Journal ArticleDOI
Command and Control and the Pathology of Natural Resource Management
C. S. Holling,Gary K. Meffe +1 more
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The pathology of natural resource management, defined as a loss of system resilience when the range of natural variation in the system is reduced encapsulates the unsustain- able environmental, social, and economic outcomes of command-and-control resource management is discussed in this article.Abstract:
As the human population grows and natural resources decline, there is pressure to apply increas- ing levels of topdown, command, and~control management to natural resources. This is manifested in at- tempts to control ecosystems and in socioeconomic institutions that respond to erratic or surprising ecosystem behavior with more control Command and control, however, usually results in unforeseen consequences for both natural ecosystems and human welfare in the form of collapsing resources, social and economic strife, and losses of biological diversity. We describe the "pathology of natural resource management, " defined as a loss of system resilience when the range of natural variation in the system is reduced encapsulates the unsustain- able environmental, social, and economic outcomes of command~and~ontrol resource management. If natu- ral levels of variation in system behavior are reduced through command-and~ontrol, then the system be- comes less resilient to external perturbations, resulting in crises and surprises. We provide several examples of this pathology in management. An ultimate pathology emerges when resource management agencies, through initial success with command and control, lose sight of their original purposes, eliminate research and monitoring, and focus on efficiency of control They then become isolated from the managed systems and inflexible in structure. Simultaneously, through overcapitalization, society becomes dependent upon com- mand and control, demands it in greater intensity, and ignores the underlying ecological change or collapse that is developing. Solutions to this pathology cannot come from further command and control (regulations) but must come from innovative approaches involving incentives leading to more resilient ecosystems, more flexible agencies, more self-reliant industries, and a more knowledgeable citizenry. We discuss several aspects of ecosystem pattern and dynamics at large scales that provide insight into ecosystem resilience, and we pro- pose a "Golden Rule" of natural resource management that we believe is necessary for sustainabllity: man- agement should strive to retain critical types and ranges of natural variation in resource systems in order to maintain their resiliency.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems.
TL;DR: Recent studies show that a loss of resilience usually paves the way for a switch to an alternative state, which suggests that strategies for sustainable management of such ecosystems should focus on maintaining resilience.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Natural Flow Regime
N. LeRoy Poff,N. LeRoy Poff,J. David Allan,Mark B. Bain,James R. Karr,Karen L. Prestegaard,Brian Richter,Richard E. Sparks,Julie C. Stromberg +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, Naiman et al. pointed out that harnessing of streams and rivers comes at great cost: Many rivers no longer support socially valued native species or sustain healthy ecosystems that provide important goods and services.
Journal ArticleDOI
Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses
Carl Folke,Carl Folke +1 more
TL;DR: The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of social-ecological systems as mentioned in this paper, which 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.
Journal ArticleDOI
Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the social dimension that enables adaptive ecosystem-based management, focusing on experiences of adaptive governance of social-ecological systems during periods of abrupt change and investigates social sources of renewal and reorganization.
Journal ArticleDOI
The causes of land-use and land-cover change: moving beyond the myths
Eric F. Lambin,Billie Turner,Helmut Geist,Samuel Babatunde Agbola,Arild Angelsen,John W. Bruce,Oliver T. Coomes,Rodolfo Dirzo,Günther Fischer,Carl Folke,P.S. George,Katherine Homewood,Jacques Imbernon,Rik Leemans,Xiubin Li,Emilio F. Moran,Michael Mortimore,P. S. Ramakrishnan,John F. Richards,Helle Skånes,Will Steffen,Glenn Davis Stone,Uno Svedin,Tom A. Veldkamp,Coleen Vogel,Jianchu Xu +25 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors track some of the major myths on driving forces of land cover change and propose alternative pathways of change that are better supported by case study evidence, concluding that neither population nor poverty alone constitute the sole and major underlying causes of land-cover change worldwide.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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