In general, small farms have significant social and ecological advantages over industrialized large farms. However, a combination of complex pressures is making it difficult for many small-scale farmers to stay in business – including in Canada, where this thesis is focused. The consequential loss of many small farms results in a general loss of diversity and a decreased flexibility for future options for food procurement for many communities. Creating more and increasingly sustainable options for food procurement is progressively more important in the face of rising food and fuel prices, degradation of ecosystem services, and the increase of extreme climate fluctuations. For these and other reasons, creating social-ecological resilience in small farming systems is key to ensuring more options for long-term food procurement.Permaculture – the design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems based on the patterns and relationships found in natural ecosystems – has been identified in the literature as a potential tool to build social-ecological resilience in small scale farming systems. This study evaluates permaculture from a resilience perspective, and compares the analysis to permaculture use on three farms in British Columbia (BC). This has been done in order to understand whether or not the practice contributes to the social-ecological resilience of the small farming systems in which it is used, and if so, how.Results imply that permaculture use does in fact increase social-ecological resilience of small farms by encouraging ecological, social and economical diversity – creating buffer zones that allow for flexibility and augmented future options for the farm and also potentially for the community in which the farm operates. It has been shown that the key actors in each case study fundamentally place a strong emphasis on the importance of human and environmental health – while recognizing the need to address the interrelated nature of social and ecological issues. A strong social connection in the local community and connections in the global community are of high importance because of the support provided to actors, and diverse sources of income that are related to the structure of the farm are also shown to be key elements in each case. It would be valuable for continuing study to aim to uncover how permaculture can be used on a larger scale without loosing its social and ecological benefits.

Indigenous values, epistemologies, and indicators have always been ways of teaching and learning about change, and planning for the future. Indigenous food systems are central capacities supporting social-ecological resilience and resistance. Settler-colonialism and environmental degradation are two drivers of rapid and cumulative change over the past century that are at the root of health challenges experienced by Indigenous people and impacts to Indigenous food systems. Indigenous food sovereignty is a framework many Indigenous communities have been working within to support the restoration of Indigenous food systems, knowledges, and relationships to land in this time of resurgence. Recent scholarship highlights the importance of biocultural and culturally grounded values frameworks, aligning with Indigenous epistemologies, for measuring social-ecological resilience and resistance. Indigenous scholars and communities are also calling for more respectful and meaningful research practices in alignment with Indigenous priorities and worldviews. The Neskonlith Band’s Switzmalph community near Salmon Arm, British Columbia, has been working towards restoring Secwépemc plants and food systems through land-based education projects and collaboration in multi-scalar partnerships. This study highlights two cultural concepts or values related to Secwépemc food systems restoration and land based education in Switzmalph and Secwépemc territory more broadly, and their role in guiding future pathways and multi-scalar relationships supporting Secwépemc food systems restoration. This study also highlights the role of storytelling as a method and context for teaching and learning about cultural concepts and values in land-based settings. This study discusses the importance of process-oriented approaches to research for demonstrating how Indigenous ways of knowing can guide ongoing and embodied applications of ethical frameworks. The results of this work highlight the importance of culturally-grounded values in measuring, guiding, and reflecting on change, as well as the vital importance of Indigenous ways of knowing in guiding ethical research processes, and participatory and community-led research throughout all stages of research design. / Graduate

The food we consume and how it is produced constitutes a significant driver of environmental change, degrading the ecological base on which life depends. Moreover, the food system is highly globalized and geographically scattered, connected by global value chains. This creates potential vulnerabilities. The covid 19 pandemic exposed many of these vulnerabilities and disrupted daily life globally in an unprecedented manner. Some argue that a re-localization of supply chains could constitute a crucial role in crisis response and in making food systems more adaptive, resilient, and sustainable over time. The present research weaves together resilience thinking and social-ecological transformation theory to study the alternative food network REKO in Sweden during the covid 19 pandemic. Through an interpretive logic of enquiry including a practitioner’s perspective, this study explores the effects of the pandemic on REKO and what role it played in the crisis response in the Swedish food system. Results show that parts of the network could adapt to the crisis, and by constituting an alternative for consumers and producers, it played a role in the national crisis response. Further, this study indicates an accelerated interaction between REKO and actors dominating the current food regime. However, the findings also reveal weaknesses of the network exposed by the pandemic. This study goes on to question whether a shortening of supply chains is the answer to the problems imposed by a global food system and suggests a repositioning of the long-short dichotomy. Lastly, this study conclu des with reflections on the need to move away from studying crises as singular events and instead suggests that future attempts to transform food systems should consider a crisis landscape.

Whale species face numerous man-made threats, such as pollution, whaling, climate change and whale-watching, that threaten their survival. International environmental law has several regulations in place that aim, either directly or indirectly, at conserving whales. To manage the dynamic and uncertain conditions in which whales live, it is important for the law to adopt a social-ecological resilience perspective. Whales can function in different social-ecological systems as exemplified by the system of whale-watching in Iceland. This thesis examines various legal regimes related to whale conservation and the extent to which they support or provide for resilience thinking. While the selected regimes demonstrate resilience features to varying degrees, direct references to resilience in international environmental law are rare. However, supplementary materials from a convention can also acknowledge the importance of embracing a resilience perspective. Legal regimes that promote social-ecological resilience may enhance the law's ability to protect and manage whale species in a more sustainable manner.

Legal and institutional structures fundamentally shape opportunities for adaptive governance of environmental resources at multiple ecological and societal scales. Properties of adaptive governance are widely studied. However, these studies have not resulted in consolidated frameworks for legal and institutional design, limiting our ability to promote adaptation and social-ecological resilience. We develop an overarching framework that describes the current and potential role of law in enabling adaptation. We apply this framework to different social-ecological settings, centers of activity, and scales, illustrating the multidimensional and polycentric nature of water governance. Adaptation typically emerges organically among multiple centers of agency and authority in society as a relatively self-organized or autonomous process marked by innovation, social learning, and political deliberation. This self-directed and emergent process is difficult to create in an exogenous, top-down fashion. However, traditional centers of authority may establish enabling conditions for adaptation using a suite of legal, economic, and democratic tools to legitimize and facilitate self-organization, coordination, and collaboration across scales. The principles outlined here provide preliminary legal and institutional foundations for adaptive environmental governance, which may inform institutional design and guide future scholarship.

This dissertation evaluates the role and effectiveness of law in the transboundary environmental governance of the Baltic Sea with regard to eutrophication. To this end, it reviews the applicable international agreements with their related instruments, as well as the EU legal frameworks, for the protection of the Baltic Sea environment on the basis of theories on resilience in social-ecological systems. The scientific discourse on resilience in social-ecological systems provides theories on effective governance of complex environmental problems with nonlinear causal connections. The governance features identified in resilience governance also show significant similarities with characteristic features of the concept of ecosystem approach. The resilience features can thus provide guidance to the operationalization of this concept, which lacks a distinct meaning in the legal context. Eutrophication is one of the main environmental problems in the Baltic Sea. Despite the fact that this problem has been acknowledged since the 1970s, only little progress has been visible in the attempts to limit the problem. Environmental governance in the form of cooperation and common action has, however, been established by the coastal states of the Baltic Sea to reduce the discharges to their common resource. This was originally coordinated through the Helsinki Convention and its administrative organization HELCOM in the 1970s. Since the year 2000 a new set of legal instruments and approaches have developed, emphasizing also the ecosystem approach. These instruments have a basis both in HELCOM and in EU environmental law, most significantly represented by the Water Framework Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. They establish a unique regulatory structure, with new approaches to regulation, which also give rise to questions regarding interpretation and effectiveness that have not previously been analyzed. It is concluded that applicable law in the Baltic Sea area reflects resilience features such as adaptability, flexibility and redundancy within the legal structure. The legal structure for the Baltic Sea is dynamic and stretches over many levels of governance. The applicable legal instruments are constructed so as to be adaptable and flexible. The legal instruments moreover include significant elements that provide for participation at different levels and in different forms, which contribute to enabling the mentioned resilience features. However, the Baltic Sea legal structure – as law in general – has different core functions than just providing for effective environmental governance. Law is based in a number of general principles connected to the rule of law and the function of law as a foundation for stability in the society and in human interactions. These principles are also important since they are directly linked to enforcement, monitoring and control. While the legal structure in the Baltic Sea may provide for effective governance and social-ecological resilience, the resilience features reflected in law do not always appear as far-reaching as suggested by resilience theories, much due to the legal principles. It is however because of these principles and the base for binding requirements they enable, that law can push for governance measures and features that might not have been accomplished otherwise. This, in the larger perspective, includes creating requirements that steer human activities away from critical thresholds. / Baltic Ecosystem Adaptive Management, BEAM

<p>Resilience is an essential and highly desired characteristic of a social-ecological system’s ability to adapt and adjust to various stresses and shocks that cause disruption. As social and ecological systems are intertwined and continually experiencing changes and disturbances, a major challenge appears revolving around the ways in which this resilience can be built and investigated. Social-ecological resilience can be defined as the amount of stress or disturbance that a particular system can tolerate, while still maintaining the same functions and identity. This paper uses social-ecological resilience concepts as a research framework, and examines three main themes that allow for the building of water management resilience to occur. These themes include learning to live with change, nurturing the ability to adapt/adjust to changes, and also on creating opportunities for self-organization. Two ethnic minority villages in Northern Thailand were chosen as research sites, in which the village water management practices were studied within a specific time period. Varying degrees of quantity and quality water issues within both villages have brought about stress and disturbances within their water management practices and increased the need to deal with these problems. Research was conducted at a community scale and resilience analysis pertains only to this specific level. Through the utilization of focus groups and interviews, qualitative data was collected and analyzed within a SE resilience context. This paper sets out to explore how social-ecological resilience has been built or not, and to what degree this has occurred within these two villages water management practices. The analysis indicates how complex and interconnected the social and ecological systems are and how the water management practices of these two communities play a role in this complex, dynamic process. Conclusions drawn are not limited to these two communities, but can be applied to the wider Northern Thailand region.</p>

Meeting observations, literature review, document analysis, and Delphi surveying are used within a “mixed methodology” to tease out emerging patterns of thought in an effort to provide an urban forestry coalition, “Trees for Life” with critical information that could be used to help shape future projects. The purpose of this research is to identify key themes to help direct future Trees for Life (TFL) projects, and to also recognize stakeholders and possible new players to establish more productive partnerships within the coalition. Specific barriers that impede the success of TFL are also outlined. Ecological degradation of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) watershed continues, despite the many initiatives carried out by the Toronto Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) to protect and conserve ecosystem health. Social change is critical in addressing this issue. The TFL coalition is an umbrella group beneath Green Infrastructure Ontario (GIO), another coalition working towards establishing green infrastructure technologies and practices as required components of urban planning and development to address ecological degradation. This coalition is overseen by a steering committee that includes TRCA. The overarching goal of TFL is to increase tree canopy cover in the GTA to 40%. The TFL is comprised of several urban forestry groups, each with unique roles and perspectives, but all striving to achieve the 40% goal. This research will help TFL to build adaptive capacity and may lead to the adoption of adaptive environmental management techniques. Ultimately, this study will provide some valuable insight into TFL and other programs involved with enhancing social-ecological resilience of the TRCA and the GTA. / Thesis (Master, Environmental Studies) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-22 11:53:22.196

Craftsmanship is recognised as a source of practical wisdom that can inform sustainable management and use of natural resources. However, there are many outstanding questions about how the skills and tacit knowledge embedded in craftsmanship can facilitate social-ecological resilience for sustainability. It has also proved difficult to access and articulate the knowledge embedded in craftsmanship. With this study I explore the skill and tacit knowledge components of craftsmanship as a repository of cultural-ecological memory through two case studies: the duodji, or handicrafts, produced by a Sámi craftswoman living in Jokkmokk, Sweden, and the fishing style of a fisherman in the Stockholm archipelago. As such, the research has two main aims: 1) to understand how the skills and tacit knowledge embedded in craftsmanship function as carriers of cultural-ecological memory; 2) to explore ways of mobilising and capturing these knowledge types by making them visible through the use of visual methodologies like photography. The research highlights the value of the accumulated knowledge and the portfolio of skills that are components of craft practices. Visual methods, in particular photo elicitation, invite participants to link their craftsmanship to their culture and identity. In doing so, visual methods contribute a new perspective on the role of craftsmanship as a carrier of cultural-ecological memory because the craft practices themselves become reservoirs of tacit knowledge and embodied skills that can be drawn upon in responding and adapting to changes or disturbances in the social-ecological system.

No description available.