In this millennium, global drylands face a myriad of problems that present tough research, management, and policy challenges Recent advances in dryland development, however, together with the integrative approaches of global change and sustainability science, suggest that concerns about land degradation, poverty, safeguarding biodiversity, and protecting the culture of 25 billion people can be confronted with renewed optimism We review recent lessons about the functioning of dryland ecosystems and the livelihood systems of their human residents and introduce a new synthetic framework, the Drylands Development Paradigm (DDP) The DDP, supported by a growing and well-documented set of tools for policy and management action, helps navigate the inherent complexity of desertification and dryland development, identifying and synthesizing those factors important to research, management, and policy communities

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Global Desertification: Building a Science for Dryland Development

A weekly magazine on business development issued an analysis of Madonna, the pop star, and raised the question ‘How come Madonna has been at the very top in pop music for more than 20 years, in a s ...

Navigating Social–Ecological Systems: Synthesis: building resilience and adaptive capacity in social–ecological systems

– The current UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development echoes many scholars' calls to re‐envision education for sustainability. Short of a complete overhaul of education, the paper seeks to propose learning objectives that can be integrated across existing curricula. These learning objectives are organized by head, hands and heart – balancing cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains. University programs and courses meeting these learning objectives exhibit an emergent property here termed transformative sustainability learning (TSL)., – Theoretically, TSL grew from traditions of sustainability education and transformative education. Practically, TSL emerged from experimental learning collaborations sponsored by the University of British Columbia in 2003 and 2004 in an effort to enable explicit transitions to sustainability‐oriented higher education. Primarily through action research, these community‐based, applied learning experiences constituted cyclical processes of innovation, implementation and reflection., – The paper finds: advancement of head, hands and heart as an organizing principle by which to integrate transdisciplinary study (head); practical skill sharing and development (hands); and translation of passion and values into behaviour (heart); development of a cognitive landscape for understanding TSL as a unifying framework amongst related sustainability and transformative pedagogies that are inter/transdisciplinary, practical and/or place‐based; creation of learning objectives, organized to evaluate a course or program's embodiment of TSL., – By enabling change within existing structures of higher education, the paper complements and contributes to more radical departures from the institution. The work to date demonstrates potential in applying this learning framework to courses and programs in higher education.

Achieving Transformative Sustainability Learning: Engaging Head, Hands and Heart.

This paper discusses the characteristics and application of Traditional Eco- logical Knowledge and Wisdom (TEKW) of aboriginal peoples in British Columbia, Canada. Examples are provided from various groups, most notably, the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Interior Salish and Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-Chah-Nulth peoples of the Northwest Coast, covering a range of features comprising TEKW: knowledge of ecological principles, such as succession and interrelatedness of all components of the environment; use of ecological indicators; adaptive strategies for monitoring, enhancing, and sustainably harvesting re- sources; effective systems of knowledge acquisition and transfer; respectful and interactive attitudes and philosophies; close identification with ancestral lands; and beliefs that rec- ognize the power and spirituality of nature. These characteristics, taken in totality, have enabled many groups of aboriginal peoples to live sustainably within their local environ- ments for many thousands of years. In order for TEKW to be incorporated appropriately into current ecosystem-based management strategies, the complete context of TEKW, in- cluding its philosophical bases, must be recognized and respected. A case study of ecological and cultural knowledge of the traditional root vegetables yellow avalanche lily (Erythronium grandiflorum) and balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) illustrates ways in which these components can be integrated.

http://www.web.uvic.ca/~darimont/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Turner-et-al.-TEK-and-wisdom-of-aboriginal-people.pdf

Traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom of aboriginal peoples in british columbia

There are two broadly conceptualized ways in which conservation knowledge may evolve: the depletion crisis model and the ecological understanding model. The first one argues that developing conservation thought and practice depends on learning that resources are depletable. Such learning typically follows a resource crisis. The second mechanism emphasizes the development of conservation practices following the incremental elaboration of environmental knowledge by a group of people. These mechanisms may work together. Following a perturbation, a society can self-organize, learn and adapt. The self-organizing process, facilitated by knowledge development and learning, has the potential to increase the resilience (capability to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change) of resource use systems. Hence, conservation knowledge can develop through a combination of long-term ecological understanding and learning from crises and mistakes. It has survival value, as it increases the resilience of integrated social--ecological systems to deal with change in ways that continue to sustain both peoples and their environments.

of Conservation Practice for Social-Ecological System Resilience

3 bc studies, no. , Summer  In the first decade of the nineteenth century, land-based traders entered the Cordillera region from the east, where they encountered numerous Aboriginal nations living in a highly diverse environment.2 Various authors have examined the nature of the relationship between these fur traders and the Aboriginal nations of the Cordillera region during the succeeding fifty years, until colonial government was established on the mainland of British Columbia in .3 Most recently, Cole Harris has argued that the European fur traders entered the country with superior firepower and technology, an ideology and language of power, European-derived concepts pertaining to the social control of “barbarous” people, and an integrated, coercive commercial strategy. His book details the violence perpetrated against Aboriginal peoples to enable Europeans to gain and maintain control, and he offers multiple examples of hangings, whippings, murder, and gunboat bombardments. Seemingly benign techniques of control, such

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"They Made Themselves our Guests": Power Relationships in the Interior Plateau Region of the Cordillera in the Fur Trade Era

Walking on two legs: a pathway of Indigenous restoration and reconciliation in fire-adapted landscapes

Secwepemc (Shuswap) tree names: key to the past?

An unusual and ambitious program constitutes Simon Fraser University's response to a 1987 initiative of the Chiefs of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council and the Secwepemc Cultural Education Society to gain control over the education and training of their people. Offered as an extension program, it leads to a number of academic credentials and is specifically designed to enhance Native students' knowledge of their history, language, and culture, while providing a solid foundation in the social sciences. With a focus on the British Columbia Interior, the program is entirely offered in Kamloops, B.C., with some provision for distance education. As well as being a successful example of a collaboration between clients aware of their academic needs and objectives and a university capable of fulfilling them and willing to do so, the program is also an academic success in terms of its adaptability. Without sacrificing any of its scholarly requirements, it has adjusted to local circumstances and opportunities.

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Marianne Ignace

Papers

Traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom of aboriginal peoples in british columbia

"They Made Themselves our Guests": Power Relationships in the Interior Plateau Region of the Cordillera in the Fur Trade Era

Walking on two legs: a pathway of Indigenous restoration and reconciliation in fire-adapted landscapes

Secwepemc (Shuswap) tree names: key to the past?

Partners in Success: The Simon Fraser University and Secwepemc First Nations Studies Program