Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet

Abstract

Ecosystem stewardship is an action-oriented framework intended to foster social-ecological sustainability of a rapidly changing planet. Recent developments identify three strategies that make optimal use of current understanding in an environment of inevitable uncertainty and abrupt change: reducing the magnitude of, and exposure and sensitivity to, known stresses; focusing on proactive policies that shape change; and avoiding or escaping unsustainable socialecological traps. All social-ecological systems are vulnerable to recent and projected changes but have sources of adaptive capacity and resilience that can sustain ecosystem services and human well-being through active ecosystem stewardship. A Call for Ecosystem StewardshipHuman actions are having large and accelerating effects on Earth's climate, environment, and ecosystems 1, 2 , thereby degrading many ecosystem services (see glossary) 3 . This unsustainable 2 trajectory demands a dramatic change in human relationships with the environment and lifesupport system of the planet 2,3 . In this paper we address recent developments in thinking about the sustainable use of ecosystems and resources by society in the context of rapid and frequently abrupt change (Box 1).Western resource management paradigms have evolved from exploitation, where sustainability is not an important consideration, to steady-state resource management aimed at maximum or optimum sustainable yield (MSY or OSY, respectively) and efficient production of a single resource such as fish or trees, to ecosystem management to sustain a broader suite of ecosystem services 4 ( Fig. 1). Despite its sustainability goal, management for MSY or OSY tends to over-exploit targeted resources because of overly optimistic assumptions about the capacity to sustain productivity, avoid disturbances, regulate harvesters' behavior, and anticipate extreme economic or environmental events 5 . Ecosystem management seeks to sustain multiple ecosystem services 6 but often uses, as a reference point, historic conditions that are not achievable in a rapidly changing world.Given the challenges of sustainable use of ecosystems during rapid change, we advocate a shift to ecosystem stewardship (Table 1) 7,8 . Its central goal is to sustain the capacity to provide ecosystem services that support human well-being under conditions of uncertainty and change (see glossary). Uncertainty has always characterized social-ecological systems and should therefore not be an impediment to action. Such a paradigm shift entails important tradeoffs, particularly between efficiency and flexibility and between immediate and long-term benefits 9, 10 .Ecosystem stewardship integrates three broadly overlapping sustainability approaches 8,11, 12 (Fig. 2): reducing vulnerability to expected changes [11][12][13] ; fostering resilience to sustain 3 desirable conditions in the face of perturbations and uncertainty 14 ; and transforming from undesirable trajectories when opportunities emerge 15,16 . Adaptive capacity contributes to all three ...

The contribution of sense of place to social-ecological systems research: a review and research agenda

“…The SES perspective builds on interdisciplinary research linking ecology to economy and political science (Berkes and Folke 1998, Folke 2006, Liu et al 2007. Cognitions have been relatively neglected and undertheorized in SES research (Jones et al 2016), but scholars are asking questions about the deeper, slower variables in social systems such as identity, core values, and worldviews (Folke et al 2010, Berkes andRoss 2013) that guide and constrain human actions (Adger et al 2009). The need to understand and assess more systematically these variables requires closer engagement with social sciences and humanities (Daniel et al 2012, Brown et al 2013, Pröpper and Haupts 2014.…”

Tipping Toward Sustainability: Emerging Pathways of Transformation

“…We define resilience as ''the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks'' (Walker et al 2004;Folke et al 2010) and transformability as the capacity to create untried beginnings from which to evolve a fundamentally new way of living when existing ecological, economic, and social conditions make the current system untenable (Walker et al 2004;Chapin et al 2010;Folke et al 2010Folke et al , 2011. We argue that a complex system perspective that recognizes the dynamic links between the social, ecological, and technological subsystems is needed to understand what we see as the paradox of innovation: innovation is both a contributing cause for our current unsustainable trajectory and our hope for tipping in new more resilient directions.…”

Environmental Stewardship: A Conceptual Review and Analytical Framework

“…For example, research has suggested that factors such as infrastructure, technology, financing, levels of wealth or poverty, rights, knowledge, skills, leadership, and good relations can all support the capacity of communities to take stewardship action (Chapin et al 2010;Gutiérrez et al 2011;McConney et al 2014). Yet, a more systematic consideration of assets could help to more clearly indicate how different assets influence stewardship.…”

“…The need to promote improved human-environment interactions through stewardship is ever pressing, which applies to terrestrial, marine, aquatic, and aerial environments in both rural and urban environments (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005;Allsopp et al 2009;Rockström et al 2009;Chapin et al 2010;Díaz et al 2015;Davy et al 2017). Many individuals, local communities, environmental groups, and governments around the world are taking and promoting actions to steward the environment.…”