The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of social–ecological systems. This article presents the origin of the resilience perspective and provides an overview of its development to date. With roots in one branch of ecology and the discovery of multiple basins of attraction in ecosystems in the 1960–1970s, it inspired social and environmental scientists to challenge the dominant stable equilibrium view. The resilience approach emphasizes non-linear dynamics, thresholds, uncertainty and surprise, how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales. The history was dominated by empirical observations of ecosystem dynamics interpreted in mathematical models, developing into the adaptive management approach for responding to ecosystem change. Serious attempts to integrate the social dimension is currently taking place in resilience work reflected in the large numbers of sciences involved in explorative studies and new discoveries of linked social–ecological systems. Recent advances include understanding of social processes like, social learning and social memory, mental models and knowledge–system integration, visioning and scenario building, leadership, agents and actor groups, social networks, institutional and organizational inertia and change, adaptive capacity, transformability and systems of adaptive governance that allow for management of essential ecosystem services.

Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses

Human institutions—ways of organizing activities—affect the resilience of the environment. Locally evolved institutional arrangements governed by stable communities and buffered from outside forces have sustained resources successfully for centuries, although they often fail when rapid change occurs. Ideal conditions for governance are increasingly rare. Critical problems, such as transboundary pollution, tropical deforestation, and climate change, are at larger scales and involve nonlocal influences. Promising strategies for addressing these problems include dialogue among interested parties, officials, and scientists; complex, redundant, and layered institutions; a mix of institutional types; and designs that facilitate experimentation, learning, and change.

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The Struggle to Govern the Commons

With the publication of The Logic of Collective Action in 1965, Mancur Olson challenged a cherished foundation of modern democratic thought that groups would tend to form and take collective action...

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Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms

In a seminal paper, Garrett Hardin argued in 1968 that users of a commons are caught in an inevitable process that leads to the destruction of the resources on which they depend. This article discusses new insights about such problems and the conditions most likely to favor sustainable uses of common-pool resources. Some of the most difficult challenges concern the management of large-scale resources that depend on international cooperation, such as fresh water in international basins or large marine ecosystems. Institutional diversity may be as important as biological diversity for our long-term survival.

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Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges

This first report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment describes the conceptual framework that is being used in the MA. It is not a formal assessment of the literature, but rather a scientifically informed presentation of the choices made by the assessment team in structuring the analysis and framing the issues. The conceptual framework elaborated in this report describes the approach and assumptions that will underlie the analysis conducted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The framework was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings. It represents one means of examining the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being that is both scientifically credible and relevant to decision-makers. This framework for analysis and decision-making should be of use to a wide array of individuals and institutions in government, the private sector, and civil society that seek to incorporate considerations of ecosystem services in their assessments, plans, and actions.

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Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment

Community-based approaches to the "fishermen's problem".

Detailed study of social robustness in four cases: Baltic Sea, North Sea, Western Shelf, and the Faroe Islands

Allison, Charlene J., Sue‐Ellen Jacobs, and Mary A. Porter. Winds of Change: Women in Northwest Commercial Fishing. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990. xliv + 203 pp. including time‐line, photographs, map, place‐name locator, glossary, bibliography, and index. $25.00 cloth. Cole, Sally, Women of the Praia: Work and Lives in a Portuguese Coastal Community. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. xvii + 189 pp. including photographs, tables, maps, notes, glossary, bibliography, and subject index. $52.50 cloth, $12.95 paper. McGoodwin, James R. Crisis in the World's Fisheries: People, Problems, and Policies. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. viii + 235 pp. including photographs, bibliography, and subject index. $35.00 cloth. Palsson, Gisli. Coastal Economies, Cultural Accounts: Human Ecology and Icelandic Discourse. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991. xvii + 202 pp. including figures, photographs, notes, bibliography, and index. $69.95 cloth.

Fisherwomen, fisheries policy, and maritime anthropology

The Ocean Commons and Community

Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication. Roy Ellen and Katsuyoshi Fukui. eds. Oxford: Oxford International Publishers Ltd., 1996.664 pp.

Bonnie J. McCay

Papers

Community-based approaches to the "fishermen's problem".

Detailed study of social robustness in four cases: Baltic Sea, North Sea, Western Shelf, and the Faroe Islands

Fisherwomen, fisheries policy, and maritime anthropology

The Ocean Commons and Community

Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication