Social-ecological niche construction for sustainability: understanding destructive processes and exploring regenerative potentials

Abstract

Through the exponential expansion of human activities, humanity has become the driving force of global environmental change. The consequent global sustainability crisis has been described as a result of a uniquely human form of adaptability and niche construction. In this paper, we introduce the concept of social-ecological niche construction focusing on biophysical interactions and outcomes. We use it to address destructive processes and to discuss potential regenerative ones as ways to overcome them. From a niche construction point of view, the increasing disconnections between human activities and environmental feedbacks appear as a success story in the history of human–nature coevolution because they enable humans to expand activities virtually without being limited by environmental constraints. However, it is still poorly understood how suppressed environmental feedbacks affect future generations and other species, or which lock-ins and self-destructive dynamics may unfold in the long-term. This is crucial as the observed escape from natural selection requires growing energy input and represents a temporal deferral rather than an actual liberation from material limitations. Relying on our proposal, we conclude that, instead of further taming nature, there is need to explore the potential of how to tame socio-metabolic growth and impact in niche construction processes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis’.

Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability

“…First and foremost, among structural dynamics, global connectivity is causing interactions to become distant, e.g. through increasing trade, urbanization or information and communications technology [105,106]. A consequence of distant interactions is that people impact environments that they are not physically exposed to, and hence these impacts become increasingly masked [107,108].…”

Integrating evolutionary theory and social–ecological systems research to address the sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene

“…Ecological niches are not thought to be fundamentally protective. Also, in SES, 'niche' is only used for microlevel environments, but for evolutionists 'niche' is used more widely (see [34]).…”

Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis

“…The extended evolutionary synthesis has established the concept of multiple inheritance systems. Dorninger et al [126] argue that the nature of cultural inheritance most relevant in driving human-environment interactions is often blended. When it comes to the sources of human innovation for sustainability, it is clear we need multiple systems to provide novelty in ecological, material and social domains.…”

“…They conclude that such relationships can either undermine or facilitate sustainable management as they can either transmit norms of overharvesting or sustainability. Dorninger et al [126] explore the effects of niche construction in globally connected Anthropocene systems. The authors argue that in the Anthropocene, niche construction can have selective effects on distant social-ecological systems, which can promote unsustainable behaviours as exposure to the costs of these behaviours are physically removed.…”