Biodiversity governance and social-ecological system dynamics: transformation in the Australian Alps

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Biodiversity conservation continues to be a challenging task for societies worldwide. We undertook a resilience assessment to address the following question: What are the ramifications of social-ecological system dynamics for biodiversity governance of a nationally significant landscape? Resilience assessment offers promise for guiding response strategies, potentially enabling consideration of ecological, social, economic, and governance influences on biodiversity-related activities. Most resilience assessments have, however, struggled to effectively incorporate governance influences. We applied a modified version of the Resilience Alliance workbook approach to explicitly address governance influences at each stage of an assessment of internationally significant biodiversity features in protected areas of the Australian Alps. The vulnerability of the Alps system to climate change suggests that it is moving into a release stage, with subsequent transformation hypothesized. Network governance is argued as enabling flexible, adaptive management and comprehensive engagement of stakeholders, both of which are critical to shaping how this transformation of the Alps as a valued focal system will occur. The Australian Alps Liaison Committee provides a promising governance structure for collaboration and comanagement across multiple jurisdictions. Our contribution was to demonstrate how a resilience assessment that explicitly embeds governance influences in social-ecological system dynamics can point to pathways for governance reform in the context of system transformation.

Resilience (Republished)

“…The practice of resilience assessments has illustrated the value of a shared process of learning and understanding complex social-ecological systems dynamics . Resilience assessments have been tested and applied in a number of settings like catchment and mountain management in Australia and the USA, municipalities and urban areas in Canada and Sweden, or pasture management in Afghanistan (e.g., Walker et al 2009a, Haider et al 2012, Nemec et al 2013, Liu 2014, Lockwood et al 2014, Sellberg et al 2015). An updated framework based on the Resilience Alliance's Workbook for practitioners (Resilience Alliance 2010), originally developed by Lance Gunderson, Ann Kinzig, Allyson Quinlan, and Brian Walker, combines the focus on understanding complex adaptive social-ecological systems in the new Anthropocene context with guiding the identification and use of indicators to measure and monitor over time (O'Connell et al 2015).…”

Reconciling contradictory narratives of landscape change using the adaptive cycle: a case study from southeastern Australia

“…The phases of Ω and α comprise what is referred to as the "back loop" of the adaptive cycle (Abel et al 2006, Walker et al 2006. The adaptive cycle has been used for resilience assessments (Allison and Hobbs 2004, Walker et al 2009, Lyon and Parkins 2013, Lockwood et al 2014) and for exploring change over time in an SES (Allison and Hobbs 2004, Walker et al 2009, Lockwood et al 2014, Sinclair et al 2014. In a number of cases, those researchers have used the adaptive cycle as a heuristic.…”

“…For example, Sinclair et al (2014) used the adaptive cycle to explore the nature of past SES change, including assessing whether the dairy industry had been transformed as a result of deregulation of the industry by government. Allison and Hobbs (2004), Walker et al (2009), and Lockwood et al (2014) used the adaptive cycle http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss1/art17/ to explore possible future trajectories for an SES. Redman and Kinzig (2003) and Lockwood et al (2014) examined long-term, slow change over a period of more than one century.…”

“…Allison and Hobbs (2004), Walker et al (2009), and Lockwood et al (2014) used the adaptive cycle http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss1/art17/ to explore possible future trajectories for an SES. Redman and Kinzig (2003) and Lockwood et al (2014) examined long-term, slow change over a period of more than one century. Lyon and Parkins (2013) and Sinclair et al (2014) looked at short-term change over a period of between 2 and 10 years.…”

Environmental change: prospects for conservation and agriculture in a southwest Australia biodiversity hotspot

“…The third need has received some attention in agriculture but relatively little attention in conservation biology. Only a small percentage of articles in the primary literature describing ongoing environmental changes seek to identify emerging conservation opportunities associated with environmental change (Lockwood et al 2014), and most opt to focus on the loss of ecosystem diversity and function, system-scale resilience, and nature's benefits. That is not to say that there is little to be concerned about-quite the opposite-yet environmental change also creates intriguing opportunities associated with regionally based natural resources.…”