Photo: R. Kautsky/Azote

The Photo: R. Kautsky/Azote

Biosphere stewardship

This research stream explores what kind of knowledge systems, values, management practices, behaviors, and governance arrangements that build sustainability in an increasingly interconnected and turbulent world

The research stream on Biosphere stewardship originates in the realization that humans can, and need to, act in concert with the living systems we depend on (the biosphere). Our research explores what kind of knowledge systems, values, management practices, behaviors, and governance arrangements that build sustainability in an increasingly interconnected and turbulent world.

The concept of biosphere stewardship directs attention to human-nature relationships that generate positive outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystem services, emphasizing notions of care, learning and collaboration.

We build on our strong legacy of place-based studies of social-ecological systems, and the insight that in the Anthropocene, stewardship needs to be studied and enacted beyond the local scale. Biosphere stewardship can emerge in traditional as well as modernized societies, at local to global levels, and in urban as well as rural settings. It is a process that engages individuals, communities, networks, organizations and institutions in shared visions, building capacity to live with change, adapt and transform. In order to understand coupled social-ecological dynamics, our research engages with actors at diverse levels and mobilizes multiple sources of evidence and experience.

Research in this stream combines research on ecosystem dynamics, e.g. the role of functional diversity, fast and slow variables and regime shifts, and aspects of interrelated social dynamics including e.g. emergence of ecosystem based management and adaptive governance, social learning, strategic interventions to influence behavior, and changes in norms and institutions conducive with stewardship.

The cultural dimension of complex adaptive social-ecological systems is also part of this stream, and spans from research involving traditional societies, to recent developments in the area of cultural ecosystem services.

Research in this stream encourage explorations of methods that enable new ways to study social-ecological systems as inherently interlinked in time and space, including mixed methods and tools and approaches for co-constructing knowledge with actors at multiple scales.

THEME PUBLICATIONS

Deliberative multi-actor dialogues as opportunities for transformative social learning and conflict resolution in international environmental negotiations

Schultz, M., Hahn, T., Ituarte Lima, C., Hallstrom, N.

2018 - Journal / article

The format for formal international negotiations on environment and development sometimes prevents negotiators from truly listening to each other and adapt pre-existing positions to realize constructive conflict resolution. In this paper we present and analyse “Multi-Actor Dialogue Seminars” (MADS) as an approach to contribute to transformative social learning and conflict resolution, and the contribution to tangible and intan...

Inequality and the Biosphere

Hamann, M., Berry, K., Chaigneu, T., Curry, T. et. al.

2018 - Journal / article

Rising inequalities and accelerating global environmental change pose two of the most pressing challenges of the twenty-first century. To explore how these phenomena are linked, we apply a social-ecological systems perspective and review the literature to identify six different types of interactions (or “pathways”) between inequality and the biosphere. We find that most of the research so far has only considered one-directiona...

Aiming higher to bend the curve of biodiversity loss

Mace, G. M., Barrett, M. Burgess, N. D., Cornell, S.E., Freeman, R., Grooten, M., Purvis, A.

2018 - Journal / article

Photovoice for mobilizing insights on human well-being in complex social-ecological systems: case studies from Kenya and South Africa

Masterson, V. A., S. L. Mahajan, and M. Tengö

2018 - Journal / article

 The value of diverse perspectives in social-ecological systems research and transdisciplinarity is well recognized. Human well-being and how it is derived from dynamic ecosystems is one area where local knowledge and perspectives are critical for designing interventions for sustainable pathways out of poverty. However, to realize the potential to enrich the understanding of complex dynamics for sustainability, there is a need...

Projects

EKOKLIM 4

Ekoklim is an inter-disciplinary research programme at Stockholm University. It investigates how climate change impacts biodiversity and ecosystem services and how these can be managed in the Mälardalen region, Sweden. Read more here

Ecosystem-based and integrated coastal zone management - challenges and possibilities

This project aims to identify determinants of successful co-management processes embracing the guiding principles of ecosystem-based management Read more here

Stockholm Resilience Centre is a collaboration between Stockholm University and the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm University, Kräftriket 2B
SE-10691
Phone: +46 8 674 70 70
info@stockholmresilience.su.se

Organisation number: 202100-3062
VAT No: SE202100306201