2005). Policies that promote economic development through cultural revival, such as a provincial government policy to promote Yunnan in China as a cultural and green economy Province, could stimulate cultural revival and revive indigenous knowledge about natural resource management (Xu et al. 2005). Inappropriate policies, on the other hand, such as those that promote large-scale development without regard for ecosystem services or which undermine local governance can undermine adaptive co-management and community empowerment (Biggs et al. 2004).

Motivation Motivation may be catalyzed by need or crisis (Olsson et al. 2004b, 2006), but can also be driven by policy-led financial or non-financial incentives, the managers’ ability to gain financially from ecosystem management (Lambin 2005), the existence of common interests and vision amongst stakeholders (Barthel et al. 2005), and cultural factors, ethics, and value systems that are conducive to adaptive ecosystem management and governance (Trosper 2003).

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO COMMUNITIES THAT ADAPT APPROPRIATELY? Communities that have created social mechanisms that enhance their adaptive capacity are able to deal with challenges such as conflicts, making difficult trade-offs between short- and long-term well-being, and implementing rules for ecosystem management.

They are also better able to assert their rights to land and resources, and to exclude or regulate use by outsiders (Dietz et al. 2003). Under the correct conditions, complete transformation of mismanaged or unmanaged social–ecological systems becomes possible (Olsson et al. 2004b, Barthel et al. 2005).

This improves the capacity of the ecosystem to continue providing services such as cultural services, watershed protection, and ecosystem products (Xu et al. 2005).

People who have been successful in establishing institutional and knowledge networks are able to use innovative strategies to improve their livelihoods by bridging the divide between informal traditional knowledge and formal technical knowledge (Cundill et al. 2005). Creative disturbance through, e.g., swidden agriculture enable people to make a living from a broad range of ecosystem services (Fox 2005). By maintaining key resource areas such as sacred pools and forests through cultural practices (Bernard 2000), vulnerability is reduced and options are kept open.

Communities may respond to change in a fashion that increases their vulnerability and leads to major negative changes in their well-being. People may experience profound changes in their health or financial income due to loss of ecosystem services (Biggs et al. 2004). They could be forced to rely on inappropriate technological solutions (Lebel et al.

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2005) or make unfavorable trade-offs between provisioning, cultural, regulating, and supporting services (Rodrigues et al. 2006).

Assessing whether a local response is appropriate for the external threat or environmental change in question is considered one of the major difficulties in research dealing with coping and adaptive strategies (Scherr 2000). Shifting emphasis between different types of capital in response to shocks and surprises is generally seen to depict rational decision-making and, therefore, arguably appropriate responses (DFID 2000). Local responses to political crisis in South Africa, however, provoked arguably irrational responses, such as breaking social networks, degrading the resource base through rule breaking, risk taking, and abandonment of arable field cultivation at a time when food security was at low point (Cundill 2005). These decisions appear irrational in the absence of an understanding of processes taking place at broader scales. In this case, political crisis occurred alongside severe drought and economic depression, which meant that trust and cooperation were reduced during a critical time when coping and adaptive strategies were most sorely needed. Similar instances of inappropriate responses are to be found in Sri Lanka (Korf 2004) and other areas of South Africa (Grundy and Cocks 2002).

Many analysts of coping and adaptive strategies (e. g., Adger 2003, 2006, Armitage 2005, Bruck 2003, Ford et al. 2006) have tended to focus mainly on the social domain, without assessing the links between social adaptive capacity and the capacity of an ecosystem to sustain human well-being with essential ecosystem services. A major contribution made by the MA to research into adaptive capacity is its simultaneous focus on the adaptive capacity of societies and ecosystems. The MA concluded that social and ecological systems cannot be treated as separate systems, as they are not only linked but intertwined with complex interactions across levels and scales (Capistrano et al. 2005).

contained in the special feature and on work with the community-based assessments of the subglobal part of the MA. We have used the concepts of Powerless Spectators, Coping Actors, and Adaptive Co-managers to address adaptive capacity of communities, and have identified features in the social domain of social–ecological systems that help build adaptive capacity. Short-term coping responses may lead to reduced adaptive capacity, which implies loss of social–ecological resilience.

With inappropriate responses, communities’ options for coping with change—whether political, economic, or ecological—are diminished or lost, and they may become trapped in a downward spiral of increased vulnerability. Intervention and support from external sources and other levels of organization may be a precondition for transforming communities from such traps into improved livelihood situations and management of ecosystem services for this purpose (Fabricius and Collins, in press). Therefore, policies and incentives should be implemented to empower communities and create institutional frameworks that enhance their potential, in collaboration with other organizational levels, to respond to change and self-organize without eroding ecosystem resilience.

Responses to this article can be read online at: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art29/responses/

Acknowledgments: We wish to thank the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, and Walt Reid in particular, for funding this Special Issue, and the contributing authors to the Communities Ecosystems and Livelihoods chapter of the MA sub-global assessments for their ideas and contributions.

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Learning for resilience? Exploring learning opportunities in Biosphere Reserves SUBMITTED TO ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION RESEARCH Lisen Schultz*a, c and Cecilia Lundholmb, c a

Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; c Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, Sweden b

Abstract The interdependence of society and nature, the inherent complexity of such socialecological systems, and the global deterioration of ecosystem services provide the rational for a growing body of literature focusing on social-ecological resilience – the capacity to cope with, adapt to, and shape change – for sustainable development.

Processes of learning-by-doing and multi-loop social learning across knowledge systems and different levels of decision-making are envisioned to strengthen this capacity, combined in the concept of adaptive governance. This study explores how learning for resilience is stimulated in practice; investigating learning opportunities provided in UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserves. A global survey (N=148) and qualitative interviews with key informants of selected Biosphere Reserves (N=10) reveal that a subset (79) of the Biosphere Reserves serve as ‘potential learning sites’ and a) provide platforms for mutual and collective learning through face-to-face interactions, b) coordinate and support the generation of new social-ecological knowledge through research, monitoring and experimentation, and c) frame information and education to local stewards, resource-based businesses, policymakers, disadvantaged groups, students, and the public. We identify three Biosphere Reserves that seem to combine, in practice, the theoretically parallel research areas of environmental education and adaptive governance. We conclude that Biosphere Reserves have the potential to provide insights on the practical dimension of nurturing learning for social-ecological resilience. However, for their full potential as learning sites for sustainability to be released, both capacity and incentives for evaluation and communication of lessons learned need to be strengthened.

Key words: bridging organizations; adaptive governance; sustainable development; biodiversity conservation; knowledge *

Corresponding author: lisen@ecology.su.se

Introduction In an increasingly complex world that is rapidly changing, individuals, organizations and societies need resilience – the capacity to cope with, adapt to, and shape change.

However, trying to build individual and social resilience, while eroding ecological resilience, is not a viable option. Every human being ultimately depends on the services that ecosystems provide, such as food production, nutrient recycling and flood buffer (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). The interdependence of society and nature, the inherent complexity of such social-ecological systems, and the rapid deterioration of ecosystem services across the globe provide the rational for a growing body of literature focused on social-ecological resilience for sustainability (e.g. Folke et al. 2002). A recent question raised by this literature is how the sectorbased, top-down, steady-state approaches to natural resource management and biodiversity conservation that have led to the current situation can transform into adaptive governance for resilience in social-ecological systems (Folke et al. 2005).

Adaptive governance is multi-level, learning oriented and envisioned to enhance the fit between ecosystems and institutions, enabling ecological feedbacks (such as declining ecosystem services and loss of biodiversity) to be detected, interpreted and acted upon at the appropriate scale, thus enhancing people’s capacity to handle inevitable changes, surprises and shocks.

Knowledge and learning are central concepts in the literature on social-ecological resilience (Folke et al. 2002, Armitage, Marschke and Plummer 2008, Berkes 2009, Plummer and Lundholm this issue). Firstly, it is recognized that our activities are embedded in complex systems that are nested across scales, and that no single person can hold the full understanding of how to best approach problems. Combining different sources of information, and integrating knowledge from a diversity of mental models then becomes critical to understanding and navigating social-ecological systems (Carpenter et al. 2009). Thus, the resilience approach emphasizes learning across sectors and scales. The importance of bridging scientific and experiential knowledge (i.e. local ecological knowledge, traditional knowledge and indigenous knowledge) has been particularly highlighted (see Berkes 2009 for a recent overview).

Secondly, the ever-changing nature of complex adaptive systems demands continuous reality-checks, where mental models, management practices and institutions are refined, adapted and transformed to better reflect the system they are embedded in.

Individual managers as well as organizations and institutions need to be flexible and attentive enough to adapt to slow and rapid changes in a process of learning-by-doing.

The type of place-based management that accommodates these learning processes has been coined “adaptive co-management” (Gadgil et al. 2000, Olsson, Folke and Berkes 2004, Armitage, Berkes and Doubleday 2007).

Although continuous learning and extensive knowledge are deemed crucial in building and maintaining social-ecological resilience and fostering sustainable development, it is not possible for everyone to learn about everything, all the time. In the resilience literature (see e.g. Berkes and Folke 1998, Berkes, Colding and Folke 2002, Folke 2006 and references therein), which stems to a large extent from natural resource management, the focus has mainly been on learning that improves direct management of ecosystems and natural resources, through changes in management practices as well as the institutions and mental models that frame ecosystem management. Learners in this literature have been ecosystem-related managers

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(Fazey, Fazey and Fazey 2005) and local stewards such as farmers (Schultz, Folke and Olsson 2007), policy-makers at different levels (Dietz, Ostrom and Stern 2003), organizations (Hahn et al. 2006) and networks (Davidson-Hunt 2006, Crona and Bodin 2006). The environmental education literature on the other hand (e.g. Scott and Gogh 2003 and references therein, Sauvé 2005 and references therein) has mainly focused on learning that changes the knowledge (e.g. Giordan and Souchon 1991, cited in Sauvé 2005), values and attitudes (e.g. Pooley and O’Connor 2000) and behavior (e.g. Hawthorne and Alabaster 1999) of people with a more indirect influence on ecosystems in their roles as consumers, voters and citizens. Learners in this literature are students in compulsory education as well as higher education.

The resilience literature and the recent environmental education literature have a similar emphasis on the importance of enabling learning that goes deeper than simply “correcting errors in routines”. Traditionally, environmental education has assumed and emphasized that humanity’s fundamental problems are environmental, and that learning about the environment will lead to behavioral change once facts have been established and communicated (Type 1 learning, Scott and Gough 2003). However, within the last ten years there has been a growing recognition that this is a simplified view and critique has been raised against this linear assumption of knowledge leading to action (e.g. Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002). Problems concerning the environment can also be seen as political and social, and learning then becomes a tool to facilitate choice between alternative futures which can be specified on the basis of what is known at the present (Type 2 learning, Scott and Gough 2003). More recent approaches (Type 3 learning, Scott and Gough 2003) assume that desired ‘end-states’ can not be specified, because present knowledge is not and can not be adequate. In this context, learning must be open-ended and focused on critical thinking. Similarly, resilience literature emphasizes the need for multiple-loop social learning (Lee 1993, Armitage, Marschke and Plummer 2008) that not only corrects errors in current routines and practices, but questions the routines themselves, and the conceptions and worldviews shaping those routines. A revised view of the above learning types (1,2 and 3), presenting them as being complementary rather than dichotomies, is given by Vare & Scott (2007). They emphasize that some facts are indeed agreed and some problems and solutions are identified, and then environmental education aiming at specific behavioral changes is needed (ESD 1), yet at the same time, the future is unknown, and therefore environmental education that stimulates critical thinking and reflection and sustains open-ended learning outcomes is needed as well (ESD 2).

Given the quest for learning that builds social-ecological resilience – how does such learning happen in practice? Are there places where people learn continuously from their interactions with ecosystems and where people with diverse mental models meet to learn from each other about the social-ecological system they are embedded in? If so, how are these learning processes stimulated? How do they affect the way society as a whole handles its environmental life-support systems? And, ultimately, how do they affect society’s capacity to deal with crises, shocks and surprises?

To explore these questions, we have focused on a unique network of 531 Biosphere Reserves in 105 countries that have the stated mission to act as “learning sites” (UNESCO 2008, p. 8) where activities of biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, research, monitoring and education are to be prioritized, coordinated and demonstrated.

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Biosphere Reserves as learning sites The 531 sites are designated Biosphere Reserves (BRs), internationally recognized by UNESCO under the Man and the Biosphere program (MAB). The program was launched in 1970 as a long-term intergovernmental and interdisciplinary effort to reconcile biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, and the first BRs were designated in 1976 to serve as “sites of excellence” and “living laboratories” where experimental approaches to this endeavor could be tested (UNESCO 1996, http://www.unesco.org). These early sites were designated mainly on the basis of their high biodiversity values, and their links to on-going research, but over time the emphasis on sustainable development, education and local participation has increased (Ishwaran, Persic and Tri 2008). Since 1995, all BRs are expected to fulfill three functions, stated in the Statutory Framework (UNESCO 1996): conserving biodiversity, fostering sustainable development, and supporting research, monitoring and education. All BRs contain one or more protected areas, but what is unique in the BR concept is the area surrounding the protected “core areas”: the buffer zone and the transition zone (Figure 1). These areas encompass 80% of the areas covered by BRs, and this is where economic and social development compatible with conservation goals is envisioned to be stimulated (Ishwaran, Persic and Tri 2008).

Core zones

Buffer zone

Transition zone

Figure 1. A stylized image of the Biosphere Reserve zonation. The core areas are legally protected and surrounded by buffer zones where economic activities compatible with conservation are stimulated, such as tourism and organic agriculture. The transition zone can encompass cities and other human-dominated types of land-use and serve as laboratories for sustainable development.

At first sight, the World Network of Biosphere Reserves seems to represent an untapped resource of practical experiences taking place in different ecological, social 4

and economic contexts on learning for sustainable development. Firstly, the coupled functions of “in-situ conservation of biological and cultural diversity” and sustainable development (UNESCO 1996, p.16), and the mission to “secure ecosystem services for human well-being” (UNESCO 2008, p. 8) suggest a holistic approach similar to that of social-ecological systems (sensu Berkes and Folke 1998, p. 4). Secondly, the function of providing “logistic support for demonstration projects, environmental education and training, research and monitoring related to local, regional, national and global issues of conservation and sustainable development” (UNESCO 1996, p. 16) indicates a focus on learning processes that enhance understanding and management of the social-ecological system in focus (UNESCO 2000). Thirdly, the criterion that “organizational arrangements are provided for the involvement and participation of a suitable range of inter alia public authorities, local communities and private interests in the design and carrying out of the functions of a BR” (UNESCO 1996, p.17) echoes the ideas of strategic collaboration and learning across sectors and scales suggested by the adaptive co-management approach (Olsson, Folke and Berkes 2004, Armitage, Berkes and Doubleday 2007). These similarities indicate that BRs provide a useful basis for empirical studies on the topic of learning in relation to sustainable development and building resilience. However, because policy and international frameworks are not always reflected in practice, the first step of this study was to assess to what extent the mission and recommendations of the MAB program correspond to activities on-the-ground.

Most BRs have a place-based body that coordinates the activities related to the BR functions, and in this study we call these bodies Biosphere Reserve Centers (BRCs) in line with Stoll-Kleeman and Welp (2008). BRCs can be everything from a single coordinator working with the BR concept in a loosely defined network, to a physical space with researchers, managers and information personnel. This study targets key informants from these BRCs, investigating a) to what extent the BRs act as potential learning sites for social-ecological resilience, defined here as sites where the BRC is working with supporting research, monitoring or education and with facilitating dialogue between practitioners and scientists b) what types of learning processes (if any) are prioritized by BRCs, c) what roles the centers play in facilitating these and d) what the outcomes are, both in relation to self-evaluated effectiveness of management and in relation to social-ecological resilience. The study is a first assessment of the current practices and outcomes in BRs as seen from the perspective of BRCs and lays the ground for follow-up studies.

Methods Global survey In order to get comparative information from a large number of BRs in the world network and to identify potential learning sites for follow-up studies, a selfadministered, written questionnaire was developed (Kasunik 2005). The survey team was multi-disciplinary, including researchers with backgrounds in systems ecology, political science, rural studies and educational science respectively. One of us had previous experience of BRs through a case study in Kristianstads Vattenrike BR (Schultz, Folke and Olsson 2007, Hahn et al. 2008). Survey questions included: priority of each of the stated BR objectives (ranking), self-evaluated effectiveness in

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reaching each of these objectives (ranking) and degree of involvement of stakeholders in decision-making and implementation of BR processes (multiple-choice questions).

There was a specific question about whether the BRC had facilitated face-to-face activities in the BR, and a multiple-choice follow-up question on who had shared knowledge, and who had learned from such activities. The complete questionnaire can be accessed on request from the first author.

The questionnaire was tested, revised, translated and uploaded for on-line access at http://www.surveymonkey.com in English, French, Spanish and Chinese. An introductory letter with a link to the survey was sent via e-mail to the 407 BRCs that we could identify functioning e-mail addresses to. Hard copies were distributed at the 3rd World Congress of Biosphere Reserves held in Madrid in February 2008. The online survey was open from January 15th to June 20th and reminders were sent out twice during this period.

In all, 148 BRs from 55 countries were represented in the survey responses, a response rate of 28% (148/531). The low response rate can partly be explained by the difficulty in finding functioning e-mail addresses to the BRCs. Observations on the ground indicate that some BRs are “sleeping� in the sense that there are no local activities related to the BR designation (e.g. Nolte 2006). A recent telephone survey to BRs which engaged several students for several months resulted in 213 responses (Stoll-Kleeman and Welp 2008), and in the light of this, the response rate seems reasonable.

Comparing the geographic distribution of the 148 responding BRs to the geographic distribution of the total network of 531 designated BRs, the responding BRs are fairly representative (Figure 2). The proportion of BRs designated before and after the adoption of the Statutory framework in 1995 is also representative: 43% of the responding BRs were designated after 1995 as compared to 40% of the total network of BRs. However, high-income countries (as defined by the World Bank 2008) were over-represented in the data-set, amounting to 45% of the responses, as compared to 36% in the total network.

Figure 2. Regional representation of responses compared to regional representation of the total number of Biosphere Reserves in the world network.

25 20 15

% of total responses (N=148)

10

% of total network of BRs (N=531)

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Based on the survey responses, the BRs were classified as potential learning sites if they fulfilled the following criteria: a) gave at least medium priority (ranking 5 on a 10 graded scale) to one or several of the objectives of supporting education, supporting monitoring, supporting research, and facilitating dialogue and collaboration, b) considered their effectiveness in fulfilling one or several of these objectives to be at least acceptable (ranking 5 on a 10 graded scale), and c) provided opportunities for local inhabitants or practitioners such as farmers and scientists to meet face-to-face (through participation in an advisory board or in face-to-face activities arranged by the BRC).

Qualitative interviews In order to get in-depth information on how BRCs in potential learning sites (as defined above) work to facilitate learning, we made follow-up telephone interviews using the interview guide approach (Patton 2002) with key informants from ten BRCs, drawn randomly from the English-speaking part of this group (Table 1).

Table 1. Biosphere Reserves represented in interviews.

Biosphere Reserve Designation year Cape Winelands (South Africa) 2007 Channel Islands (United States) 1976 Delta del Orinoco (Venezuela) 1993 Frontenac Arch (Canada) 2002 Krivoklåtsko (Czech Republic) 1977 Lower Morava (Czech Republic) 1986 extended 2003 Mata Atlântica including São Paulo City Green 1992 Belt (Brazil) extended 2002 Niagara Escarpment (Canada) 1990 Schorfheide-Chorin (Germany) 1990 Wienerwald (Austria) 2005

Size (Hectares) 322,030 479,652 8,266,230 150,000 62,881 24,240 29,473,484 190,270 129,161 105,645

Interview questions were sent in advance to respondents and the interviews were made during January 2009, each lasting between 30 minutes and 1 hour. All interviews started with an open-ended question about how the Statutory framework idea of learning sites was interpreted and realized. Some topics were then probed: One concerned the support to research, monitoring, experimentation and adaptive management. A second topic was environmental education in the BR, including priorities, rationale, topics, means and target groups. The last topic concerned activities of face-to-face interactions between stakeholders with different knowledge, and all respondents were asked to describe in detail one such activity, including purpose, set-up, participants, results and lessons learned. The interviews ended with an open question on what kind of support that the respondent would like from the MAB program to enhance learning.

The interviews were transcribed and then analyzed independently by the two authors.

Six types of learning processes created by BRCs emerged from the responses after open and then selective coding. One cycle of iteration was done through member checking (Lincoln and Guba 1985): We e-mailed all ten respondents individually with 7

a list of these six learning processes and the examples we had found from their respective interview and survey response, asking each respondent to complement and correct our interpretation. Finally, the six learning processes were divided into three approaches to learning taken by BRCs, and six categories of groups involved.

Results Descriptive statistics of survey responses Seventy-nine of the 148 BRs fulfilled the potential learning site criteria (53%). The proportion of high and non-high income countries among these BRs was similar to the whole sample, and so was the proportion of pre-Seville and post-Seville BRs. However, the average self-evaluated effectiveness of potential learning sites was higher in all objectives (Figure 3). Furthermore, they perceived a higher support from people living in the BR. Figure 3. Self-evaluated effectiveness and perceived local support of potential learning sites compared to the rest of the responding BRs. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Fulfill "learning site" criteria

Support from local inhabitants

Fostering economic development

Fostering social development

Conserving biodiversity

Do not fulfill "learning site" criteria

Note: Comparison of arithmetic means. T-test shows that the difference is significant for conserving biodiversity (p =0.024), fostering economic development (p=0.000), fostering social development (p=0.013) and local support (p=0.002). 1=Very poor, 5=Acceptable, 9=Very good. On the question about support from local inhabitants, 1=Totally insufficient, 5=Sufficient and 9=More than sufficient.

Qualitative interviews The qualitative analysis of the interview transcripts revealed three approaches to learning that BRCs take in their ambition to foster sustainable development and insitu conservation of biodiversity (Table 2). In total, the learning opportunities created by these approaches involve six target groups. Three of the BRCs have a particularly broad scope: they provide learning opportunities using all three approaches and target two or more groups in each (Schorfheide-Chorin, Wienerwald and Channel Islands, see Table 3). We will deal with each approach separately, providing thick descriptions of examples. BR names are used as pseudonyms for the respective key informant.

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Table 2. Types of learning approaches and target groups involved.

Target groups Enabling mutual Building and and collective updating a body of learning knowledge Scientists 5 7 Local stewards and 8 2 resource-based businesses Policy-makers at 7 0 different levels and sectors Disadvantaged groups 1 0 Students 0 1 Citizens and 4 3 consumers in general

Framing information and education 0 8

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3 7 6

Note: Figures represent the number of BRCs reporting to be engaged in the respective activity.

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Table 3. Learning priorities of interviewed BRCs: approaches and groups involved.

Biosphere Enabling mutual and Building and Framing info and Reserve collective learning updating knowledge education Cape Policy-makers from Local stewards, Winelands different levels and policy-makers, (South Africa) sectors disadvantaged groups, students Channel Scientists, local Scientists, Local stewards, Islands stewards, policycitizens/consumers students, (United States) makers citizens/consumers Delta del Scientists, local Local stewards, Orinoco stewards, policydisadvantaged (Venezuela) makers, groups citizens/consumers, disadvantaged groups Frontenac Local stewards Scientists Local stewards, Arch (Canada) policy-makers, students, citizens/consumers Krivoklåtsko Policy-makers, Scientists Students (Czech citizens/consumers Republic) Lower Morava Local stewards, Scientists Local stewards, (Czech policy-makers, policy-makers, Republic) citizens/consumers citizens/consumers Mata Atlântica Scientists, local Scientists Disadvantaged including São stewards, policygroups Paulo City makers Green Belt (Brazil) Niagara Scientists, local Citizens/consumers Local stewards, Escarpment stewards policy-makers, (Canada) students, citizens/consumers SchorfheideLocal stewards, Scientists, local Local stewards, Chorin policy-makers, stewards, students policy-makers, (Germany) citizens/consumers students, citizens/consumers Wienerwald Scientists, local Scientists, local Local stewards, (Austria) stewards stewards, policy-makers, citizens/consumers students, citizens/consumers

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1. Enabling mutual and collective learning All of the interviewed BRCs initiate face-to-face interactions between groups with different knowledge, to enable mutual and collective learning. Several BRCs have a multi-stakeholder advisory council or similar that provides opportunities for learning (e.g. Channel Islands, Mata Atlântica, Cape Winelands, Lower Morava, Frontenac Arch), and many BRs initiate and facilitate workshops and forums around specific issues (e.g. Delta del Orinoco, Niagara Escarpment, Lower Morava, Krivoklátsko, Schorfheide-Chorin). Some BRCs offer physical meeting places to local groups, and describe themselves as “the spider in the web” (Channel Islands), “the broker of the community” and a “neutral facilitator” (Lower Morava), “the great dispatcher” (Frontenac Arch) and the actor that “sets the frames for negotiation” (SchorfheideChorin).

Among the interview responses, we found examples of peer-to-peer dialogues between practitioners from different BRs or from different parts of the BR, dialogues between practitioners and scientists, dialogues between practitioners and policymakers at different levels, and dialogues between representatives of different governmental and non-governmental sectors, business and volunteer organizations.

Topics discussed in these platforms for learning include regional planning and landuse, sustainable tourism, natural resource management and biodiversity conservation.

For example, Niagara Escarpment invited managers of all major protected areas in the region, to share the mandates and objectives of their organizations and identify common management issues. They also looked for opportunities for collaborations, such as science programmes, and opportunities to connect the areas, improving regional connectivity. Delta del Orinoco organized a forum with 450 people, including scientists, indigenous groups and policy-makers, on the issue of land planning and the use of the forest as a resource. Krivoklátsko arranged a meeting with local communities on the topic of becoming a national park. Two BRs described their role as a bridging organisation (Hahn et al. 2006) in dialogues between groups of conflicting interests concerning biodiversity and economic and development issues (Niagara Escarpment and Lower Morava).

An example of a collective learning process that resulted in transformation of ecosystem management and led to new rules-in-use (sensu Ostrom 1990) was described by Schorfheide-Chorin: “We have a 1000 ha lake which used to be overused through extensive fishing and tourism. We set up the Lake project in 1999 and engaged an external mediator to facilitate meetings. The project lasted 2 years and resulted in the ‘Lake concept’, a document that states what zones are protected from humans, where birds can breed, and what zones are designated for swimming and for boats, and what zones are for fishing. The process resulted in social control and selfresponsibility on the agreements.”

2. Building and updating a body of knowledge Eight of the interviewed BRCs gave examples of how they facilitate the generation of new knowledge in relation to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development: they support or conduct research, monitoring, experimentation and adaptive management. In some cases, the BRCs initiate projects, in others they participate in or contribute to projects initiated by other groups, including scientists, governmental administrations and local stewards. Although they are not always involved in research

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and monitoring, BRCs often keep track of on-going projects in their region and compile and store the results in libraries.

For example, Wienerwald explains: “We have a lot of environmental research, e.g. monitoring in core zones, sustainable biomass utilization in forests and sustainable wildlife management (---) But the BR should be a learning site also in a broader sense, testing methods for sustainable development. So, for example, we are engaged in a research project on participation processes in the BR, hence focusing on social sustainability as well.” Schorfheide-Chorin considers research and science to be essential in their work and give the following example: “In the early nineties we had a four-year-long research project on the conflicts between agriculture and conservation.

Farmers were involved from early on in the process and the most important outcome was a couple of practice-orientated proposals of measurements on how to reduce the negative impact of modern agriculture on biodiversity and improve the results of farming (published in Flade et al 2003).” Lower Morava recently supported and guided an assessment of the impacts of a fishpond restoration project on plant and animal populations. Channel Islands focuses on natural science research, by providing a state of the art research vessel with full crew 200 days per year, participating in data collection, and conducting data analysis. They also train volunteer divers to identify species of fish and use their observations for monitoring purposes. Mata Atlântica coordinates multi-disciplinary groups and participates in research projects, such as the Green Belt Sub-global Assessment, which was part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). Finally, Delta del Orinoco started a program of monitoring meteorological and water hydrodynamics in the main river, providing a Venezuelan group of experts with climate change data for modeling purposes.

3. Framing information and education to target groups and to the public All of the interviewed BRCs frame information and education to different target groups. Some BRCs design educational workshops and programs, act as advisers or consultants and are sources of information and knowledge on issues related to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. They also inform and educate the public, aiming to convey nature’s intrinsic values as well as the interdependence between people and nature, for example through the concept of ecosystem services.

Local stewards and resource-based business Eight of the interviewed BRCs target local stewards and resource-based businesses, such as farmers, foresters, hunters, fishermen, and tourism operators. In several cases, the BRs try to achieve conservation and development simultaneously, focusing on sustainable forestry, agriculture and tourism. Schorfheide-Chorin, for example, has increased the share of organically farmed arable land from 0 to 28% since the designation in 1990, by providing financial incentives and advisory support to farmers. Frontenac Arch and Channel Islands have investigated and communicated how climate change will affect natural resources and what can be done by local stewards to mitigate and adapt to these effects.

Policy-makers Six of the interviewed BRCs target politicians and civil servants at local, regional and national levels, in order to improve the laws, plans and incentives that shape local management and use of ecosystems. Some provide education to these groups (Cape Winelands, Lower Morava, Frontenac Arch), some provide information and others try

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to influence decisions to protect the values of the BRs (Schorfheide-Chorin, Frontenac Arch). Some BRCs participate in societal planning processes, advocating conservation and sustainable development (Lower Morava, Wienerwald, Cape Winelands).

As Frontenac Arch describes: “Land use changes and development pressures are the most severe threats to the values of our BR. (Hence) we play a role in educating local municipalities and the planning departments and do our best to influence land use decision makers.”

Disadvantaged groups Among the interviewed BRs, we found three examples of educational projects that targeted disadvantaged groups aiming at improving livelihoods and the environment simultaneously. Mata Atlântica has initiated a youth program for eco job training to give opportunities to the young, and to combat unemployment and environmental degradation at the same time: “We invest in youth for long-term and actual change”.

Topics include reforestation in protected areas, ecotourism, carbon markets and ecosystem services. In Cape Winelands, the “Alien Clearing Program” trains and employs people to remove eucalyptus, pine trees and other foreign species that have been planted by foresters and invaded the vulnerable Fynbos habitats, lowering the ground water table and increasing the risk for intensive forest fires.

Delta del Orinoco focuses on the livelihoods of indigenous people and has developed innovative methods to overcome language barriers: “Indigenous groups speak only a little Spanish, and we don't speak their language, so it is difficult to communicate, even with a translator. So, we have looked for committed individuals in these communities who are willing to travel to other groups and help transfer information and knowledge. We have also done educational videos in local languages.” (---) “Our education is focused on know-how, for example on managing crops and natural resources for long-term benefits as opposed to e.g. cutting trees for short-term benefits. Other important topics are health issues, such as improving water quality to reduce child mortality. Environmental education is in our view both about economic development and the environment.”

Students, consumers and citizens in general Six BRCs support or conduct education for students and seven target citizens and consumers in general to increase people’s knowledge and appreciation for nature, and to foster pro-environmental behaviour. Wienerwald explains: “Most people associate BRs to guided nature tours or nature trails, and their expectations must be fulfilled.

Beyond that, I try to establish new educational programs that show the connections between behaviour and environment in various aspects of human life (---) We are situated near the city of Vienna and we find it important to connect people to their direct surroundings, and try to improve nature at the door step. Nature starts here.”

BRCs use lectures, movies, web sites and outdoor excursions, guided tours and handson projects where people are invited to participate in restoration and monitoring efforts. Several BRCs have visitor centres with information and educational facilities like libraries, meeting rooms or even laboratories (e.g Krivoklátsko, SchorfheideChorin, Frontenac Arch, Channel Islands).

Schorfheide-Chorin explains: “We have a program where school children come 2 hours every week from the age of 7 to the age of 17, to learn about ecology,

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biodiversity, forestry, agriculture, fishery and bee keeping. Ecosystem services are very important and we communicate why ecosystems are important for living. We focus on out door excursions and practical work such as clearing meadows and counting geese in the autumn. Now, we see some of the children coming back as grown-ups to work with us as volunteers.”

Discussion The survey results suggest a discrepancy between the stated mission of the MAB program and the activities taking place on the ground in BRs, considering the many sites that did not fulfil our potential learning site criteria. However, 79 respondents did report activities related to one or several categories of learning opportunities that potentially contribute to social-ecological resilience and sustainability. Follow-up interviews with ten of these respondents revealed a rich variety of approaches taken and groups targeted by these BRCs. Firstly, all of them provide platforms for dialogue between people with different perspectives, potentially enabling learning between different knowledge systems, such as indigenous knowledge (Gadgil, Berkes and Folke 1993), local ecological knowledge (as defined by Olsson and Folke 2001) and scientific knowledge (Reid et al. 2006, Ballard, Fernandez-Gimenez and Sturtevant 2008), and between decisionmakers at different levels (Cash and Moser 2000), such as local stewards (Schultz, Folke and Olsson 2007) and national governmental administrations. These platforms enable management by mutual learning (Stoll-Kleeman and Welp 2008). In this sense, some BRCs function as ‘bridging organizations’ (Brown 1991, Westley 1995, Hahn et al. 2006, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007) that can play important roles in mobilizing collective action in times of crises. Face-to-face interaction has been identified as a crucial condition for successful collaborative governance (Ansell and Gash 2007) and even though our data does not show to what extent multi-loop social learning takes place in these settings, the Lake project in Schorfheide-Chorin illustrates that learning platforms set up by BRCs can indeed transform governance towards ecosystem management.

Secondly, most of them support research and monitoring, thereby increasing the possibility for society to detect changes in the biosphere and for established facts to be revised. BRCs that coordinate such initiatives and compile the results can contribute to a systemic and dynamic understanding of social-ecological systems that forms the basis for adaptive governance (Folke et al. 2005).

Thirdly, by framing information and education to specific groups BRCs enable learning in relation to management practices as well as the revision of institutions that frame these practices. In this context, BRCs choose to target local stewards and resource-based businesses (including farmers, fishermen, foresters and tourism operators) and policy-makers that influence land-use planning. By providing education and training to disadvantaged groups, some BRCs aim at improving livelihoods and the environment simultaneously.

Fourthly, the different ways that BRCs convey the interdependence between nature and society and nature’s intrinsic values to students and the public have the potential

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to affect people’s values, attitudes and beliefs, eventually supporting proenvironmental behavior in their roles as consumers and citizens. BRs provide spaces for interaction between people and nature, with the potential of supporting and restoring sense-of-place and the emotional connections to the landscape (Miller 2005, Andersson, Barthel and Ahrné 2007). In the resilience literature, world views and mental models are sometimes described as underlying variables that affect resilience of social-ecological systems (Berkes and Folke 1998, Gunderson and Holling 2002).

Consequently, Folke et al. (2002) conclude that “Policy should strengthen the perception of humanity and nature as interdependent and interacting”.

Through the survey and interviews, we have identified three BRCs that seem to combine adaptive co-management and environmental education on the ground. They enable mutual and collective learning in face-to-face interactions, they continuously build and update a body of knowledge through research and monitoring, and they frame information and education to different groups. These BRCs build their knowledge base on both scientific and experiential knowledge, they connect the groups involved in direct management of ecosystems to policy-makers at other levels, and they reach out to the general public. In the light of the terminology introduced earlier by Vare and Scott (2007) of ESD 1 and ESD 2 of learning, these BRs create opportunities for learning of both types. They target behavioural change among citizens and students through education and exhibitions (ESD1), but they also function as mediators between different actors at different levels, allowing for openended and multi-loop learning that can change planning procedures, law and governance structures and frameworks (ESD2). Further studies in BRs like these could deepen our understanding of the outcomes of such an approach, as well as the practical implications of facilitating learning for social-ecological resilience.

Although the numerous ways in which BRCs provide learning opportunities locally are striking, few BRs have the capacity to provide all of them. Time and resources constraints necessitate strategic choices and how they are made is to a large extent context dependent. An interesting trade-off regards targeting people who have a direct and visible impact on local ecosystems, such as local stewards, resource-based businesses and policy-makers, versus trying to raise general environmental awareness among people who have a more indirect impact through their choices as consumers and citizens. The former might render immediate effects on the quality of management (Brody 2003) and visible effects on local ecosystems, whereas the latter may have more long-term and unclear effects on sustainability. Another trade-off regards building, up-dating and continuously questioning a body of knowledge on the one hand, and conveying (reasonably) established facts to target groups on the other.

The multiple objectives of protecting biodiversity, fostering sustainable development and providing opportunities for learning are also potential trade-offs. However, our analysis shows that these goals are not necessarily contradicting. The potential learning site BRs consider themselves to be more effective than the others, both in biodiversity conservation and in fostering sustainable development. In fact, environmental education was ranked as the most important factor influencing BR success in a global survey to 213 BR managers in 78 countries (Stoll-Kleeman and Welp 2008). However, because there is no systematic assessment of effectiveness of management in BRs, it is currently impossible to draw firm conclusions about the influence of learning opportunities created by BRCs.

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The term ‘learning site’ raises questions about who is supposed to learn, and what is supposed to be learned. Most of the learning opportunities identified in this study are provided locally and even though the lessons learned are possibly spread elsewhere through the networks of participants we have found little evidence of cross-scale learning taking place in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. It seems that a lot remains to be done if BRs are to live up to the ambition of being learning sites for sustainable development on a global scale. There is a tension between engaging in participatory, field-based learning that generates context-specific knowledge, and learning that aims at generating knowledge that is general enough to feed into wider policy-making (Edwards 1997). There is also a tension between action and reflection; or time spent providing learning opportunities, versus time spent reflecting upon and evaluating actions taken to improve strategies. Arguably, there is also an inherent tension between the dual roles of BRs as ‘sites of excellence’ and ‘learning sites’ as stated in the Statutory framework and the Madrid Action Plan (UNESCO 1996, 2008). The former brings expectations of success and implies that the BR designation is an award that BRCs need to live up to, but the later implies experimentation and reflection on both successes and failures (Gunderson et al. 2006). We have found little evidence of systemic evaluations of learning and conservation outcomes of the actions taken by BRCs and there is no coherent set of indicators used that could enable comparisons (Bertzky and Stoll-Kleeman 2009). This makes it difficult to gather general lessons about what approaches are effective. There is even less evidence that lessons learned in BRs are communicated outside and between these regions and several of the interview respondents called for more communication of lessons learned and best practices between BRs. So, for the full learning potential to be released in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, both incentives and capacities for evaluation and communication would need to be strengthened. A useful framework for evaluation is suggested by Plummer and Armitage (2007), directing attention to ecosystem conditions, livelihood outcomes and process and institutional conditions. They also offer scale-specific parameters for each component to facilitate systematic learning from experience and encourage cross-site comparisons.

A promising initiative to facilitate communication has been taken by the GoBi research group at Ernst-Ludwig Arndt University of Greifswald (Germany). One of the tasks of their recently launched “Global Centre for Biosphere Reserve Advancement” is to build up an on-line communication platform for BR practitioners and researchers, including up-dated contact details to participants, a database of resources such as practical tools, research, reports and a discussion forum for topics related to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in BRs (http://www.biosphere-research.org/). Ideally, such a platform for dialogue could catalyze a learning community or an adaptive learning network (sensu Davidson-Hunt 2006) for sustainability, and following the effects of this initiative would be an interesting subject for future studies.

Learning happens everywhere, all the time. This study has focused on the learning opportunities created in BRs in relation to sustainability and resilience. It has demonstrated that BRs have the potential to illuminate the practical dimensions of this endeavour and that research in sites like these can generate important insights on how learning for social-ecological resilience can be facilitated. The actual effects of such learning opportunities, in terms of environmental outcomes, and in terms of socialecological resilience, remain as important research questions for future studies.

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Acknowledgements We would like to thank all interviewees and all survey respondents for the time and effort they have put into sharing their knowledge and experiences with us. Thanks also to Ioan Fazey who provided invaluable comments on the survey design and to UNESCO-MAB who generously invited us to the Madrid congress. Carl Folke, Stephan Barthel and Torbjörn Schultz are gratefully acknowledged for important feedback on the manuscript. The work was funded by The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, Formas.

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Participation and management performance in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves Lisen Schultz∗, Andreas Duit and Carl Folke

Abstract Studies that evaluate the effects of stakeholder participation on conservation outcomes and sustainability are rare. In this article we use the World Network of Biosphere Reserves to analyze the effects of participation and adaptive co-management in this context. Analyzing survey-responses from 146 Biosphere Reserves in 55 countries we investigate how different degrees of participation of a range of actors relate to management performance in reaching the objectives stated in UNESCO’s Statutory framework for Biosphere Reserves. The analysis is based on survey respondents’ selfevaluation of effectiveness. We also test to what extent stakeholder participation is linked to increased support for Biosphere Reserve objectives and management, and the effect of adaptive co-management on management performance. The analysis suggests that there is a weak, but significant linkage between the involvement of local inhabitants in decision making and implementation, and the support from people living in the Biosphere Reserve. No other effects of participation on support were found. Furthermore, involving local inhabitants in one additional implementation process increases the likelihood of finding a successful project that integrates conservation and development with about 1.4 times, and the participation of politicians and governmental administrators in one additional decision-making process increases the likelihood with about 1.3 times. No other effects of stakeholders’ participation on successful integration were found. Turning to the issue of effectiveness, a factor analysis revealed two clusters among the objectives. One had strong loadings on effectiveness in conservation, research, monitoring and education, and was interpreted as related to ‘conventional’ biodiversity conservation. The other had strong loadings on fostering social and economic development, and facilitating dialogue, collaboration and integration of different objectives, and was interpreted as related to conservation for sustainable development. Conventional conservation was positively affected by participation of scientists, but negatively affected by participation of volunteers. Effectiveness in sustainable development goals was associated to participation by local inhabitants. Adaptive co-management practices were associated with a higher level of effectiveness in achieving developmental goals, and this higher effectiveness did not seem to be at the expense of biodiversity conservation. A total of 46 Biosphere Reserves fulfilled the adaptive co-management criteria and provide an interesting set of cases to follow systematically in the search for deeper understanding of social-ecological systems dynamics.

∗

Corresponding author. E-mail address: lisen@ecology.su.se

Introduction Over the last few decades, the participation-paradigm has grown in research, policy and practice of natural resource management, biodiversity conservation and stewardship of ecosystem services (Dearden et al. 2005, Folke et al. 2005a, Reed 2008, Chapin et al. 2009). In short, the arguments put forward for involvement of stakeholders in such decision-making include increased efficiency (as people are more likely to support and implement decisions they have participated in making), improved accuracy (as a more diverse and broader knowledge base is utilized), and strengthened legitimacy (as people affected by decisions are invited into the process of making them) of management and conservation efforts (McCool and Guthrie 2001, Beierle and Konisky 2001, Colfer 2005).

The pragmatic reasons for stakeholder participation have gained importance with the growing perception that ecosystems and societies are interdependent, forming socialecological systems that are complex, adaptive and nested across scales (e.g. Berkes and Folke 1998, Holling 2001). Walker et al. (2002, p. 11) provide a step-wise approach to involve stakeholders in assessment and management of social-ecological systems and state that “The chances of success are increased if the full range of stakeholders is engaged”. The interdependence between ecosystems and society implies that people-oriented management and conservation of ecosystems is more likely to succeed than “strict protectionism based on government-led, authoritarian practices” (Wilshusen et al. 2002). For example, many conservation values in cultural landscapes result from a long history of human use and management (Nabhan 1997).

The complexity and the cross-scale interactions of social-ecological systems imply that any management body is dependent on collaboration with others in order to detect, interpret and respond accurately to feedback from dynamic ecosystems (Folke et al. 2005b). Adaptive co-management has been put forward as a way of dealing with this complexity in social-ecological systems (Olsson et al. 2004a, Armitage et al.

2007), as it combines the learning-by-doing approach of adaptive management with the collaborative approach of co-management. Adaptive co-management emphasizes two types of stakeholder participation: the participation of actors with different types of ecosystem knowledge (both scientific knowledge and experiential, e.g. local, traditional and indigenous knowledge) and the participation of actors working at different ecological scales and levels of decision-making (e.g. managers of certain habitats and policy-makers at local and national levels) (Olsson et al 2004a, Charles 2007). Recent studies on adaptive co-management have highlighted the need for bridging organizations that can coordinate and facilitate such adaptive collaboration across organizational levels and knowledge systems (Hahn et al. 2006, Berkes 2009).

Several studies suggest that participation of stakeholders has the positive effects suggested above (e.g. Sandersen and Koester 2000, Selvam et al 2003, Mugisha and Jacobson 2004, Bajracharya et al. 2005, Stringer et al. 2006, Sudtongkong and Webb 2008). Participation of key stakeholders was found to be the single most important factor in determining project outcomes in a survey of ecosystem management in the United States (Yaffee et al. 1996). In a synthesis of four case studies, Lebel et al.

(2006) found support for the proposition that participation and deliberation in decision-making around natural resource management enhances society’s ability to innovate and respond to crises, suggesting that involvement of non-state actors is a fruitful approach for dealing with complexity. In a case study of Kristianstads

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Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve, Hahn et al. (2006) showed how a bridging organization was able to identify win-win situations between biodiversity conservation and societal development through adaptive co-management processes focused on strengthening the generation of ecosystem services. Positive side-effects of participatory and collaborative approaches have also been described, such as empowerment and increased social capital, which in turn can lubricate future collaboration (Pretty and Ward 2001, Ansell and Gash 2006).

However, critique against the participation-paradigm has increased. Brody (2003) discusses the risk that the participation of conflicting interests slows down decisionmaking and results in unfortunate compromises between biodiversity conservation and economic development. Galaz (2005) shows how decision-making in a Swedish water common-pool-resource institution was blocked by strategic behavior among participating resource users that wanted to avoid costly measures. Such outcomes might erode social capital rather than building it (Conley and Moote 2003). Several scholars have argued that in a human dominated world, the goals of biodiversity conservation and economic development are competing, and therefore the participation of economic interests in decision-making on biodiversity conservation will have negative consequences for biodiversity (Kramer, van Schaik and Johnson 1997, Brandon, Redford and Sanderson 1998, Terborgh 1999, Oates 1999 [cited and discussed in Wilshusen et al 2002]). In addition, local participation might decrease accuracy of management because it dilutes the impact of scientific knowledge on conservation decisions (du Toit et al. 2004). Similarly, it has been questioned whether local and traditional knowledge really has a role to play in today’s rapidly changing world (Briggs and Sharp 2004). The assumption that local participation automatically improves legitimacy of decisions has also been questioned (e.g. Jentoft 2000).

Powerless and poor people may lack the capacity to participate fully, and so the decisions made in participatory processes might become more biased towards enforcing existing power structures than would decisions made by democratically elected and representative bodies. This process, labeled ‘elite capture’, has been described several times in the development literature (e.g. Platteau and Abraham 2002).

Studies that evaluate the effects of stakeholder participation on conservation outcomes and sustainable use of ecosystem services empirically are rare (Kleiman et al 2000, Conley and Moote 2003). The ambiguity in the results from case studies calls for larger studies where hypotheses on the effects of participation in general and adaptive co-management in particular can be tested systematically in different settings (Carpenter et al. 2009). The data-sets available to perform such tests are few (e.g.

Poteete and Ostrom 2007), but the World Network of Biosphere Reserves as part of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Program provides a potentially useful example.

In this article we use the World Network of Biosphere Reserves to analyze how stakeholder participation and adaptive co-management in different settings correlate to management effectiveness in achieving the objectives of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development of Biosphere Reserves. We start with a background of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves and four contradicting participation claims put forward in the literature that we are testing in this context. This section is followed by the design of the survey and the construction of indexes to estimate the relative impact of participation of different stakeholder groups in decision-making and

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implementation processes. The next section presents the results of participation in relation to 1) support for biodiversity conservation, 2) integration of conservation and development objectives, 3) management effectiveness and 4) adaptive comanagement and Biosphere Reserve effectiveness, followed by a discussion of participation in relation to our key findings. The 46 Biosphere Reserves that, according to our selection criteria, engage with stakeholders in adaptive comanagement processes seem to have a higher level of effectiveness in achieving conservation for development goals. The analysis is based on survey-responses from 146 Biosphere Reserves in 55 countries.

Participation and adaptive co-management in Biosphere Reserves Biosphere Reserves are sites designated by UNESCO with the mission of “maintaining and developing ecological and cultural diversity and securing ecosystem services for human wellbeing” (UNESCO 2008, p. 8) in collaboration with a suitable range of actors, often including local communities and scientists. They are promoted as ‘sites of excellence’ and ‘learning sites’ in this regard (UNESCO 1996). Since the program was initiated in 1976, 531 Biosphere Reserves have been designated in 105 countries. In the 1970’s and 1980’s the sites were mainly designated based on their biodiversity values and their capacity to support research and monitoring (Ishwaran et al. 2008), but since 1995, all Biosphere Reserves are expected to fulfill three functions, stated in the Statutory Framework and the Seville Strategy (UNESCO 1996): 1) conserving biodiversity, 2) fostering sustainable social and economic development, and 3) supporting research, monitoring and education. However, many of the older Biosphere Reserves have not yet transformed to fulfill the ‘sustainable development’ function, and so the network now includes examples of ‘conventional’ biodiversity conservation led by scientists and governmental administrations as well as sites managed by communities, NGOs, and networks of multiple state and nonstate actors.

The three functions and several of the criteria of Biosphere Reserves correspond to features of adaptive co-management: there is a focus on monitoring, an integrated approach to conservation and development, and recommendations of adaptive management and participation of a suitable range of actors (UNESCO 1996, Schultz and Lundholm in review). Based on the mission, functions and criteria of Biosphere Reserves, and the results of a case study in one Biosphere Reserve (Olsson et al.

2004b, Hahn et al. 2006, Schultz et al. 2007), we propose that Biosphere Reserves constitute potential sites for testing the effectiveness of participation in general and adaptive co-management in particular.

Most Biosphere Reserves have a place-based body that coordinates its activities, here called Biosphere Reserve Centers (Stoll-Kleeman and Welp 2008). Biosphere Reserve Centers can be everything from a single director, coordinator or manager working with the Biosphere Reserve concept in a loosely defined network, to a physical space with researchers, managers and information personnel.

Testing effects of participation Here, we will use the survey-responses from 146 Biosphere Reserve Centers in 55 countries to investigate how different degrees of participation of a range of actors relate to effectiveness in reaching the Biosphere Reserve objectives. We will also test the effects of stakeholder participation on perceived support for Biosphere Reserve 4

management, and test the linkage between stakeholder participation and successful integration of conservation and development. In addition, we will test the effectiveness of adaptive co-management. The analysis is based on survey respondents’ self-evaluation of effectiveness in reaching the objectives stated in the Statutory framework of Biosphere Reserves (UNESCO 1996).

Drawing on the participation arguments put forward in the literature reported on above, we are specifically interested in evaluating the following contradicting claims: 1. “Stakeholder participation strengthens support for Biosphere Reserve objectives and management.”

versus

“Stakeholder participation is too risky – if it fails it creates disappointment and decreases support for Biosphere Reserve objectives and management.”

2. “Stakeholder participation leads to successful integration of versus biodiversity conservation and societal development.”

“Stakeholder participation leads to unsatisfactory compromises between biodiversity conservation and societal development in Biosphere Reserves.”

3. “Stakeholder participation increases effectiveness of Biosphere Reserve management.”

versus

“Stakeholder participation decreases effectiveness of Biosphere Reserve management.”

versus

“Adaptive co-management deteriorates performance of Biosphere Reserves.”

4. “Adaptive co-management improves performance of Biosphere Reserves.”

Throughout the analysis, two kinds of participation are defined and assessed: participation in decision-making processes and participation in implementation processes. Stakeholder categories identified and analyzed are scientists, local resource users (e.g. farmers, fishermen, and hunters) and inhabitants, non-profit organizations and other volunteers, and politicians and governmental administrators.

Survey design In order to get comparable information from a large set of cases, a written, selfadministered questionnaire was developed (Kasunik 2005), targeting coordinators, directors and managers of Biosphere Reserves. The ambition was to get one response from each of the 531 Biosphere Reserves in the World Network. The questionnaire was developed by a team of researchers with backgrounds in systems ecology, political science, rural studies and educational science, and also with previous experience of Biosphere Reserves through the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve (Schultz et al. 2007, Olsson et al. 2007, Hahn et al. 2008).

The overarching goal of the survey was to assess to what extent the ambitions and recommendations of UNESCO’s Statutory framework are realized on the ground in Biosphere Reserves, and how participation and learning relate to self-estimated effectiveness in reaching the Biosphere Reserves’ objectives. The learning aspect in the context of the survey is analyzed in Schultz and Lundholm (in review). Several

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questions of the survey related to stakeholder participation: Respondents were asked to rate priorities from 0 to 10 of seven objectives, six of which were derived from the Statutory framework, and one that was added on request from the test respondents, namely the objective of “Facilitating dialogue, collaboration and integration of different objectives”. The survey contained multiple-choice questions on actors represented in the coordinating team and the advisory board, actors involved in design and implementation of goals, projects, monitoring, and day-to-day management of ecosystems, and actors informed regularly about issues related to the Biosphere Reserve (Fig. 1). There was one multiple-choice question on challenges experienced when trying to involve different groups, and one question about the outcomes of involvement in terms of participants support for Biosphere Reserve management. One section of the questionnaire concerned self-evaluation of effectiveness. Respondents were asked to exemplify how they monitor progress in each of the seven objectives (open-ended question). Then, they were asked to rate performance of their Biosphere Reserve in reaching each objective from 0 to 10 (Fig. 2). In addition, they were asked to rank sufficiency of a range of assets, including support from local inhabitants, politicians and governmental administrations. The complete questionnaire can be accessed on request to the first author (lisen@ecology.su.se).

8.2 Who is represented in the BR steering committee/advisory board? You may tick more than one option.

8.2.1 8.2.2 8.2.3 8.2.4 8.2.5 8.2.6

Scientists Non-profit organizations and volunteers Local farmers, fishermen, foresters or hunters Other people living or working in the BR

8.2.7 8.2.8 8.2.9

Local governmental administrations related to conservation Local governmental administrations not related to conservation

8.2.11

8.2.10

8.2.12

National governmental administrations Politicians Unesco Other groups (please specify)_________________________ Not applicable I don’t know

Figure 1. Example of a survey question on actors involved in Biosphere Reserve (BR) management

6

4.2 Based on what you currently know about trends in your BR, do you find that the BR processes are efficient in fulfilling the BR objectives? Please rate performance of your BR. N/A 0 4.2.1

Conserving biodiversity

4.2.2

Fostering economic development (e.g. secure livelihoods, facilitate local entrepreneurship)

4.2.3

Fostering social development (e.g. empowerment)

4.2.4

Providing logistic support to research

4.2.5

Providing logistic support to monitoring

4.2.6

Providing logistic support to education

4.2.7

Facilitating dialogue, collaboration and integration of different objectives

Very poor 1

Poor 3

2

4

Acceptable 5

6

Good 7

8

Very good 9

Figure 2. Survey question on self-evaluated effectiveness. The six first objectives are drawn from the Statutory framework of Biosphere Reserves (UNESCO 1996), and the seventh was generated from the responses to the pilot survey.

The questionnaire was tested, revised, and uploaded for on-line access in English, French, Spanish and Chinese, via URL http://www.surveymonkey.com. An introductory letter with a link to the survey was sent via e-mail to the responsible director, coordinator, or manager of 407 Biosphere Reserves that had identifiable and working e-mail addresses. Hard copies were distributed extensively at the 3rd World Congress of Biosphere Reserves held in Madrid in February 2008 to compensate for the fact that 124 of the 531 Biosphere Reserves could not be reached via e-mail. The on-line survey was open from January 15th to June 20th and reminders were sent out twice during this period. The World congress generated 65 hard copy responses, and the e-mails resulted in 107 responses. Duplicate responses from the same Biosphere Reserves, sent in by National coordinators for example, were removed from the data set.

Descriptive statistics All in all, 146 Biosphere Reserves from 55 countries provided complete answers to the survey, a response rate of 27%. Although this response rate is low, it is reasonable in comparison with other global surveys of Biosphere Reserves. A telephone survey presented in Stoll-Kleeman and Welp (2008) achieved a response rate of 40%, and UNESCO (2001) reports a response rate of 29%. Comparing the geographic 7

10

distribution of the 146 responding Biosphere Reserves to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, the responding Biosphere Reserves are fairly representative (Fig. 3). However, high-income countries (as defined by the World Bank 2008) were overrepresented in the data-set, amounting to 45% of the responses, as compared to 36% in the overall World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

25 20 15

% of total responses (N=148)

10

% of total network of BRs (N=531)

5

Eu lia ro Ce pe an nt d ra M l, ic So ro ut ne h sia an Ea d W st es an tA d So si a ut hEa st As ia

ur op e

Ea st er n

Au st ra

a er ic

W es tE

Am

No rth ,S

ou th

an d

Am er ica

No rth

La tin

Af r ic a

0

Figure 3. Regional representation in percent of total responses compared to regional representation in percent of the total network of Biosphere Reserves.

In addition to regional distribution and income-level, an important characteristic of a Biosphere Reserve is its year of designation, as explained above. Forty-three percent of the responding Biosphere Reserves are ‘post-Seville’ (designated after 1995) as compared to 40% of the Biosphere Reserves in the World Network. The total sizes of the represented Biosphere Reserves range from 1500 hectares (a mountain lake in Germany) to nearly 30 million hectares (tropical grasslands and savannas in Brazil).

12.1% were smaller than 10 000 hectares, 36.1% were 10 000-99 000 hectares, 41.2% were 100 000-990 000 hectares and 10.6% were 1-30 million hectares (UNESCO 2009). Sixty-four percent of the responding Biosphere Reserves claimed to be conserving ‘pristine’ or ‘natural’ ecosystems in their core areas, and 36% conserved a landscape at least partly shaped by traditional human interventions, such as traditional agriculture (N=143).

Measuring stakeholder participation in Biosphere Reserves In order to estimate the relative impact of participation of different stakeholder groups on BR activities, a number of indexes were constructed. First, estimates were constructed for the degree of participation for each stakeholder category, based on their involvement in seven different management processes: 1) representation in BR coordination team, 2) representation in BR steering committee, 3) goal-setting in BR, 4) BR project design, 5) implementation of projects in BR, 6) day-to-day management in BR, and 7) monitoring of biodiversity changes in BR. Processes 1-4 were summarized into an index measuring stakeholder participation in decision making processes of the BR, and processes 5-7 were collapsed into a measure of stakeholder participation in implementation processes in the BR. Although not an estimate of the exact number of stakeholder groups involved in BR activities, these two indexes nevertheless give a reasonably accurate picture of relative differences in stakeholder

8

participation in different BR functions. The degree of participation in decision making and implementation was estimated for a total of four categories of stakeholders: 1) scientists, 2) local resource users (e.g. farmers, fishermen, and hunters) and inhabitants, 3) non-profit organizations and other volunteers, and 4) politicians and governmental administrators. In total, eight separate participation indexes were used (participation in implementation and decision making for each of the four stakeholder categories).

Evaluating the claims 1. Participation and support for biodiversity conservation When responding to the survey question “Do you have reason to believe that the groups involved in BR activities have increased or decreased their support for biodiversity conservation as a result of their involvement?” (N=134), almost 80% of respondents chose the alternatives “most groups have significantly-” or “somewhat increased their support for biodiversity management”. An additional 14% said that involvement had not had any effect, and only one case reported that support had decreased somewhat as a result of involvement.

Judging from this response distribution the hypothesis that participation increases support receives overwhelming support. However, as will be discussed below, this pattern is not obvious for all indexes of participation.

To assess support for BR objectives and activities, two estimates were constructed: one overall and one specific to categories of stakeholders. The overall level of support for the BR from involved groups was measured using estimates given by respondents in the survey question about support mentioned above. Measures of the support from specific categories of stakeholders were constructed using three questions which required the respondent to evaluate the BR’s sufficiency of “support from people living in the BR” and “support from local politicians” and “support from relevant governmental administrations” on a scale ranging from 1 (totally insufficient) to 10 (more than sufficient). The latter two items were collapsed into a single index reflecting the combined average score of the two original variables.

To test the effect of participation on overall support, a set of ordered logistic regression models were run in which controls were introduced for designation year of the BR, the income level of the country in which the BR is situated, the size of the BR (log), and whether the protected areas were classified as “pristine nature” or “cultural landscape” (see Table 1).1 Only one significant effect was encountered: participation of scientists in implementation has a small but significant positive effect on overall support from groups involved. Possibly, participation by scientists adds to the credibility of BR management.

When testing whether the effect of participation on support for BR activities is confided to the groups actually represented in participation processes, two significant effects were encountered. Participation of local resource users and inhabitants in implementation processes has a rather substantial effect (b = .35, t =3.18, p > .003) on 1

All regression models reported in this paper were run using clustered standard errors to control for possible intragroup correlations between BRs located in the same country.

9

the level of perceived support from the survey category “People living in the BR” (010). Thus, including this stakeholder group in one additional implementation process in the BR raises the BR’s perceived support ranking from local inhabitants by .35 points on the 0-10 support scale. A similar but slightly weaker effect is found for participation by local resource users and inhabitants in decision making processes (b = .28, t =2.53, p > .015).

In sum, involving local inhabitants and resource users in BR processes does seem to raise their support for BR activities. In addition, a higher level of scientist involvement is linked to a small increase in the general level of support for the BR from groups involved. This effect is however not present in the case of politicians and administrators – no linkages between the level of participation of politicians and administrators and their level of support for the BR can be found in the data.2 Table 1. Participation and support for biodiversity conservation. Ordered logistic regression.

Decision making

Implementation

Local users/inhabitants

1.074 (.152)

1.154 (.124)

Politicians and administrators

1.043 (.112)

.956 (.128)

Scientists

1.024 (.178)

1.673* (.340)

NGOs and volunteers

1.144 (.239)

.807 ( .170)

BR age

1.012 (.021)

1.011 (.021)

Income level (1-4)

.732 (.151)

.729 (.150)

Size of BR area (log)

1.024 (.121)

1.131 (.156)

Pristine (dummy)

2.083 (.819)

2.024 (.837)

32.98***

41.31***

.06

.09

Wald Pseudo R2

* p > .05, ** p > .01, *** p > .001. Table shows odds ratios and clustered robust standard errors within parenthesizes. Number of clusters (countries) is 52 and N = 131. Dependent variable is responses to the survey question “Do you have reason to believe that the groups involved in BR activities have increased or decreased their support for biodiversity conservation as a result of their involvement?”

Response alternatives ranged from “Most groups have significantly increased their support” (5) to “Most groups have significantly decreased their support.” (1).

2. Participation and integration of conservation and development In a survey question about challenges experienced when trying to involve different groups, only 7.2% of the respondents selected the option “We have reached unsatisfactory compromises”(N=125). This suggests that the claim that participation 2 The design of the survey does not allow for estimating the corresponding effects of participation of NGOs/volunteers and scientist on their respective level of support.

10

leads to unsatisfactory compromises between biodiversity goals and development goals is mostly not valid. On the other hand, the contradicting claim (participation leads to win-win solutions between these goals) is not valid in all cases either.

A logistic regression model used the survey question “In your BR, is there any project where the objectives of conservation and development have been integrated to produce a satisfactory outcome?� to measure the presence of at least one example of integration of developmental and conservational goals. Indicators of stakeholder participation and control variables were the same as in Table 1 above. As was the case in the previous model, most indicators of participation were not related to successful integration of development and conservation. However, the level of participation in implementation processes of local resource users or people living in the BR seemed to have a positive effect on the likelihood of a successful project of conservationdevelopment integration. On average, including this stakeholder group in one additional implementation process makes it about 1.4 times more likely to find a successful integration project in that BR. Similarly, involving politicians and administrators in decision making processes is significantly linked to a 1.3 increase in the likelihood of finding successful integration of development and conservation.

Naturally, our findings do not speak to the direction of casual linkages. Possibly, BRs that devote a larger portion of their efforts at integrating conservation and development are more likely to include local resource users and politicians as a consequence of this effort.

Table 2. Participation and integration of development and conservation. Logistic regression.

Project integrating development and conservation exists Decision making Implementation 1.217 (.178)

1.435* (.241)

1.314** (.162)

1.229 (.149)

Scientists

.707 (.142)

.943 (.221)

NGOs and volunteers

1.142 (.209)

.994 (.226)

BR age

1.024 (.019)

1.022 (.020)

Income level (1-4)

.756 (.165)

.725 (.160)

Size of BR area (log)

1.279 (.291)

1.302 (.253)

Pristine (dummy)

1.109 (.558)

1.248 (.640)

19.50**

30.70***

.19

.18

Local users/inhabitants Politicians and administrators

Wald Pseudo R2

* p > .05, ** p > .01, *** p > .001. Table shows odds ratios and clustered robust standard errors within parenthesizes. Number of clusters (countries) is 52 and N = 131.

11

3. Participation and Biosphere Reserve management effectiveness Turning to the issue of BR effectiveness, it should be noted that there are multiple ways of conceptualizing and measuring effectiveness in protected area management (e.g. Bruner et al. 2001, Ervin 2003, Chape et al. 2005). There is a general lack of objective third-party performance data in many protected areas, including Biosphere Reserves (Bertzky and Stoll-Kleeman 2009), and therefore we have relied on survey respondents’ self-evaluation of effectiveness in achieving seven different objectives: conserving biodiversity, fostering social development, fostering economic development, supporting research, supporting monitoring, supporting education, and facilitating dialogue, collaboration and integration (Fig. 2). This means that the estimates are entirely subjective and related to the respondent’s ambitions, priorities and reference points.

Two indexes of effectiveness were constructed using a principal component factor analysis of respondents’ estimates of effectiveness in reaching these seven objectives.

The factor analysis produced two distinct factors explaining about 75% of total variance. The first factors display strong loadings on the objectives of conserving biodiversity and supporting research, monitoring and education and can therefore be understood as a reflection of a latent variable measuring effectiveness in achieving pre-Seville BR goals, i.e. “conventional” biodiversity conservation. The second factor loads strongly on the objectives of “facilitating dialogue, collaboration and integration of different objectives”, “economic development”, and “social development”, and is therefore interpreted as having to do with perceived effectiveness in achieving postSeville BR goals, i.e. sustainable development.

Table 3. Biosphere Reserve self-estimated effectiveness. Factor analysis.

Conventional conservation Sustainable development Conserving biodiversity

,809

,181

Economic development

,137

,918

Social development

,183

,854

Support research

,860

,216

Support monitoring

,901

,149

Support education

,696

,491

Facilitate dialogue, integration

,329

,740

Table shows rotated (varimax) factor loadings with Kaiser normalization. N =124

Factor regression scores of these two latent variables were then used as dependent variables in four OLS regression models aiming at estimating the effect of stakeholder participation (see Table 3). Stakeholder participation was again measured in terms of the level of participation in decision making- and implementation processes in the BR. Not entirely surprising self-estimated effectiveness in ‘conventional conservation’ goals seems to be linked to a higher level of participation of scientist in both decision making and implementation. More surprising is the rather strong negative effect of a higher level of participation of non-profit organizations and volunteers in decisionmaking and implementation – BRs with a higher level of voluntary organization participating in decision making and implementation tend to rank their performance in relation to conventional conservation goals lower. Possibly, a high presence of NGOs 12

and volunteers is an indication of lacking or insufficient resources, making it difficult for BRs to conserve biodiversity and support monitoring, research and education. The level of participation of local resource users and politicians and administrators does not influence effectiveness ratings in relation to ‘conventional conservation’ goals.

Participation of local resource users and inhabitants in implementation is the only form of participation significantly linked to a higher level of effectiveness in ‘sustainable development’ goals. The rather large coefficient for participation of voluntary groups in decision making is borderline significant (p = .051), which points to the existence of a real effect in this respect that may have been more pronounced in a larger sample. Involving politicians and local and national administrations does not seem to influence effectiveness in achieving ‘sustainable development’ goals, and neither does the involvement of scientists.

Table 4. Participation and Biosphere Reserve effectiveness. OLS regression.

Conventional conservation Decision making Implementation

Sustainable development Decision making Implementation

Local users/inhabitants

.001 (.049)

.022 (.050)

-.011 (.040)

. 107** (.041)

Politicians and administrators

-.014 (.034)

-.031 (.059)

.029 (.032)

-.057 (.053)

Scientists

.210** (.083)

.310** (.105)

-.100 (.078)

.017 (.107)

NGOs and volunteers

-.177* (.082)

-.241** (.084)

.130 (.065)

.105 (.068)

BR age

-.018 (.009)

-.017* (.008)

.015 (.008)

.011 (.008)

Income level (1-4)

-.086 (.112)

-.091 (.091)

-.207* (.098)

-.193 (.087)

Size of BR area (log)

-.017 (.061)

-.012 (.061)

.081 (.066)

.109 (.060)

Pristine (dummy)

.292 (.246)

.308 (.240)

.056 (.210)

.056 (.198)

35.947 (18.975)

34.226* (16.290)

30.844 (16.260)

-23.610 (16.977)

3.35**

2.82*

4.84***

5.00***

.12

.16

.16

.19

Constant F Adj. R2

* p > .05, ** p > .01, *** p > .001. Table shows OLS regression coefficient and clustered robust standard errors within parenthesizes. Number of clusters (countries) is 49 and N = 118.

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4. Adaptive co-management and Biosphere Reserve effectiveness In the last step of the analysis we consider the possibility that BR effectiveness is linked to the extent to which BR management practices approximate those suggested in the adaptive co-management literature. This research field is young and there are no definite definitions of what constitutes adaptive co-management (Plummer and Armitage 2007, Plummer and Fitzgibbon 2007). Rather than providing an absolute definition that would classify each Biosphere Reserve as adaptive co-management or not, we identify practices captured in the survey that BRs express to varying extents, and that reflect essential features of adaptive co-management, namely involvement of both local inhabitants/communities and governments in decision making (a defining condition for co-management), conservation and sustainable development efforts pursued in concert (socialecological systems approach), dialogue, collaboration and integration of different objectives, monitoring and responding to ecosystem feedback performed combining different knowledge systems, including science, and a shared vision has developed These features enable us to assess the level of adaptive co-management in the 146 Biosphere Reserves. For this purpose we developed a grading scheme presented in Box 1. Features given higher grades reflect key conditions for adaptive comanagement processes. Features that could take place in other management approaches as well, but nevertheless contribute to adaptive co-management in Biosphere Reserves are given somewhat lower grades. Our classifications are by necessity subjective but help us generate a rough assessment of the relative grades of adaptive co-management in the Biosphere Reserves. It should again be noted that they rely entirely on the survey responses, focusing on questions about priorities in relation to Biosphere objectives (structured as Fig. 2) and using the indexes of participation of stakeholder categories described earlier in relation to decision making.

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Box 1. Grading identified features of adaptive co-management in relation to Biosphere Reserves A defining condition for co-management is the involvement of both communities and governments (Berkes 2007). We assigned 2 points to the BRs responding that local inhabitants and/or resource users participate in decision-making and 2 points to the BRs responding that politicians and/or governmental administrations participate in decision-making.

In the adaptive co-management approach development cannot be achieved at the expense of ecosystem integrity (Olsson et al. 2004a). We assigned 1.5 points to the BRs that give at least medium priority to the objective of conserving biodiversity. We assigned 1 point to Biosphere Reserves that give at least medium priority to the objectives of fostering social development and 1 point if they give at least medium priority to fostering economic development.

Facilitating dialogue, collaboration and integration of different objectives are core concepts of the adaptive co-management approach (Plummer and Fitzgibbon 2007).

We assigned 1.5 points to BRs giving at least ‘medium priority’ to this objective and an additional 1.5 points to BRs giving at least ‘high priority’ to this objective.

Adaptive co-management for conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems is information intensive and learning oriented, and draws on multiple sources of knowledge as a means to deal with complexity (Plummer and Armitage 2007).

Monitoring, interpreting and responding to ecosystem feedbacks are important components of adaptive co-management (Folke et al. 2003). We assigned 1 point to BRs that give at least medium priority to the objective of supporting monitoring.

Scientific knowledge is of significance for adaptive co-management of ecosystems (e.g. Reid et al. 2006). We assigned 1.5 points to the BRs that responded that scientists participate in decision-making.

The adaptive co-management approach is grounded in a perception of social and ecological systems as integrated (Folke et al. 2003). We assigned 1 point to the Biosphere Reserves that responded “yes” to the question “In your BR, is there any project where the objectives of conservation and development have been integrated to produce a satisfactory outcome?”.

A final feature of adaptive co-management is that information exchange leads to shared understanding or agreement (Plummer and Fitzgibbon 2007), expressed for example in a shared vision (Olsson 2007). We assigned 1 point to the BRs that responded “yes” to the question “Have you and your team developed a shared vision for your BR? (Olsson 2007).

The grading of the adaptive co-management features in Box 1 was used to construct an interval level variable measuring the extent to which a BR is practicing adaptive co-management. The maximum score is 15, which indicates that all selected features are fulfilled. Forty-nine sites score 5.5-10.5, 51 sites score 11-13.5 and 46 sites score 14-15.When average self-assessed effectiveness ratings are plotted over scores on the

15

adaptive co-management scale an interesting pattern appears. First of all, the average biodiversity conservation effectiveness rating is relatively constant over different levels of adaptive co-management scores. For effectiveness ratings of economic and social development, a different pattern emerges (Figure 4). Here, levels of adaptive co-management scores are more or less linearly associated with increasing effectiveness ratings, albeit on a consistently lower level than conservation effectiveness ratings. Only when a maximum adaptive co-management score is achieved are effectiveness ratings for social and economic development reaching an average of over 5 (“acceptable”).

Figure 4. Average effectiveness ratings and adaptive co-management scores.

The overall pattern illustrated by Figure 4 is confirmed by two OLS regression models using factor regression scores for effectiveness in achieving ‘conventional conservation’ goals and ’sustainable development’ goals as dependent variables and the adaptive co-management score together with controls for BR age, size, income level of BR country, and pristine/cultural landscape dummy as independent variables.

The adaptive co-management score has a significant effect on development effectiveness ratings (b = .170, t = 4.76, p = .000), but is not significantly related to effectiveness in biodiversity conservation (b = .035, t = .93, p = .36).

To sum up, adaptive co-management does not seem to be associated with higher ratings of effectiveness in biodiversity conservation. On the other hand, adaptive comanagement does not seem to lower conservation effectiveness either. In contrast, self-assessed effectiveness in achieving social and economic development is consistently linked to adaptive co-management practices in the BR. Adaptive comanagement practices are associated with a higher level of effectiveness in achieving

16

sustainable development goals, but this higher effectiveness does not seem to be achieved at the expense of biodiversity conservation.

Summing up key findings 1. Eighty percent of the respondents claim that involvement of stakeholder groups increase their support for the Biosphere Reserve objectives (N=134). However, when testing the effects of degrees of involvement of certain stakeholder categories, on the level of support from the same stakeholder categories, such effects were only found between degrees of involvement of local stakeholders in decision making and implementation, and degrees of support from people living in the BR. These effects were weak but significant and positive. In addition, scientists’ participation in implementation seems to increase the overall level of support from involved groups.

Also this effect was weak but significant. No evidence was found to support the contradicting claim that participation would decrease support for biodiversity conservation.

2. According to the survey responses, participation rarely leads to unsatisfactory compromises between conservation and development. Only 7.2 % of the respondents had experienced this challenge (N=125). Instead, on average, including local resource users and inhabitants in one additional implementation process makes it about 1.4 times more likely to find a successful integration project in that BR. Similarly, involving politicians and administrators in decision-making processes in the BR is significantly linked to a 1.3 increase in the likelihood of finding successful integration of development and conservation goals. We found no other effects of stakeholders’ participation on successful integration.

3. A factor analysis of effectiveness in relation to seven objectives revealed two underlying dimensions in effectiveness ratings. One related to ‘conventional conservation’ goals, and the other related to ‘sustainable development’ goals.

Effectiveness in achieving conventional conservation goals was positively linked to scientists’ participation in implementation processes, and negatively linked to volunteers’ participation in decision-making and implementation. Effectiveness in achieving sustainable development goals was positively linked to participation of local resource users and inhabitants in implementation.

4. Adaptive co-management neither seems to be associated with higher ratings of effectiveness in ’conventional’ conservation goals, nor to lower rates. The respondents’ self-assessed effectiveness in achieving social and economic development is, however, rather strongly linked (positively) to adaptive comanagement practices in the Biosphere Reserve. A total of 46 Biosphere Reserves achieved 14 or 15 ‘adaptive co-management points’ and provide an interesting set of cases to follow systematically.

Discussion This study was designed to go beyond individual case studies, using a large-N data-set to test some of the contradicting claims about effects of stakeholder participation that are put forward in the literature on natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and management of ecosystem services. UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves provides an interesting platform for such tests, as it contains sites 17

with a range of approaches to participation, from conventional biodiversity conservation led by scientists or government administrations in isolation from local communities, to integrated approaches where conservation is part of sustainable development efforts, managed in collaboration with multiple state- and non-state actors (Stoll-Kleeman and Welp 2008, Ishwaran et al. 2008, Schultz and Lundholm in review).

We would first like to highlight two important findings of our analysis. Integrating biodiversity conservation and sustainable development through participation of stakeholders does not seem to have a negative effect on conservation effectiveness, judging by the respondents’ self-evaluation. On the other hand, stakeholder participation is no panacea or shortcut to improve conservation either. Rather, there are many different ways of achieving conservation success. But what stakeholder participation in the case of Biosphere Reserves seems to add is an expanded focus and improved efforts of fostering sustainable development, where conservation becomes part of and not apart from development (Folke 2006). Such an approach is at the heart of management of ecosystem services, which aims at securing ecological functions to sustain human wellbeing (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005).

‘Participation’ as a management approach is probably too general to evaluate as positive or negative in terms of different outcomes. Consequently, Brody (2003), who tested the effect of stakeholder involvement on the quality of ecosystem management plans, found that simply having a wide range of participants present in the planning process did not guarantee higher quality plans. Instead, certain stakeholders had positive effects, whereas the effects of others were negative. Here, we have unpacked participation both in terms of who is participating (stakeholder categories) and when participation occurs (decision-making or implementation). We have also tried to assess the extent of participation of each stakeholder category in each of these two processes. However, we have no data on how these participatory processes are designed and led, and our data does not allow us to evaluate to what extent the different groups are actually able to influence the decisions made, or the representativeness of the groups involved. This means that we can not speak to the discussion on legitimacy of participatory processes in BRs, such as the risk of ‘elite capture’ mentioned in the introduction. It should also be noted that participatory processes take time to develop, and therefore some of the effects on effectiveness may not be the result of current levels of participation. Concerning the evaluation of outcomes, we have unpacked management performance in terms the objectives stated in the Statutory framework of Biosphere Reserves (UNESCO 1996, see fig 2), but the evaluation of management performance in relation to these objectives is based entirely on the respondents’ perception of effectiveness. So is the assessment of support from various stakeholder categories.

This said, the analysis of 146 survey responses from Biosphere Reserve Centers reveals that the involvement of local resource users (such as farmers and fishermen) and local inhabitants in decision-making and implementation of Biosphere Reserve management has three positive effects. Such local participation increases support from people living in the Biosphere Reserve, and increases the likelihood that projects that integrate conservation and development produce satisfactory outcomes. Furthermore, local participation in implementation processes is linked to higher ratings of the selfevaluated effectiveness in reaching sustainable development goals. There are no

18

negative effects of local participation on self-evaluated effectiveness in reaching conventional conservation goals. This is in line with Brody (2003), who found that the presence of resource-based industry groups (agriculture, forestry, marine, and utilities) in planning had the strongest positive influence on ecosystem plan quality. It also supports the conclusions from a case study of the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve, which found that the involvement of local stewards (people active in on-site management and monitoring of the landscape) can enhance the capacity for ecosystem management (Schultz et al. 2007).

Politicians and governmental administrators seem to increase the likelihood that projects that integrate conservation and development produce satisfactory outcomes, but no other effects of their participation were found, neither positive, nor negative.

This result contradicts Brody (2003), who found that the presence of local government bodies in the planning process had a negative effect on the plan quality in terms of management’s ability to protect ecosystems. But it supports the argument for comanagement that suggests that there are scale-dependent comparative advantages of both communities and governments (Cash and Moser 2000, Carlsson and Berkes 2005).

Our results are in line with arguments by du Toit et al. (2004) that the involvement of scientists in implementation processes increases effectiveness in reaching ‘conventional’ conservation goals, and their involvement does not seem to be at the expense of sustainable development goals. Participation of scientists also seems to increase the overall support from groups involved in management. We have observed this phenomenon in our studies of the Kristianstad Vattenrike BR, where key leaders and the Biosphere Reserve Center collaborate with scientists as part of their strategies in ‘navigating the larger environment’.

The only negative effect of participation found in the analysis was the involvement of non-profit organizations and volunteers in implementation processes, which had a slightly negative effect on the self-evaluated effectiveness in reaching ‘conventional’ conservation goals. We interpret this finding as an indication that management relying mainly on volunteer efforts is not sufficient in reaching the ambitious objectives of Biosphere Reserves. This is in line with Schultz et al. (2007), who suggest that although contributions by volunteers are valuable, they should complement rather than substitute formal, funded management. If extensive volunteer participation indicates a lack of resources, it could very well be that even though volunteer efforts can not fully compensate for this lack of resources, the Biosphere Reserve would have been even worse off had the volunteers not been there. However, our research design and choice of material does not allow us to test this hypothesis.

It goes without saying that Biosphere Reserves are not structured participation experiments with controls. Instead, the structures and contexts of the 146 Biosphere Reserves are all different, and the differences in effectiveness might have other explanations than the extent of participation by diverse stakeholder groups. For instance, the Biosphere Reserve Centers have most likely adapted their selection of stakeholders to involve in decision-making and implementation to the context of the Biosphere Reserve. If so, potential positive and negative effects of stakeholder participation are masked in the data-set.

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The results suggest that if the focus is solely on achieving ‘conventional’ conservation goals adaptive co-management would not be better than other forms of management.

But according to the respondents’ self-evaluations, adaptive co-management arrangements enhance the BRs’ effectiveness in reaching sustainable development goals, without impairing effectiveness in achieving conventional conservation goals.

In this sense, conservation becomes part of development through adaptive comanagement. As has been argued many times before, we stress that the feasibility of adaptive co-management is context-dependent and should not be promoted as a panacea (e.g. Ostrom et al. 2007). However, if adaptive co-management is defined as a flexible management system that tailors collaborative networks to each management problem, continuously adapting the institutional arrangements in a process of learning-by-doing (Olsson et al. 2004a), the avoidance of panaceas is built into the concept.

Berkes (2009) suggests that bridging organizations are essential to initiate, coordinate and sustain adaptive co-management processes, and the survey analysis shows that Biosphere Reserve Centers can indeed fulfill such a role. Forty-six of the 146 responding Biosphere Reserve Centers collaborate successfully with local inhabitants, government bodies and scientists to integrate the efforts of conserving biodiversity and fostering sustainable development. They support monitoring, facilitate dialogue and collaboration, and in most of these cases, they have developed a shared vision for the Biosphere Reserve management. As such, they provide learning platforms that enable management to respond to ecosystem feedback, and facilitate learning among stakeholders (Schultz and Lundholm, in review).

Returning to the various claims about participation, this study found little evidence of negative effects of participation and adaptive co-management. The results suggest that the worries about participation resulting in unsatisfactory compromises between conservation and development, decreased conservation effectiveness, and disappointing outcomes leading to eroded support may be exaggerated, at least in the context of Biosphere Reserves. However, the positive effects of participation are not self-evident either, and the study highlights that qualitative dimensions of participation are of significance in determining the outcomes. We have shown how the effects depend on which stakeholder categories are involved and whether they are involved in decision-making or implementation of management. But as many scholars have pointed out, there are many other factors at play in participation and comanagement, such as the design of the process, the skills of the facilitators that mobilize participation, the history of conflict and trust, and the capacities and interests of the participants (Carlsson and Berkes 2005, Stringer et al. 2006, Westley et al.

2006, Ansell and Gash 2007). For example, Folke et al. (2003, 2005) exemplify that it is not only the representation of certain stakeholder categories that matter, but that certain roles are fulfilled by the individuals involved, such as knowledge carriers, interpreters, leaders, visionaries, and how these roles play out during different stages of development. Hahn et al. (2006) describe how a bridging organization selects partners strategically, initially only inviting individuals who are trusted among their peers and are interested in contributing. Only when these individuals are on board, and when projects have shown some positive results do they expand collaboration to others (Hahn et al. 2006). Such processes are of course difficult to capture meaningfully in surveys, but we have identified 46 Biosphere Reserves that provide an interesting set of cases for comparative, in-depth studies. Such studies could

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further unravel the processes of adaptive co-management and deepen our understanding of what governance and management practices that enhance the generation of ecosystem services in different contexts.

Conclusions Carpenter et al. (2009) stress that actions for ecosystem services and human wellbeing is a long-term, spatially complex experiment that requires continuous innovation and learning and that will have to be backed up by data and analysis that evaluate how policies and practices are benefiting people and nature in interdependent social-ecological systems. The survey of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves with a focus on stakeholder participation and adaptive co-management is an attempt to contribute in this direction. We have analyzed responses of 146 Biosphere Reserve managers and the results suggest that adaptive co-management, present in 46 of those as indicated by the survey, is associated with a higher level of effectiveness in achieving developmental goals. This higher effectiveness does not seem to be at the expense of biodiversity conservation. The involvement of local inhabitants in decision-making and implementation seem to enhance the support from people living in the Biosphere Reserves, increase the likelihood for successful integration of conservation and development, and have a positive effect on the Biosphere Reserves self-evaluated effectiveness in fostering sustainable development. The involvement of scientists is linked to increasing effectiveness in achieving ‘conventional’ conservation goals, whereas involving politicians and governmental administrations appears to enhance the integration of conservation and development. We argue that Biosphere Reserves provide an interesting set of cases for further in-depth studies on what makes participation fail or succeed in efforts of conservation for development.

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