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... 2007 17:2 and short-term in nature, which could be termed coping strategies. The second case offers examples of adjustments that are longer term but still tend to be reactive. The final two cases present situations in which communities are making long-term, proactive adjustments. Table 1 highlights the relationship between the types of possible actions and available social sources of resilience. These are necessary to respond to change and to facilitate organization. They include adaptive capacity characteristics such as learning and memory, as well as specific actors and the roles they play (65). As sources of resilience increase so does the ability to adapt. In Table 1 the systems with reactive and limited actions are those that have the most constrained sources of resilience. Similarly, the cases with broader, proactive actions have more expansive sources to draw upon. The sources in all four cases are similar (e.g., learning, developing networks), but the difference is found in the extent and cross-scalar nature of these sources. In the latter two cases, the social networks are larger and scale from local to international communities. Key challenges for research in this area conce...

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...nvolves effective user participation and problem solving at the lowest feasible level of organization, sometimes called the subsidiarity principle (Kooiman, 2003). Co-management as governance often involves a diversity of players including public and private actors. The polycentric approach recognizes that effective governance often requires multiple links across levels and domains, and seeks overlappingcenters of authority. Such a decision-making structure contributes to the creation of an institutional dynamic appropriate for adaptive co-management and more broadly, for adaptive governance (Folke et al., 2005). These five faces of co-management can be increased in number, for example, co-management as innovation (Kofinas et al., 2007) and co-management as conflict resolution (McCay, 2002). In particular, two additional faces (co-management as knowledge generation and co-management as social learning) are becoming increasingly important. They are chosen for more detailed treatment here because knowledge and learning issues have been receiving much scholarly and practical attention in moving comanagement forward. These two themes are treated here as two major (and related) headings, along with bridgi...

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...roaches also draw on systems theory to suggest that policy interventions, or environmental management more broadly, should be regarded as experiments with concomitant assessment and monitoring as a basis for ongoing learning. More recently, proponents emphasize building flexibility and resilience in the face of uncertainty rather than grand experiments (84). Other versions of adaptive management productively combined the more quantitative dimensions of adaptive management with social and organizational learning concepts, broadening the integrative scope of the models to include social factors (82, 85, 86). In all cases, however, research is an essential component. Dovers & Mobbs (87), for example, describe the important features of adaptive management approaches as “information is central, the focus is on integrating natural system and institutional/social dimensions, and it is absolutely and inevitably interdisciplinary.” Adaptive management approaches are significant because they insist that researchers and managers can work together in productive, ongoing relationships in which research and management activities dovetail and strengthen each other. 4.4. Negotiation Although the previous appr...

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...gement; 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 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 enti...

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... processes. These components are described below. Firstly, social networks play a key role in adaptive governance, as these often self-organise and pool experiences and knowledge to shape change (see =-=[67]-=- for review). Adaptive governance relies on networks that connect individuals, organisations, agencies and institutions at multiple organisational levels [67]. Folke et al. [67] argue that adaptive co...

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...ch to health [22]. This is adaptivesmanagement in which ‘policies become hypotheses’ and management actions are used to test theshypotheses and readjust strategy as more information becomes available =-=[10]-=-. Central VeterinarysAuthorities will need to become more familiar with this approach when dealing with emerging orsre-emerging animal diseases.sIn order to keep these issues tractable, the simplified...

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.... Limited modifications, if applied, may simply increase control costs in cases of management failure (Pimbert, 2004). Drawing on Pimbert’s observations, it can be further advanced that appropriate adaptive governance plays a key role as a mediating variable for responses in institutional context. According to Lee (2003), adaptive governance involves a polycentric form of social coordination in a self-organizing fashion by voluntary individuals and other social entities. Self-organizing takes the form of social networks with teams and actor groups founded on knowledge systems and experiences (Folke, et al., 2005). For old societies and communities, selfreorganized responses to changes or dynamics can emerge (Gadgil, Berkes & Folke, 1993). Nevertheless, Anderies, Janssen & Ostrom (2004) contended that the robustness of a social-ecological system may persist, but may, at given temporal scale, collapse drastically due to certain disturbances or crises in the system. These voluntary individuals and social entities achieved their coordination activities in social networks that may give rise to alternative approaches maintaining or transforming the existing social-ecological systems (Gunderson, Light & Holl...

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...he process and several reflection workshops has contributed to a nuanced view on the outcomes. Ecology and Society 15(1): 14 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss1/art14/ The reflection workshops also created a platform for the water board and other water authorities to critically reflect on the process and propose adjustments when necessary. The importance of reflection in governance processes (e.g., Groot et al. 2002, Voss and Kemp 2006), social learning in multi-party collaboration (e.g., Bouwen and Tailleu 2004, Mostert et al. 2007), and adaptive capacity and flexibility of agencies (Folke et al. 2004), are increasingly recognized in the literature as essential elements for sustainable natural resource management. It was clear that the reflection workshop held halfway through the process was crucial in identifying problems during the first half, and allowed organizers to anticipate and rectify these problems for the rest of the process. At the end of the process, another reflection workshop was organized to evaluate lessons learned with the planning group and core group to allow institutional learning for future processes. Both reflection workshops enhanced the planning group’s adaptive cap...