Moving towards public policy-ready science: philosophical insights on the social-ecological systems perspective for conservation science

Abstract

The social-ecological systems (SES) perspective stems from the need to rethink the ways humans relate to the environment, given the evidence that conventional conservation and management approaches are often ineffective in dealing with complex socio-environmental problems. The SES approach conceives non-scientific and scientific knowledge as equally necessary in the process of management and public policy formation. Thus, the adoption of the SES approach must also serve to make better decisions about what kind of science and technology would be 'public policy-ready' (as well as also 'policy-relevant'); that is, a science oriented and conceived to provide concrete solutions to societal needs and demands. Here we review and reinterpret the SES perspective as a real paradigm change for conservation science. Under the lenses of philosophy, we try to untangle some weak points of the SES approach in order to advance to a conservation science closer to the process of science-based public policy creation and to enhance the intertwining with other types of knowledge. In this sense, we discuss how co-production of knowledge and decision-making process under the SES perspective are a huge step forward towards fulfilling the need to bring increasingly closer the spheres of science and policy, narrowing its interface.

The science-policy interface on ecosystems and people: challenges and opportunities

“…Socio-ecological systems approaches have allowed us to more fully understand complex interactions between the different components of nature and of societies, and explore the drivers, feedbacks, emerging properties, and thresholds of these interactions (Folke 2006;Berkes and Berkes 2009;Bridgewater and Rotherham 2019). In this issue, Sala and Torchio (2019) highlight that a socioecological systems approach is critical for co-creating knowledge sharing opportunities at the science-policy interface. Crouzat et al (2019) present a cross-sectoral and integrated analysis of mountain systems at national scale, fostering the integration of different value types towards nature in policymaking.…”

“…Trade has shifted the benefits of exploiting nature towards richer countries whilst placing the burden of these actions onto poorer countries. These political and economic inequalities result from the technical, social and international (geopolitical) division of the production and labor of the globalized capitalist world (Sala and Torchio 2019). Strategies aimed at reversing degradation need to move beyond the most obvious impacts, focusing rather on the drivers and processes underpinning the accelerated rates of degradation, as shown by Pandit et al (2020).…”

“…The complexity of socio-environmental problems is such that no single individual can fully understand and address them. A robust science-policy interface is one that successfully sparks creativity and novel insights and opportunities, by bringing together diverse teams and actors (Sala and Torchio 2019). Stevance et al (2020) show how diverse stakeholders from across countries and sectors are brought together by a global platform such as IPBES.…”

The 2019 review of IPBES and future priorities: reaching beyond assessment to enhance policy impact

“…Although this concept is still debated in the literature, nature's contributions to people attempts to recognize that there are multiple worldviews about the Earth system. Whether such significant changes in conceptual thinking should originate from the assessment work of an organization such as IPBES, rather than from debates in the scientific literature is still an open question (Braat 2018;Kadykalo et al 2019;Sala and Torchio 2019).…”

Values held by Swedish primary school students towards forest ecosystems and the relevance for a nature’s contributions to people approach

“…These two values are often presented as separate and alternative understandings of the interface between society and ecosystems. They have attracted criticism in offering a potentially limited understanding about the different forms of value of ecosystems for society (Sala and Torchio 2019). A third category of value, termed relational value, is emerging as a potential frame through which more robust forms of value can be described within ecosystem valuation processes, providing a context through which multiple forms of value can co-exist within environmental policy (Chan et al 2016).…”