Culturally Grounded Indicators of Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems

Abstract

n AbstrAct: Measuring progress toward sustainability goals is a multifaceted task. International, regional, and national organizations and agencies seek to promote resilience and capacity for adaptation at local levels. However, their measurement systems may be poorly aligned with local contexts, cultures, and needs. Understanding how to build effective, culturally grounded measurement systems is a fundamental step toward supporting adaptive management and resilience in the face of environmental, social, and economic change. To identify patterns and inform future efforts, we review seven case studies and one framework regarding the development of culturally grounded indicator sets. Additionally, we explore ways to bridge locally relevant indicators and those of use at national and international levels. The process of identifying and setting criteria for appropriate indicators of resilience in social-ecological systems needs further documentation, discussion, and refinement, particularly regarding capturing feedbacks between biological and social-cultural elements of systems.n Keywords: biocultural indicators, indicator sets, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, resilience, sustainability, well-being Indigenous and other place-based, local communities increasingly face an assortment of externally codified development and sustainability goals, regional commitments, and national policies and actions that are designed, in part, to foster adaptation and resilience at the local level. Resilience refers to the capacity of a system to absorb shocks and disturbances and to catalyze renewal, adaptation, transformation, and innovation (Béné et al. 2013). Identifying and setting criteria for the underlying factors that confer resilience to a community are the first steps toward effectively aligning external sustainability-seeking processes, often associated with resourcing mechanisms, with locally relevant and locally embraced approaches to sustaining environmental health and community well-being in the face of environmental, social, and economic change (Fazey et al. 2011;Folke et al. 2003).

Developing biocultural indicators for resource management

“…However, those engaging in decisionmaking may have different values and worldviews from the individuals and/or communities who may be affected by the intervention. Interventions that do not acknowledge the connections between social and natural dimensions often fail (E. Sterling, Ticktin, et al, 2017;Waylen, Fischer, Mcgowan, Thirgood, & Milner-Gulland, 2010;West, 2006). Social-ecological systems (SES) approaches acknowledge the fundamental interlinkages between humans and nature and have gained substantial traction in resource management and conservation discourse in recent years (Hicks et al, 2016).…”

“…Biocultural indicators are beginning to be measured (Ens, Daniels, Nelson, Roy, & Dixon, 2016;Morishige et al, 2018;E. Sterling, Ticktin, et al, 2017) and with increased use will come additional insight on the types and combinations of indicators that work best in given contexts.…”

Moving beyond the human–nature dichotomy through biocultural approaches: including ecological well-being in resilience indicators

“…Biocultural approaches employ participatory methods for goal setting, identification of locally relevant criteria and indicators of resilience, monitoring, and evaluation, and continued adaptive management (e.g., Tipa and Nelson 2008, Verschuuren 2012, Wali et al 2017, Sterling et al 2017a, McCarter et al 2018. The process of selecting indicators for human well-being in biocultural landscapes, for example in Bolivia (Escobar 2014) as well as in Ghana (Guri and Verschuuren 2014), shows that many IPLCs recognize a direct link between human well-being and landscape quality.…”

“…Several groups have already developed culturally grounded indicators, such as the United Nations University (UNU)-United Nations Environment Programme "Learning from the Practitioners" framework, the UNU-Biodiversity Biocultural Indicator Toolkit, and the Melanesian Well-being Indicators, and via the Mauri Model decision-making framework (Morgan 2006, Subramanian and Pisupati 2009, Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs 2012, Bergamini et al 2013, UNU-IAS et al 2014, Sterling et al 2017a. Current methods that expand the breadth of resilience indicators available for decision-making in biocultural approaches include cultural landscape and community asset mapping, multispecies ethnographies, and the development of community well-being indicators for the conservation of biocultural landscapes (Ens 2012, Pert et al 2015, Wali et al 2017, Thạch et al 2017, McCarter et al 2018).…”

Nā Kilo ʻĀina: Visions of Biocultural Restoration through Indigenous Relationships between People and Place

“…NKA community networks provide guidance for developing holistic measures of culture-based, social-ecological resilience based on local-community needs. NKA's work contributes to a recent movement to develop and implement culturally grounded indicators of social-ecological resilience [34]. This highlights a novel contribution towards developing biocultural indicators of linked cultural and ecological health to develop effective place-based management and contribute to the creation of culturally grounded frameworks for social-ecological resilience on a broader scale.…”