Lessons for human survival in a world without ecological templates: what can we learn from small-scale societies?

Abstract

Historical records are incomplete templates for preparing for an uncertain future. The global utility of past ecological knowledge for present/future purposes is questioned as we move from Holocene to Anthropocene. To increase the adaptive capacity of today's societies, generalizable strategies must be identified for coping with uncertainty over a wide range of conditions and contingencies. We identify two key principles that increase adaptive capacities: diversification and precautionary heuristics. These sharply contrast with the present global state represented by the global production ecosystem characterized by: (1) homogenization and simplification of cultural practices and resource bases; (2) increased global connectivity and forced dissolution of cultural borders; and (3) centralization and intensification of modes of resource production and extraction. We highlight that responses of smaller-scale societies to risks and uncertainties are in many cases emulated by professionals in the high reliability management in today's critical infrastructures. This provides a modern template for managing unpredictability in the Anthropocene.

Imagining the next pandemic: Finnish preparedness for chronic transboundary crises before and during COVID‐19

“…This reflects earlier research that states that preparedness plans can be valuable when they provide a flexible basis for qualified improvisation (e.g., Boin et al, 2016). Considering transboundary issues beyond pandemics, research on socioecological management warns that historical records provide incomplete templates for preparing for an uncertain future in the Anthropocene and urges, similarly, that generalizable strategies for a range of uncertain conditions are identified (see Kaaronen et al, 2021).…”

Rules of thumb, from Holocene to Anthropocene

“…We caution that as Anthropocene environments change at unprecedented rates (Barnosky et al, 2012; Steffen et al, 2015), traditional knowledge such as rules of thumb may fall into the trap of cultural evolutionary mismatch: a state of disequilibrium ‘whereby a trait that evolved in one environment becomes maladaptive in another’ (Lloyd et al, 2011). Consequently, the Anthropocene presents a notable breaking point for human cultural and cognitive evolution, since past analogies may no longer serve us well in the future (Kaaronen et al, 2021). Below, we point to some cases where mismatch between traditional rules of thumb and changing environments has been discovered, and other cases where it is mechanistically plausible to occur.…”

“…Long traditions in socio-ecological and cultural evolutionary modelling have illustrated that social learning in unstable environments can quickly lead to cultural mismatch, since knowledge acquired through social learning can become outdated when environments change (Kameda and Nakanishi, 2002; Morgan et al, 2022; Rendell et al, 2010). Therefore, ongoing climate and environmental change affects us on a deeper level than being ‘just’ new conditions – once old regularities are no more, traditional heuristics might cease to work, and new modes of knowing are necessary (Kaaronen et al, 2021).…”

Looking up and down: Strong collaboration is only the first step in tackling parachute science

“…Nevertheless, it is also true that ongoing global shifts (economic, political, climatic, and cultural) can create difficult predicaments for individuals and communities for which outside technical knowledge and forecasting may be useful, even critical, given that local (or traditional) ecological knowledge is, by definition, limited in scale. The challenge lies then in successfully integrating the strengths of traditional ecological knowledge and modern scientific understandings, still more a call for action (e.g., Kaaronen et al, 2021;Sutherland et al, 2014) than a reality, although participatory mapping provides a useful highly practical platform (as in Zanzibar, Fagerholm et al, 2013;Zahor, 2020Zahor, , 2021. And indeed, with respect to forestry, in Tanzania, this may involve a rethinking of some conventional teaching regarding management (Sungusia et al, 2020).…”