Enhancing the resilience of ecosystem services (ES) that underpin human well-being is critical for meeting current and future societal needs, and requires specific governance and management policies. Using the literature, we identify seven generic policy-relevant principles for enhancing the resilience of desired ES in the face of disturbance and ongoing change in social-ecological systems (SES). These principles are (P1) maintain diversity and redundancy, (P2) manage connectivity, (P3) manage slow variables and feedbacks, (P4) foster an understanding of SES as complex adaptive systems (CAS), (P5) encourage learning and experimentation, (P6) broaden participation, and (P7) promote polycentric governance systems. We briefly define each principle, review how and when it enhances the resilience of ES, and conclude with major research gaps. In practice, the principles often co-occur and are highly interdependent. Key future needs are to better understand these interdependencies and to operationalize and apply the principles in different policy and management contexts.

The notion of transformation is gaining traction in contemporary sustainability debates. New ways of theorising and supporting transformations are emerging and, so the argument goes, opening exciting spaces to (re)imagine and (re)structure radically different futures. Yet, questions remain about how the term is being translated from an academic concept into an assemblage of normative policies and practices, and how this process might shape social, political, and environmental change. Motivated by these questions, we identify five latent risks associated with discourse that frames transformation as apolitical and/or inevitable. We refer to these risks as the dark side of transformation. While we cannot predict the future of radical transformations towards sustainability, we suggest that scientists, policymakers, and practitioners need to consider such change in more inherently plural and political ways.

ABSTRACT. A social-ecological system (SES) framework increasingly underpins the "resilience paradigm." As with all models, the SES comes with particular biases. We explore these key biases. We critically examine how the SES resilience literature has attempted to define and analyze the social arena. We argue that much SES literature defines people's interests and livelihoods as concerned primarily with the environment, and thereby underplays the role of other motivations and social institutions. We also highlight the SES resilience literature's focus on institutions and organized social units, which misses key aspects of social diversity and power. Our key premise is the importance of inter-and multi-disciplinary perspectives. To illustrate this, we draw attention to the critique of earlier ecological anthropology that remains relevant for current conceptualizations of SESs, focusing on the concepts of social diversity and power. And we discuss insights from social anthropology and political ecology that have responded to this critique to develop different ways of incorporating social diversity and power into human-environment relations. Finally, we discuss how these social science perspectives can help improve the understanding of the "social" in SES resilience research.Key Words: anthropology; political ecology; power; social diversity; social-ecological system INTRODUCTION Underpinning current use of the "resilience paradigm" is a focus on the social-ecological system (SES). The SES is a model with the attendant biases and particular strengths and weaknesses that come with all models (anthropological, ecological, economic, and political). In particular, social elements of the SES remain weakly theorized, highlighting the need for a Special Issue such as this. We focus on how much SES resilience literature tends to define people's interests and livelihoods as concerned primarily with the environment. This underplays the role of other motivations and social institutions, and portrays a limited understanding of the importance of social diversity and power. We discuss insights from the social sciences-in particular, social anthropology and political ecology-to critique the concept of SES, with a focus on the concepts of human adaptation to the environment, social diversity, and power. Emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary learning, we analyze how these social sciences have addressed similar conceptual issues within their own intellectual histories as a response to critiques of earlier forms of ecological anthropology. In our conclusion, we discuss to what extent this can contribute to a broader intellectual understanding of the "social" in SES resilience research.