Indigenous groups offer alternative knowledge and perspectives based on their own locally developed practices of resource use. We surveyed the international literature to focus on the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in monitoring, responding to, and managing ecosystem processes and functions, with special attention to ecological resilience. Case studies revealed that there exists a diversity of local or traditional practices for ecosystem management. These include multiple species management, resource rotation, succession management, landscape patchiness management, and other ways of responding to and managing pulses and ecological surprises. Social mechanisms behind these traditional practices include a number of adaptations for the generation, accumulation, and transmission of knowledge; the use of local institutions to provide leaders/stewards and rules for social regulation; mechanisms for cultural internalization of traditional practices; and the development of appropriate world views and cultural values. Some traditional knowledge and management systems were characterized by the use of local ecological knowledge to interpret and respond to feedbacks from the environment to guide the direction of resource management. These traditional systems had certain similarities to adaptive management with its emphasis on feedback learning, and its treatment of uncertainty and unpredictability intrinsic to all ecosystems.

http://wildrodopi.org/data/documents/Rediscovery-Traditional-Ecological=20Knowledge.pdf

Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management

Ecological goods and services of coral reef ecosystems

The livelihoods approach and management of small-scale fisheries

Europe and the People without History

Facing a human-dominated world, ecologists are now reconsidering the role of disturbance for coral reef ecosystem dynamics. Human activities alter the natural disturbance regimes of coral reefs by transforming pulse events into persistent disturbance or even chronic stress, by introducing new disturbance, or by suppressing or removing disturbance. Adding these alterations to natural disturbance regimes will probably result in unknown synergistic effects. Simultaneously, humans are altering the capacity of reefs to cope with disturbance (e.g. by habitat fragmentation and reduction of functional diversity), which further exacerbates the effects of altered disturbance regimes. A disturbance that previously triggered the renewal and development of reefs might, under such circumstances, become an obstacle to development. The implications of these changes for reef-associated human activities, such as fishing and tourism, can be substantial.

Coral reef disturbance and resilience in a human-dominated environment.

Although customary marine tenure (CMT) systems for the management of local marine resources occur throughout the world, compared with other models of fisheries management they remain relatively little known The Pacific Basin is especially rich in CMT systems, which play key roles in overall social, economic and cultural life of societies Based on a Solomon Island example, we examine the organizational principles and potentials of CMT systems to provide sustainable yields and equitable access to resources, their resilience to external pressures, and mechanisms for ensuring local autonomy in resource control Next we demonstrate that CMT systems are an expression of traditional ecological knowledge, and show the importance of such knowledge to scientific research and the planning of resource management Finally, we suggest priorities for research on CMT systems

Marine Resources Management in the Context of Customary Tenure

In Hviding's case, the gap between the social and natural sciences is bridged as he deftly draws on conceptual frameworks from social and cultural anthropology, cultural ecology, history, and marine biology. As he tells the story of the people of Marovo Lagoon in New Georgia in the western Solomon Islands, his focus is on customary marine tenure, a topic that has been surprisingly neglected by most anthropologists working in the Pacific.

Guardians of Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place, and Politics in Maritime Melanesia

On the basis of a Solomon Islands case study, we report that tropical rainforests hitherto perceived as untouched, pristine, virgin, etc., are actually sites of former settlement, extensive forest clearance, and irrigated/swidden agriculture. An unusually wide range of sources—rainforest ecology, forest classification and mapping, ethnobotany, land-use history, oral traditions, ethnographic and archaeological observations—supports our conclusions. These observations have bearings for contemporary perspectives on scenarios for rainforest regeneration after logging. They also force a revision of certain assumptions concerning Melanesian prehistory and historical demography, and indicate that interdisciplinary links between botany, archaeology and social anthropology are needed to achieve a better appreciation of rainforest dynamics.

https://bioone.org/journals/ambio-a-journal-of-the-human-environment/volume-32/issue-5/0044-7447-32.5.346/Rainforest-Composition-and-Histories-of-Human-Disturbance-in-Solomon-Islands/10.1579/0044-7447-32.5.346.pdf

Rainforest composition and histories of human disturbance in Solomon Islands.

Contextual flexibility: present status and future of customary marine tenure in Solomon Islands

Contents: Conceptualising the rainforest Conceptualising Melanesian agroforestry Life on the lands of Marovo Above the seashore: land use in Marovo The wet and the dry: Marovo agroforestry at European contact The great transformations,1880-1910 Colonialism, coconut overlay and the 'age of development' Towards the twenty-first century: adapting the indigenous system The forest as commodity: selling logs to Asia After logging: reforestation - or what? Small is beautiful?: steps towards sustainable forestry Rumours of utopia: conservation and eco-tourism Epilogue: rainforest narratives Bibliography Index.

Edvard Hviding

Papers

Marine Resources Management in the Context of Customary Tenure

Guardians of Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place, and Politics in Maritime Melanesia

Rainforest composition and histories of human disturbance in Solomon Islands.

Contextual flexibility: present status and future of customary marine tenure in Solomon Islands

Islands of Rainforest: Agroforestry, Logging and Eco-Tourism in Solomon Islands