Stockholm Resilience Centre Annual Report 2009

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Stockholm Resilience CentreResearch for Governance of Social-Ecological Systems

Annual Report 2009


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Stockholm Resilience Centre Annual Report 2009


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Stockholm Resilience Centre Annual Report 2009

Printed by Wassberg + Skotte Tryckeri AB, 2010

Edited by Cajsa Martinsson.

Editorial staf: Sturle Hauge Simonsen, Ellika Hermansson Trk

and Agneta Sundin.

Graphic design: Christine Clistock

Cover photos: From azote.se: B. Christensen, Steven Zef, Robert Kautsky, J.Lokrantz, Ewa Wisniewsk

From Clistock Form: Christine Clistock (Cars New York and pumpkins Barcelona)

Stockholm Resilience Centre

Stockholm University

SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Visiting address: Krtriket 2B

Phone: +46 8 674 70 70

Fax: +46 8 674 70 20

E-mail: [email protected]

www.stockholmresilience.su.se


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Contents

Preface 5

Directors view 6

Elinors year 8

Research themes and highlights 2009 10

Core projects and collaborations 22

Publications 26

Science, Policy & Practice 28

Teaching & Training 39

Appendices 42


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Vision and Mission

The visionof the Stockholm Resilience Centre is a world where social-ecologicalsystems are understood, governed and managed, to enhance human wellbeing andthe capacity to deal with complexity and change, for the sustainable co-evolutionof human civilizations with the biosphere.

The mission of Stockholm Resilience Centre is to advance research for governanceand management of social-ecological systems to secure ecosystem services forhuman wellbeing and resilience for long-term sustainability. We apply and furtherdevelop the scientific advancements of this research within practice, policy andacademic training.

Photo: J.Lokrantz/azote.se


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Preface

The year 2009 marked the end of the three-yearstart-up phase of the Stockholm Resilience Centre.During this period the Centre has developed abroad interdisciplinary research programme onthe understanding of social-ecological systems andgovernance and management for resilience andsustainable development. On the initiative of theMistra Foundation, the Centre was evaluated inpreparation for the first ordinary phase 2010-2013.

This external evaluation, carried out byProfessor William C. Clark from HarvardUniversity, ranked the Stockholm ResilienceCentre as a world leader in the conduct ofinterdisciplinary research on the dynamics ofinter-connected social-ecological systems. Basedon its record of publication, the Centre is amongthe top three scientific institutions in the worldin this area. This firmly positions the Centreas a global node at the frontier of research onresilience and sustainability. It is also exactlywhat the Centre set out to achieve when it waslaunched in 2007. It aimed to develop a thrivingand dynamic international research environment,where scientists from the social sciences, naturalsciences and humanities could experimentand advance novel research for the sustainablegovernance and management of social-ecological

systems. The achievements so far are the resultnot only of the major scientific accomplishmentsof the centre-based researchers, but also ofthe broad international research collaborationbetween the Centre and researchers from aroundthe world.

Clarks evaluation also pointed to severalimportant challenges. To sustain and furtherdevelop its international scientific leadership, theCentre will continue to be an effective sciencecommunicator and a convener of science-policybridging, and it will help train the next generationof resilience thinkers and doers. The coming yearswill be devoted to strengthening the institutionalcapacity in all these areas, while at the same timenurturing the flexible, experimental and learning-based approach to generating new insights onsome of the pressing human challenges of all time how to build and maintain resilience for humandevelopment in an era of rapid global change.

Professor Arild Underdal,Chair of the Board

Stockholm Resilience Centre Board members. Top row: Roger Kasperson, Arild Underdal,Carl Folke, Thomas Rosswall. Middle row: Brian Walker, Christopher Edling, Rashid Hassan.Front row: Frances Westley, Elinor Ostrom, Johan Rockstrm, Carole Crumley, Anders Wijkman.



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time allowing for learning and adaptation. Simplystated, we believe that new interdisciplinary andtransdisciplinary approaches to science that cutacross scientific disciplines and that interact withpolicy and practice are necessary in the questfor sustainable solutions to the massive social-ecological challenges facing humanity.

This experimental arena is of particularimportance in the current state of the world.

There is an increasing realization that business-as-usual pathways into the future are not viable be it in financial systems, the governance ofclimate change, our ways of managing risk anduncertainty or the stewardship of biologicaldiversity and ecosystem services for future humanwellbeing. Evidence suggests that even in theshort term, societies in the world face the needfor transformative changes. Some of these maybe costly, at least in the short term. Some mayrequire fundamental life-style changes. Othersmay in fact be beneficial, even profitable. All

will have to be aimed at sustaining development

Directors view

The vision of the Stockholm Resilience Centre isto contribute to a world where social-ecologicalsystems are understood, governed and managedin ways that enhance human wellbeing and thecapacity to deal with complexity and change,for the sustainable co-evolution of humancivilizations with the biosphere. This is animportant vision that guides all our research.

It is also our strong belief that the only

way to effectively contribute to this vision isto fundamentally change the way we go aboutscience. Our internal vision for the Centre istherefore to create a flexible and creative workenvironment where scholars integrate socialsciences, natural sciences and the humanities,in order to generate new insights and solutionsthat would otherwise not be possible. This isin fact an experiment in itself; how to find thebest ways of conducting interdisciplinary andtransdisciplinary research that not only generatestop quality science, but also relevant guidance to

key development challenges, while at the same

Photo: J.Lokrantz/azote.sePhoto: ORASIS


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in a desired state of the Earth system. Humanityhas firmly entered an era of rapid global change,where the solutions must be embedded in regionaland local contexts, and where governance andmanagement, as well as economic paradigmsand social values, must be founded in a deeper

appreciation of how intertwined human societiesare with the environmental life-support capacityof planet Earth.

It is in this context that we pursue our researchon e.g. the resilience of urban environments,ecosystem management in agricultural landscapesand seascapes, the economics of ecosystemfunctions and bundles of services, knowledgesystems and social networks for resiliencebuilding, institutions and adaptive governance,tipping points, regime shifts and resiliencestrategies for social-ecological transformations in

the face of rapid global change.Our research agenda is continuously evolving

and, through continuing collaborations and thescientific evaluation of the Centre, we have fine-tuned our research themes, moving from nineto six themes, allowing for further integrationwithin and across thematic areas of research.

2009 was also a year of intensive science-policy bridging. The Centre produced thescientific background report to the high levelSwedish EU Presidency meeting in Strmstad onclimate change and biodiversity. The outcomes

from this meeting, which emphasized the role ofecosystem management and resilience for climatemitigation and adaptation, were carried forwardto the climate negotiations in Copenhagen.The Centre will continue to provide policy-relevant science on the links between climatechange, ecosystems and development, and onthe importance of resilience building in dealing

with climate impacts and other global changes.Our growing emphasis on resilience, globalchange and governance for social-ecologicaltransformations is important in this context.Furthermore, we highlight the need for newunderstanding of Earth System interactions and

the risk of tipping points at the planetary level,as well as the need for new thinking on cross-scale governance in order for us to remain withinplanetary boundaries.

The Resilience Research School is nowestablished at the Centre, as our learning arenafor Masters students, PhD students and post-doc researchers. Here we provide our own MScand PhD training, in close collaboration withdepartments at Stockholm University and otheruniversities in Sweden and across the world.

Of course, the golden shadow of any Nobel

Prize falls widely across academic institutions.Everyone wants to be associated, howeverremotely, with recipients of the worlds mostprestigious scientific award! However, weconsider ourselves to have particular reasonto congratulate and celebrate Professor ElinorOstrom, the 2009 recipient of the Prize inEconomic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.Professor Ostroms research on the importanceand role of collective action and institutionsto deal with common pool resources is closelyrelated to our research at the Centre. Professor

Ostrom serves on our Centre board, and hashad close scientific collaboration with ResilienceCentre colleagues for many years. Her Nobelaward is a huge recognition of the importanceof social-ecological research for governing thecommons, and an inspiration to all engaged intransdisciplinary research for a sustainable world.

Professor

Johan Rockstrm,Centre Director

Professor

Carl Folke,Science Director

Dr Olof Olsson,Deputy Director


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Centredevelopments 2009

Elinors yearWhen Centre board member Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel prize for economics last year, she

not only gave research on multilevel governance a boost, but also showed the world that the global

commons are not so tragic after all.

Most people didnt see it coming, but fewobjected when Centre board member ElinorOstrom (Professor at Indiana University atBloomington and member of the ResilienceAlliance) and Oliver Williamson (University ofCalifornia at Berkeley) were awarded the 2009Economics Prize in memory of Alfred Nobel. In

a year where the financial crisis did l ittle for thereputation of economics, choosing Ostrom andWilliamson as recipients of the prize was a breathof fresh air.

Lobsters and irrigation systems

The first woman to receive the prize, ProfessorOstrom has spent some 40 years studying howcommon pool resources, such as pastures, fisheriesand forests, are effectively managed by people.Contrary to the gloomy tragedy of the commons,

which argues that without clearly defined propertyrights, common resources will be overexploited

because individuals ignore the effects of theiractions on the overall pool, Ostrom demonstratesthat people are indeed capable of implementingself-governance measures.

In her research, from lobster fisheries in Maineto irrigation systems in Nepal, Professor Ostromfound that people developed sophisticated systems

of institutions to ensure that these resources arenot depleted. These measures often involvedexplicit rules about what people may and may notdo and how they would be sanctioned if they didnot follow these rules. Furthermore, she foundthat self-governance and community-drivenprojects often worked better than ineffective andill-informed rules of governments. Trust is a keyfeature for successful governance.

Its crucial to build enough diversity tocope with the diversity of the world and allowmulti-tile systems with multiple scales so that

you dont have a uniform, top-down panaceathat is predicted to solve everything but instead

Copyright The Nobel Foundation 2009. Photo: Orasis


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Elinors year

of curing it, kills it, she said in her whiteboardseminar video.

www.stockholmresilience.org/ostrom-whiteboard

Small steps, big difference

Professor Ostroms research on how peopleorganize themselves in order to protect animportant asset has become particularly relevantto the evolving issue of global environmentalchange. As a consequence, she was naturallyasked to serve on the board when the Stockholm

Resilience Centre was launched in 2007.Its a privilege to have Elinor serving on

the Stockholm Resilience Centre Board. Shehas already been engaged with us for manyyears, going back to a Beijer Institute researchprogramme in the early 1990s on property rightsand the performance of natural resource systems.Her work on collective action and common poolresource governance has been a great sourceof inspiration and has shaped our researchon social-ecological systems and resiliencethinking, says Carl Folke, scientific director of

the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Public ofcials and other geniusesProfessor Ostroms work has been praised becauseit provides insight into collective action and thegovernance of complex social-ecological systems,which are crucial factors yet ignored by many.Her work also exemplifies the benefit of crossingborders between disciplines. The Centres researchon adaptive governance and multilevel institutionsbonds perfectly with Professor Ostroms researchon how to govern the worlds resources ondifferent scales.

A lot of people are waiting for moreinternational co-operation to solve matters likeglobal warming. There is this assumption thatthere are public officials that are geniuses, andthat the rest of us are not. It is important thatthere is international agreement, but we can betaking steps at family level, community level,civic and national level. There are many steps thatcan be taken that will not solve it on their ownbut cumulatively will make a big difference,said Professor Ostrom.

Photo: Courtesy of Indiana University


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Research themes and highlights 2009


Research themes and

highlights 2009

In last years Annual Report we emphasized thathumanity is faced with the largest challengeever, to redefine our relationship with theBiosphere, and translate this into operationalgovernance and management to enablesustainable futures. Our research has seriouslytaken on that challenge. It is framed by a truly

integrated view of people and nature in what werefer to as social-ecological systems, with theobjective of improved stewardship of ecosystemservices for human wellbeing. Using a resiliencelens, we address issues from a complex adaptivesystems approach and analyse the many cross-scale interactions that exist, from local to globalor from history to the future.

To us, resilience is much more than simplyrecovery or buffer capacity. Centre researchersand collaborators are particularly interestedin the interplay between periods of gradual

change and periods of abrupt change how tomake use of change and turn crises into new

opportunities towards sustainability. Threefeatures of resilience thinking of significance foranalyzing social-ecological systems in relation tosustainability are emphasized:

persistence - buffer capacity to withstandshocks in the face of changeadaptability - the capacity of people in

a social-ecological system to manageresilience in order to deal with change,move on and continue to developtransformability - the capacity of peoplein a social-ecological system to create newdevelopment pathways when ecological,political, social or economic conditionsmake the existing system untenable.

During the start-up phase of the Centre,research collaboration was organized aroundnine transdisciplinary themes. The aim of

these themes was to provide flexible arenasfor sharing perspectives and knowledge from

Photo: M.Kegl/azote.se


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different disciplines. What has been excitingis that the themes have already fed into eachother through inductive-deductive science,practice and theory, with active involvement ofscholars from the natural sciences, social sciencesand the humanities. It is rewarding to see the

emergence of broad cross-theme engagementand collaboration, reflecting the benefits of theindividual in operating on a mutual dynamicresearch platform.

Research themes

To further stimulate the collaboration and finetune our research directions, we have reshapedthe themes of the Centre into six overarchingareas. The first three advance theory andmethods, actively interacting with the three latter

cross-cutting themes.Regime shifts and implications in social-ecological systems a major researchniche of the Stockholm Resilience Centreexpanding insights from ecologicalsystems into social-ecological systems asa whole.

Global and cross-scale dynamics ofsocial-ecological systems - a largelyunexplored area focusing on drivers,feedbacks and governance challengesin relation to planetary boundaries and

ecosystem services.

Multilevel adaptive governance, learning

and transformations of social-ecologicalsystems a highly demanded areafocusing on case studies in landscapesand seascapes and comparative analysis.

Water, food, ecosystem services in social-ecological landscapes a novel approach

connecting work on poverty alleviation,bundles of ecosystem services and theirmanagement and governance withecological regime shifts and global cross-scale dynamics.

Coastal and marine social-ecologicalsystems building on the strength ofthe Baltic Nest Institute, coral reefresearch, fisheries, aquaculture, regimeshifts and marine ecosystem-basedmanagement combined in a new waywith understanding of social structures,

networks and adaptive governance fromcoastal areas to global levels.

Urban social-ecological systems a largely unexplored field in relation toecosystem services and resilience whereStockholm Resilience Centre is a pioneerin connecting urban issues relating tosocial-ecological systems with casestudies of several cities in different partsof the world.

We envision that between 2010 and 2013, Centre

research will evolve around these six theme areas.A few glimpses of research achievement in thiscontext are provided below.

Illustration:ChristineCli

fstock


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Tipping towards the unknown

With the launch of planetary boundaries, the Centre has paved the way for a new approach to

sustainable development.

In a year when the Copenhagen ClimateConference fizzled into a diplomatic anticlimax,the identification of planetary boundaries wasa significant output from the Centre in 2009.Drawing on decades of research on globalenvironmental change, ecological economics,resilience and complex systems, 28 scientistsproposed a safe planetary operating space thathumanity should not transgress in order to livesafely. This will allow mankind to continue tothrive for generations to come. The article explicitlystates that all parts of Earth are shaped by peopleand that at the same time all human beings arefundamentally dependent on the collective workof the Earths ecosystems the biosphere and itsgeneration of critical ecosystem services.

Abrupt change can no longer beexcluded

In articles published in the journals Nature and

Ecology and Society, the scientists argued thatnew approaches are needed to help humanity

deal with climate change and other globalenvironmental challenges that lie ahead in the21st Century.

The human pressure on the Earth Systemhas reached a scale where abrupt globalenvironmental change can no longer be excluded.To continue to live and operate safely, humanityhas to stay away from critical hard-wiredthresholds in the Earth s environment and respectthe nature of the planets climatic, geophysical,atmospheric and ecological processes, said leadauthor Johan Rockstrm.

The nine planetary boundaries identified wereclimate change, stratospheric ozone depletion,land use change, freshwater use, biologicaldiversity loss, ocean acidification, nitrogen andphosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans,aerosol loading and chemical pollution.

However, there is scant room for manoeuvre.Three of the boundaries (climate change,biological diversity and nitrogen input to the

biosphere) may already have been transgressedand there is a risk that crossing one boundary

Photo: NasaPhoto: FlyingSinger/CC BY 2.0/Flickr


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may seriously challenge the ability to stay withinthe safe levels of the others.

Humans behind change

The scientists emphasized that the rapidexpansion of human activities since the industrialrevolution has now generated a global geophysicalforce equivalent to some of the great forces ofnature.

We are entering the Anthropocene, anew geological era in which our activities arethreatening the Earth s capacity to regulateitself. We are beginning to push the planetout of its current stable Holocene state, thewarm period that began about 10,000 years

ago and during which agriculture and complexsocieties, including our own, have developed andflourished, said co-author Professor Will Steffen.

The researchers stressed that their approachdoes not offer a roadmap for sustainabledevelopment, but does provide an importantelement by identifying critical planetaryboundaries.

Within these boundaries, humanity has theflexibility to choose pathways for our futuredevelopment and wellbeing. In essence, we aredrawing the first albeit very preliminary map of our planets safe operating zones. And

Full reference:

Rockstrm, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K.,Persson, ., Chapin, III, F.S ., Lambin,E., Lenton, T.M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C.,Schellnhuber, H., Nykvist, B., De Wit,C.A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe,H., Srlin, S., Snyder, P.K., Costanza, R.,Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg,L., Corell, R.W., Fabry, V.J., Hansen, J.,Walker, B.H., Liverman, D., Richardson,K., Crutzen, C., Foley. J. (2009). A safeoperating space for humanity. Nature 461:472-475 DOI 10.1038/461472a

beyond the edges of the map, we dont want to go.Our future research will consider ways in whichsociety can develop within these boundaries safely, sanely and sustainably, said co-authorProfessor Jonathan Foley.

Photo: L.Karlsson/azote.se

The wedges represent an estimate of the current position for each variable. The inner blue shading represents theproposed safe operating space. Illustration: Christine ClifstockPhoto: FlyingSinger/CC BY 2.0/Flickr


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Planetary Boundaries in the media

The articles in Nature and Ecology and Societyintroducing the planetary boundaries conceptgained a lot of media attention when presentedin September 2009. Scientific American, Time,Wired, Yale Environment 360, World Changing,Grist and daily newspapers around the world allcovered the story.

Thanks to global press releases by Nature andby the Stockholm Resilience Centre in cooperationwith several of the co-authors and theiruniversities, the research findings generated severalhundred press clippings in the conventional

media in print and online, and in the social media.The global releases were supported by regionalpress releases, increasing the media interest in forexample Australia and the US.

In Sweden the leading daily broadsheetnewspaper Dagens Nyheter presented theplanetary boundaries concept in a full-page article,and it was reported on the Swedish Radio morningnews (Ekot) and on Swedish Television (Rapport).

In the run-up to the UNFCCC climateconference in Copenhagen in December, a secondwave of media interest in the planetary boundaries

concept was aroused, and the interest persists.

Some clippings of interest:

ScientificAmericanGrappling with the Anthropocene:Scientists Identify Safe Limits for HumanImpacts on Planet. www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-identify-safe-limits-for-human-impacts

TimeHow Much Human Activity Can EarthHandle?

www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925718,00.html?xid=rss-health

Wired9 Environmental Boundaries We DontWant to Crosswww.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/earth-users-guide/

YaleEnvironment360A Timely Reminder of the Real Limits toGrowthhttp://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2195

Photo: Nasa Photo: Christine Clifstock


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Reference

Walker et al. 2009. Looming global-scalefailures and missing institutions. Science325: 1345-1346.

www.sciencemag.org

A dwindling capacity to cope with crisesThe planetary boundaries work emphasized that it is time for a new order of cooperative international

institutions that are more capable of dealing with the interactive effects of global change.

Energy, food and water crises, climate disruption,declining fisheries, ocean acidification, emergingdiseases and increasing antibiotic resistance:the list of serious, inter-related global-scalechallenges spawned by the accelerating scaleof human activity is long. Unfortunately, thesolutions to these challenges are mostly scant andinadequate.

There are few institutional structuresto achieve cooperation globally on the sortof scale now essential to avoid very seriousconsequences, warned lead author Professor

Brian Walker, affil iated both with the StockholmResilience Centre and Australias national scienceagency CSIRO.

A stronger focus on regional andworldwide cooperation

In an article published in Science in September2009, an international group of authors arguedthat nations alone are unable to resolve the sortsof planet-wide challenges now arising.

The core of the problem is inducing

cooperation in situations where individuals andnations will collectively gain if all cooperate,but each faces the temptation to free-load at theexpense of the others.

We are not advocating that countries giveup their sovereignty. We are instead proposing a

much stronger focus on regional and worldwidecooperation, helped by better-designed multi-national institutions, Professor Walkerexplained. The challenge of climate changeis closely linked to the capacity of ecosystemsworldwide to generate services and the wellbeingof the economy rests on this capacity. Suchinterdependencies have to be tackled throughglobal cooperation. Local and national efforts arealready fail ing.Too much focus on single problems

While there are signs of emerging globalaction on issues such as climate change, thereis widespread inaction on others, such as thedestruction of the worlds forests to grow biofuelsor the emergence of pandemic flu.

One major obstacle stems from the fact thatinternational institutions primarily focus on singleproblems, like climate change, often ignoringhow different crises interact. New collaborativeplatforms for how to deal with such interactionsare urgently needed, said Professor Walker.

The scientists concluded that to avoid loomingglobal-scale failures and harness commonopportunities, there is a growing need for greatercollaboration amongst existing institutions andnew institutions, to help construct and maintain aglobal-scale social contract.

Photo: C. ClifstockPhoto: J.Lokrantz/azote.se


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The book Principles of Ecosystems Stewardship:

Resilience Based Natural Management in aChanging World, with contributions fromCentre researchers, sets the stage for futureresearch on transformations in social-ecologicalsystems. It covers social tipping points, suchas shifts in perceptions, institutions, incentivesand governance, and the role of innovation,entrepreneurs and informal networks for seizingwindows of opportunity.

With the development of proper ecosystemstewardship, they argue, ecosystem services cancontinue to support human wellbeing even underconditions of uncertainty and change.

No region beyond hope

There is no region so resilient that policy-makersand managers can ignore the potential thresholdchanges. Similarly, there is no region that isbeyond hope of substantial enhancement ofwellbeing, adaptive capacity and resilience, saidCarl Folke, who is the Centre science director andone of the authors.

The ecosystem stewardship integrates threeapproaches for sustainable development:

reducing vulnerability to expectedchangesfostering resilience to sustain desirableconditions in the face of perturbationsand uncertaintytransforming from undesirabletrajectories when opportunities emerge.

Shift from reactive to proactive

The first approach focuses on the importanceof monitoring trends in stressors that lead tochange. Global-scale stresses such as climatechange are particularly challenging because theyrequire concerted global action. The secondapproach emphasises the importance of shiftingfrom reactive resource management to moreproactive solutions that can prepare us for theunexpected.

The key here is to maintain a diversity ofoptions, socially, economically and biologically.

If we maintain and develop diversity in all three

Steering clear of uncertainty

New book on the challenge of navigating our own future in collaboration with the biosphere.

areas, we are better equipped to respond and shape

changes that come our way, said Per Olsson,another Stockholm Resilience Centre author.Crisis as a spur for change

The third approach sets out to find waysfor humans to escape from the persistenttrajectories of poverty, hunger, civil strife andthe overall social-ecological mismanagement thatcharacterizes so many parts of the world.

Transformational change often happens attimes of crisis when enough stakeholders agree

that the current system is dysfunctional. Crisis orpending crisis can trigger the emergence of newforms of stewardship of the biosphere.

For example, climate change is a currentcrisis that could generate new technology andgovernance solutions that could fundamentallychange or create new feedbacks and enhance thefit between ecosystems and governance systems,said Per Olsson.

The publications on planetary boundaries,missing institutions and ecosystem-basedstewardship are all about navigating our own

future course, increasing the likelihood fordevelopment pathways that can generate, sustainand improve human welfare and wellbeing incollaboration with the biosphere.

Reference

Chapin, F.S, III, Kofinas, G.P., Folke C.(eds.). (2009). Principles of EcosystemStewardship: Resilience-Based NaturalResource Management in a ChangingWorld. Springer Verlag, New York.


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Crawling the web for eco-crises

By using list servers, market websites and social media, researchers have devised alternative ways to

monitor looming ecosystem crises.

Imagine the following: local fishermen inMassachusetts come across a species never seenbefore a zebra mussel originally native to thelakes of south-east Russia. Passively spreading byship or pleasure craft, the filter-feeding musselappears in lakes worldwide and is found inplaces as diverse as North-America, the BritishIsles, Spain and Sweden. Its effects are clearlynoticeable in local areas. Docks, boats andanchors are covered by the mussels and they growso densely that they block pipelines, cloggingthe water intakes of municipal water suppliers

and hydroelectric companies. Scientists also fearthey are the cause of thousands of birds beingpoisoned and killed.

The story of the zebra mussel is true, but theaccounts of its global spread go back to the 1970sand before, at a time when the internet still wasa research project for military agencies. Today,the spread of the zebra mussel could very well bereported differently. One of the local fishermenin Massachusetts could report the mysteriousfinding on his Twitter page, a researcher inNorthern Italy could blog on similar findings inLake Garda, while a Swedish youngster couldtake pictures of a new mussel species he found inLake Mlaren and post them on an internationaldiscussion forum for scouts. Together they couldprovide crucial information that could help detectchanges and looming crises in ecosystems.

Using internet sources as sensors

The internet could be used as an early warningsystem for potential ecological disasters, sayresearchers from Stockholm Resilience Centre

and the University of East Anglia.Despite the continuing improvement in

ecosystem monitoring, early warnings of pendingecological crisis are still limited by insufficientdata and by geographical gaps in officialmonitoring systems. Finding ways to avert regimeshifts is already a key issue for other researchersat the Centre. In an article in Frontiersin Ecology and the Environment, Centreresearchers and Tim Daw from the University ofEast Anglia made an initial exploration into thepossibilities of using information posted on the

internet to detect ecosystems on the verge of tilt.

Autonomous, yet connected

The article, entitled Can webcrawlersrevolutionize ecological monitoring?, whichattracted the attention of Science Daily, Reutersand Wired, highlights the fact that analysisand response are not necessarily organizedaround a single government actor. On thecontrary, both might take place as the result ofcollaborations between different state and non-state stakeholders.

If the outputs are available more widely,

analysis and responses could even be the resultof autonomous actions, assumed by independentorganizations and individuals, said lead authorVictor Galaz. He is one of the theme leaders ofthe Centre research theme Adaptive Governance.

Although the article was a promising start,Galaz and his co-authors stress the need forfurther research into the use of eco-monitoringinternet trawlers.

We recognize that crucial challenges need tobe addressed before a web crawler-based earlywarning system can contribute to the avoidance

of abrupt ecosystem change, the authors noted intheir article.

Reference

Galaz, V., B. Crona, T. Daw, . Bodin,M. Nystrm, P. Olsson (2009).Can Webcrawlers revolutionizeecological monitoring, 7. In Frontiers inEcology and the Environment (e-View/doi:10.1890/070204).



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Turning back from the brink

Avoiding regime shifts is difficult, let alone predicting them. New research might just have found a way

around that problem.

Think of an ecological regime shift l ike a stockmarket collapse: it is large, abrupt and heavy onthe wallet. For example, the collapse of CanadasNewfoundland cod fishery in the early 1990sdirectly affected the livelihoods of some 35,000fisherman and fish processing plant workers,and led to a decline of over $200 million dollarsper annum in cod landing revenues. However,there is one fundamental difference between

the stock market and an ecological regimeshift. Where stock markets usually bounceback, ecological regime shifts cause long-lastingchanges to the ecosystem. Furthermore, theyare notoriously difficult to predict. They oftencome as a surprise, and by the time societyrealizes what is happening, it is often too lateor too costly to reverse the changes. However,new research offers a glimmer of hope, arguingthat changes in ecological time series (such asincreased variability) can provide early warningof impending regime shifts.

In a PNAS-article entitled Turning back fromthe brink: Detecting an impending regime shiftin time to avert it, centre researcher ReinetteOonsie Biggs together with University ofWisconsin researchers Stephen R. Carpenter andWilliam A. Brock investigated whether new earlywarning indicators of ecological regime shifts canprovide sufficient warning to take action to avertundesirable regime shifts.

Biggs, Carpenter and Brock used a fisheriesfood web model to investigate this question. Theyexplored how close an ecosystem can get to anecological threshold and still avert a regime shiftby management changes being implemented.The model was also used to identify indicatorsthat might give a warning before the point of noreturn, where it is too late to take action to avertan undesirable regime shift.

Photo: B.Christensen, J. Lokrantz/azote.se

Two different steady states of coral. Large picture - healthy coral rich in biodiversity.Small picture - algae dominated coral after a regime shift.


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Rapid response is essential

The results from the model showed that if thefactor responsible for an ecological regime shiftcan be rapidly altered (e.g. fishing pressure), it ispossible to delay successful management action

to avert a regime shift until the regime shift isunderway. However, if the driver can only bemanipulated gradually (e.g. shoreline habitatrestoration), management action is neededsubstantially before a regime shift in order toavert it.

The challenge is that large increases inthe indicators (which serve as warnings of animpending regime shift) only manifest themselvesonce a regime shift has been initiated. This meansthat the current indicators will only be useful inaverting regime shifts if 1) the factor driving theregime shift can be rapidly manipulated, and 2) ifmanagement action is taken very rapidly, as soonas the indicators start flashing their warning lights.

In cases where the factor driving the regimeshift can only be gradually manipulated, theindicators will usually give warning too late toallow management action to avert the regime shift.

To improve their usefulness in avertingecological regime shifts, the researchers suggestedthat future research should focus on definingcritical indicator levels at which managementaction should be taken, rather than detectingchanges in the indicators.

More proactive decision-makingprocesses needed

Averting ecological regime shifts does not simplyrequire better indicators, but is also dependent ondeveloping policy processes that enable society to

respond more rapidly to warnings of impendingregime shifts.

Our results highlight that in systemssubject to regime shifts there is often a discretewindow for policy action, after which it becomesimpossible to avert a shift, says Biggs. By thetime adverse environmental effects becomeapparent, it is often too late to avert a regimeshift. Trial-and-error approaches that wait forevidence of negative environmental impacts beforetaking action are therefore ill-advised.

Reference

Biggs, R., Carpenter, S.R., Brock, W.A. (2009). Turning back from the brink: Detecting animpending regime shift in time to avert it. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS) 106: 826-831.

Photo: B.Christensen/azote.se


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Out of the dry

The future of the drought-prone region of Sahel has long looked grim, but now it might provide aglimmer of hope for climate change mitigation.

The West African Sahel not only has one of thefastest growing populations in the world, it isalso a region where poverty and food insecurityare widespread and recurring. Rain-fed farmingis the dominant livelihood, but drought duringthe 1970s and 1980s turned the region into adust-choked area hit by severe famines. The grimconditions led scientists and policymakers to

believe that vulnerable soils and scarce rainfallwere inconsistent with the needs of the growingpopulation of the region. However, to the surpriseof many, the regreening witnessed during recentdecades has occurred mainly on-farm, in regionswith high population densities.

We know that part of the explanation isreturning rainfall , but we want to understandto what degree peoples management practicesof the land have contributed to this regreening,said Line Gordon, who is leading the projectAdapting to changing climate in drylands: The

re-greening in Sahel as a potential success case,together with her colleague Elin Enfors.

A broader aim of the project is to figure outhow poor, dry countries can reverse a negativetrend, become more resilient and adapt to achanging climate said Dr Gordon.

In this research, local partners in Niger provedcrucial. They helped select four villages withsimilar biophysical conditions but where twoof the villages were considered greener than the

other two, in order to examine why change hadhappened in some places but not in others.After preparatory reading and workshops in

the spring of 2009, an international group offive students from a transdisciplinary Mastersprogramme at the Centre and the Departmentof Human Geography at Stockholm Universityteamed up in the autumn with five students fromAbdou Moumouni University in Niger.

In the beginning of 2009 we only hadfunding for one year, so we decided to conductthe field study with Masters students, explained

Dr Gordon. While in the f ield, the studentscould only receive instructions from Elin and

Harvest of Baobab leaves in the Sahel region where a re-greening has taken place during recent decades

Photo: Friederike Mikulcak


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myself by e-mail when they occasionally went to alarger town, but our local partners went out andvisited them regularly, which was a great help.

For ten weeks the students looked at variousissues such as yield statistics, farming practices,ownership rights, the distribution of wealth, the

use of ecosystem services and the amount of treesand their age. Satellite images were comparedagainst historical aerial photos and farmerswere interviewed in order to determine land usechanges in different areas.

Back in Stockholm, Drs. Gordon and Enforsare now in the process of analyzing all the data.Thanks to new funding, their work has also beengiven a substantial boost which will enable themto make a much more in-depth continuation of thestudy they started in 2009.

We will continue the close collaboration

with our local partners and also extend ourresearch area into Burkina Faso. I hope thisproject can help us understand how societies canmove in a positive direction, despite the difficultcircumstances, said Dr. Gordon.

A life-changing experience

Olivia Puill from France was one of the studentsparticipating in the field research in Niger. Sheinterviewed village men and women of all ages

about microeconomic issues, with particularemphasis on the redistribution of assets between

village households.I went around the villages on the back of my

interpreters motorcycle. The major obstacle wasfitting my interviews in within the villagers busylife, said Olivia. They work very hard, twicea week they were occupied with market days

and during Ramadan there were many religiousceremonies to attend.

Olivia praised the teaming up of students fromStockholm and Niger:

The Nigerian students helped us overcome thecultural differences we came across in collectinginformation, and they seemed inspired by ourinterdisciplinary resilience approach.

Although Olivia contracted malaria during herstay in Niger, she is not deterred from future fieldwork.

It was fantastic to get the chance to use the

tools I have studied for several years and turnthem into practice, she said, admitting that it wasmore difficult than she had thought. I also hadlots of fun together with the village women, whodespite their hard life are incredibly hospitableand cheerful. This field trip was a life-changingexperience for me.

Project participants

Dr. Line Gordon, Stockholm Resilience CentreDr. Elin Enfors, Stockholm Resilience CentreDr. Lowe Brjesson, Department of HumanGeography, Stockholm University

Dr. Jennie Barron, SEI York

Collaborative partners

CRESA, Abdou Moumouni University, NigerINERA, Burkina FasoDr. Chris Reij, Vrije University, Netherlands

Photo: Friederike Mikulcak


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agenda has emerged. Project leaders: Carl Folke,Johan Rockstrm, Karl-Gran Mler.

Integrated History and future OfPeople and the Environment - IHOPE

Long-term sustainability issues need a deeperconfluence of new knowledge combining the

natural sciences and the humanities. Thisis reflected in IHOPE, a global network ofresearchers and research projects, now withits International Programme Office basedat the Stockholm Resilience Centre. IHOPEsupports sharing knowledge and resources fromthe biophysical sciences, social sciences andhumanities to address analytical and interpretiveissues associated with the coupled human-earth system dynamics. The project is part ofthe Regime Shif t theme. Project leaders: CaroleCrumley, Sverker Srlin.

Core projects and collaborations

During 2009 the Centre was engaged in manyinternational projects, workshops and researchcollaborations. Below we provide a sample ofsuch projects, see the Stockholm ResilienceCentre website for more information (www.stockholmresilience.su.se).

Centre of Excellence - Resilience and

Sustainability: Integrated Research onSocial-Ecological Systems

A five-year Centre-of-Excellence (Formel-Exc)project funded by a grant from the SwedishResearch Council FORMAS and carried outas a joint effort between the Beijer Institute ofEcological Economics, Stockholm University andStockholm Environment Institute (SEI), with astrong focus on complex systems, regime shiftsand resilience. The grant, of which one yearremains, has been instrumental in the start-up

phase of the Stockholm Resilience Centre andserves as a core from which the Centres research



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Core projects & collaborations

Planetary Boundaries

Research within the Planetary Boundariesframework, with publications in Nature andEcology & Society in 2009, continues withwork on interacting feedbacks and governance

challenges in the context of the boundaries. Theresearch is part of the Stockholm ResilienceCentres collaboration with the Earth SystemScience Partnership and the Earth SystemGovernance project, and embedded in the Centresthree advancing insights themes on GlobalDynamics, Governance and Regime Shifts.Leading researchers: Will Steffen, Victor Galaz.

Global Dynamics and Resilience in theFace of Multiple Shocks

Human activities are driving global environ-mental dynamics towards systemic changes. Wecurrently lack institutions capable of addressingglobal-scale governance of those changes.Drawing on the three articles in Nature, Scienceand TREE (online 2009) referred to above, thisresearch programme will conduct research onthe interacting feedbacks of global change, andgovernance for global social-ecological resilience.Programme leaders: Brian Walker, StephenPolasky, Anne-Sophie Crepn.

Regime Shifts ofSocial-Ecological Systems

Several projects, including:

Understanding, mapping and governingregime shifts in the Baltic Sea, theArctic, the Sahel and other areasDeveloping a regime shift databaseEarly warnings and moving thresholdsEconomic consequences of regime shiftsRegime shifts in society andthroughout history.

Leading researchers: Garry Peterson, LineGordon, Oonsie Biggs, Anne-Sophie Crpin,Sverker Srlin, Christoph Humborg, ThorstenBlenckner and the Baltic Nest Institute.

Biodiversity, Bundles of EcosystemServices and their Governance

Researchers are working to understand functionaldiversity, ecological networks and ecosystemservices. The aim is to develop theoretical tools

to assess the resilience of ecosystem servicesand empirically determine interactions among

ecosystem services in real landscapes as well asthe governance implications. Key researchers:Garry Peterson, Line Gordon, Regina Lindborg,Thomas Elmqvist, Jon Norberg, rjan Bodin.

Learning Platforms, Boundary and

Bridging Organizations, Memory,Actors in Adaptive Governance ofSocial-Ecological Systems

Activities include:

A special issue of EnvironmentalEducation Research is in press (CeciliaLundholm, Ryan Plummer, eds.), withcontributions from Lisen Schultz andEmily Boyd.Workshops on social-ecological learningare in progress, headed by sa Swartling.

Articles on leadership processescombined with resilience, on middlemenin coastal fisheries, on social-ecologicalmemory and on boundary and bridgingorganizations are in progress.

Key researchers: Frances Westley, rjan Bodin,Per Olsson, Beatrice Crona, Lisen Schultz,Stephan Barthel, Thomas Hahn.

Social-Ecological Networks in AdaptiveGovernance

Networks are an important area of the StockholmResilience Centres research on resilience andsocial-ecological systems. This research includesseveral projects on complex adaptive systemsand networks in urban systems. A specialissue of Ecology & Society and a book onsocial-ecological networks are in progress. Keyresearchers: rjan Bodin, Beatrice Crona, HenrikErnstson, Jon Norberg.Multilevel Institutions, Adaptive

Governance and ResilienceSeveral projects are investigating governancein relation to abrupt and large-scale social-ecological crisis. They are looking at multilevelgovernance modes, from laws to informalinstitutions, for building resilience for thechallenges posed by global change. 2009saw a special issue of Global EnvironmentalChange and papers on global governance ofabrupt environmental change and internationalcooperation. In addition, the Stockholm

Resilience Centre co-hosted the 2009 AmsterdamConference of the Earth System Governance


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Project, with emphasis on governance ofadaptation and resilience. Researchers include:Victor Galaz, Andreas Duit, Jonas Ebbesson,Katarina Eckerberg, Per Olsson, Emily Boyd.

Understanding Transformations inSocial-Ecological Systems

The main focus of this project is how to avoidor escape from undesirable trajectories whilesteering towards governance regimes thatsupport flexible, integrated, holistic forms ofmanagement of natural resources and ecosystems.The work includes probing case studies,comparative analysis, methods development andtheory development. A special issue of Ecology

and Society on Transitions, resilience andgovernance: Linking technological, ecologicaland political systems and several other papersare in progress and in press. Lead researchers:Per Olsson, Emily Boyd, Victor Galaz.

Biosphere Reserves and Resilience

Biosphere Reserves are potential real-worldexamples of resilience thinking and adaptivegovernance, acting as learning sites for biodiversityconservation and sustainable development.

Projects and case studies are taking place inKristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve andthe Cape Winelands Biosphere Reserve. Keyresearchers: Lisen Schultz, Per Olsson, EmilyBoyd, Jacob von Heland, Cecilia Lundholm,Thomas Hahn, Thomas Elmqvist, sa Jansson.

Madagascar Social-Ecological Systems

The Madagascar work is truly cross-thematicand covers issues related to the dynamics behindthe generation of ecosystem services embedded in

deep cultural values. Lead researchers: ThomasElmqvist, Maria Teng, Jacob von Heland.

The Ecosystem Approach, MarineSeascapes and Social-EcologicalResilience

Several projects dealing with the Baltic Sea,aquaculture development, coral reef dynamics,marine seascapes and marine management.These include:

Comparative studies of critical feedbackin marine ecosystemsSeabirds as indicators of ecosystemdynamicsInstitutions and governance of coastalecosystem servicesFisheries challenges in the context ofregime shifts, global change and adaptivegovernance

Lead researchers: Henrik sterblom, MaxTroell, Christopher Humborg, Magnus Nystrm,Thorsten Blenckner, Beatrice Crona, Per Olsson,Maricela de la Torre Castro.

Urban Social-Ecological Systems andEcosystem Services

Urban biodiversity is dependent on socio-cultural factors for its design, management andprotection, activities which also affect local socialcapital building and democratic governancepromotion. These linkages between the nature-culture divide are often overlooked in urbantheory. Projects within this research area include:

Stockholm Metropolitan Region -ecosystem services and biodiversity,ecological design, common poolresources management and networkgovernanceThe international SUPER project on

sustainable urban planning for ecosystemservices and resilience

Photo: T.H.Snickars, B.Christensen, J.Lokrantz/azote.se


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ESCAPE - urban ecosystem services andsocial justiceURBIS - the Urban Biosphere networkATLAS an internet platform for

comparing the production anddistribution of ecosystem services in 12international metropolitan landscapes.

Many books and papers are in progress, e.g.the volume Urban Ecosystem Services andGovernance: Building Resilience in UrbanLandscapes. Lead researchers: Thomas Elmqvist,Johan Colding, Henrik Ernstson, StephanBarthel, sa Jansson, Sverker Srlin.Freshwater and Ecosystem Services

Several projects are studying freshwater in thecontext of ecosystem services, resilience, globalchange, tipping points and governance challenges,often in relation to water for food production.The research spans from smallholder agriculturalsystems in drylands, related to poverty dynamicsand ecosystem services, to global analyses. Amajor volume - Confronting the FreshwaterChallenge - is in progress. Key researchers: JohanRockstrm, Line Gordon, Malin Falkenmark,Jennie Barron, Elin Enfors, Louise Karlberg,

Mats Lannerstad, Holger Hoff.Resilience Alliance

One of the Stockholm Resilience Centresmost central partners is the Resilience Alliance,an international network of leading researchorganizations collaborating to explore thedynamics of social-ecological systems. TheResilience Alliance, and its focus on social-ecological systems, emerged out of researchprogrammes of the Beijer Institute in the 1990s.

During the year the Stockholm Resilience Centre

has been given a central role in the ResilienceAlliance and was engaged in organizing theResilience Alliance and Resilience Alliance YoungScholars meetings in Canada in the autumn.

www.resalliance.orgThe Resilience Alliance Young Scholars(RAYS)

RAYS is a loosely connected internationalnetwork of doctoral and post-doctoral scholarsinterested in pushing the boundaries of resiliencethinking. The ambition is to focus collaborationson innovative ideas and projects with an explicitemphasis on transdisciplinary research and careerdevelopment. RAYS is coordinated to a great

extent by Resilience Centre researchers OonsieBiggs, Victor Galaz and Beatrice Crona.The Resilience Alliance Marine Group

A small group of international scholars focusingon coastal and marine social-ecological systems.Three articles are in progress and a meeting washeld in the Galapagos in 2009. The group is ledby Terry Hughes, ARC Centre of Excellence forCoral Reef Studies, Australia, and Carl Folke.

Photo: B.Christensen, N.Wijkmark, S.Zeff/azote.se


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Publication

Publications

2009 marked the end of the Centres start-upphase. In a forward-looking review, ProfessorWilliam Clark, an authority in sustainabilityscience at the John F. Kennedy School ofGovernment at Harvard University, providedrecommendations on the research, policy andorganizational challenges facing the Centre as itmoves into its first permanent phase in 2010.Professor Clark concluded that The Stockholm

Resilience Centre has emerged as a world leaderin the conduct of interdisciplinary researchon the dynamics of inter-connected social-ecological systems. To have achieved this barelytwo years after its inauguration is a remarkableaccomplishment indeed.

In 2009, some 100 articles, including bookchapters, were published in scientific journals.Popular science and outreach articles were alsoproduced and several articles are in press.

During the year papers have been publishedin over fifty different scientific journalscovering a wide spectrum of disciplines

Photo: T.H.Snickars/azote.se

including leading journals like Nature, Science,PNAS, TREE, interdisciplinary journals likeGlobal Environmental Change, EcologicalEconomics, Ecology & Society, and journalslike Environmental and Resource Economics,Development Policy Review, Journal ofInternational Development, InternationalEnvironmental Agreements. Books were releasedranging from environmental history, education,

law to ecosystem stewardship.


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Selected publications

Bennett, E .M., Peterson, G.D., Gordon, L.J. (2009). Understanding relationships amongmultiple ecosystem services. Ecology Letters 12: 1394-1404

Bodin, ., Crona, B.I. (2009). The role of social networks in natural resource governance:What relational patterns make a difference? Global Environmental Change 19: 366374.

Chapin, F.S., III, Carpenter, S.R., Kofinas, G.P., Folke, C., Abel, N., Clark, W.C., Olsson,P., Stafford Smith, D.M., Walker, B.H., Young, O.R., Berkes, F., Biggs, R., Grove, J.M.,Naylor, R.L., Pinkerton, E., Steffen, W., Swanson, F.J. (2009). Ecosystem stewardship:Sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet.Trends in Ecology and Evolution. doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.10.008.

Colding, J., Lundberg, J., Lundberg, S., Andersson, E. (2009). Golf courses and wetlandfauna. Ecological Applications 19: 14811491.

de la Torre-Castro, M., Lindstrm, L. (2009). Fishing institutions: Addressing regulative,normative and cultural-cognitive elements to enhance fisheries management. Marine Policydoi: 10.1016/j.marpol.2009.04.012

Duit. A., Hall, O., Mikusinski, G., Angelstam, P. (2009). Saving the woodpeckers: Socialcapital, governance, and policy performance. Journal of Environment and Development 18:42-61.

Ernstson, H., Srlin, S. (2009). Weaving protective stories: Connective practices to articulateholistic values in Stockholm National Urban Park. Environment and Planning A 41:1460-1479.

Fischer, J., Peterson, G.D., Gordon, L.J., Dovers, S., Fazey, I., Felton, A., Elmqvist,T., Folke, C., Gardner, T., Manning, A.D. (2009). Integrating resilience thinkingand optimization for conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 24: 549-554.doi:10.1016/j.tree.2009.03.020

Galaz, V. (2009). Pandemic 2.0: Can information technology really help us save thePlanet? Environment 51(6): 20-28.

Gordon, L.J., Finlayson, C.M., Falkenmark, M. (2009). Managing water in agriculturefor food production and other ecosystem services. Agricultural Water Management, doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2009.03.017

Holland, T., Peterson, G.D., Gonzalez, A. 2009. Economic inequality predictsbiodiversity loss: A cross-national analysis. Conservation Biology 23: 13041313.

Norstrm, A., Nystrm, M., Lokrantz, J., Folke, C. (2009). Alternative states of coralreefs: Beyond coral-macroalgal phase shifts. Marine Ecology Progress Series 376: 295-306

Rockstrm, J., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Hoff, H., Rost , S., Gerten, D. (2009).Future water availability for global food production: The potential of green water

for increasing resilience to global change. Water Resources Research 45, W00A12,doi:10.1029/2007WR006767, 14 February 2009.

Segnestam, L. (2009). Division of capitals: What role does it play for gender-differentiatedvulnerability to drought in Nicaragua? Community Development 40: 154-176doi:10.1080/15575330903001562

Walker, B.H., Pearson, L., Harris, M., Mler, K.-G., Chuan-Zhong, L., Biggs, R., Baynes,T. (2009). Incorporating resilience in the assessment of Inclusive Wealth: An example fromSouth East Australia. Environmental and Resource Economics. DOI 10.1007/s10640-009-9311-7.

Whitmarsh, L ., Gerger Swartling, ., Jger, J. (2009). Participation of experts andnon-experts in sustainability assessment of mobility. Environmental Policy andGovernance 19: 232-250.

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Science, Policy & Practice


The Stockholm Resilience Centre was deeplyinvolved in science, policy and practice dialoguesduring 2009, at global, European, nationaland local level. During the second half of2009 Sweden held the EU presidency and theStockholm Resilience Centre was commissionedto produce reports and exhibitions and was asked

to give presentations at different EU arenas.The Stockholm Resilience Centre also

contributed to important international processesled by UNEP and has invested a substantialamount of time in developing networks withpolicymakers and practitioners for futuredialogues on global challenges.

Ny bild?

Collaborations during the Swedish EUPresidency

Together with Albaeco, the Centre collaboratedin various ways with the Swedish EU Presidencyduring the second half of 2009. The startingpoint for these collaborations was the high levelmeeting Visions for Biodiversity Beyond 2010- People, Ecosystem Services and the ClimateCrisis held in Strmstad on 7-9 September. Themeeting gathered environment ministers and

senior officials to prepare the revision of theStrategic Plan of the Convention on BiologicalDiversity. The meeting paid special attentionto the links between biodiversity, ecosystemservices, climate change and human wellbeing,and a scientific report was prepared to providebackground on these links. The report, entitledBiodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Resilience:

Photo: E. Hermansson Trk

Panel discussion at an EU Commission side event during COP-15 with participation from Stockholm ResilienceCentre theme leader Will Steffen (second from the right).


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Governance for a Future with Global Changeswas prepared by a working group led by MiriamHuitric of Stockholm Resilience Centre andAlbaeco.

The report was presented at a scientificworkshop Biodiversity, ecosystem services andgovernance targets beyond 2010, which washeld in Tjrn, Sweden, in the days prior tothe Strmstad meeting. The lead author Brian

Walker and Centre researchers Lisen Schultz andThomas Elmqvist gave presentations during thethree-day workshop, which attracted researchersand government officials. The outcome from theTjrn workshop was directly transferred to thehigh-level meeting Visions for biodiversity andthe contents of the report and workshop werereflected in the outcome of the latter.

In addition, a science-based exhibitionwas held to create an inspiring atmospherein the conference venue in Strmstad. Theexhibition highlighted the links and values of

ecosystem services, biodiversity and resilience.

It was produced by the Swedish Presidency incooperation with Albaeco, Stockholm ResilienceCentre and the Swedish Species InformationCentre. The Stockholm Resilience Centrecontributed a slide show that was on display indelegates rooms. The exhibition can also be seenat the website: www.se2009.eu/biodiversity.

Download Report

The report Biodiversity, EcosystemServices and Resilience: Governance fora Future with Global Changes can bedown-loaded at:www.stockholmresilience.org/tjarno

Photo: G. Seijbold

The rosy periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), with its bright pink flowers is used to make drugs to treat diseaseslike childhood leukemia and Hodgkins disease. An example of the interlinkage between biodiversity, ecosystemservices and governance shown during the EU high level meeting in Strmstad, Sweden.

Photo: J. Lokrantz/azote.se


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Contributions to the UN climate conference

in Copenhagen

The Stockholm Resilience Centre contributed toseveral side-events at the UN Climate Conference(COP-15) in Copenhagen in December, 2009.

As part of the EU side-event on climatechange, ecosystem services and biodiversityorganized by the Swedish government and theSwedish Environmental Protection Agency,Centre Director Johan Rockstrm gave apresentation on biodiversity and climate change.

Professor Rockstrms presentation merged keyaspects of the planetary boundaries concept withdata from the report on biodiversity, ecosystemservices and resilience that the Centre hadprepared for the high-level meeting in Strmstad(see page 28).

The planetary boundaries concept attractedglobal interest when a group of 28 internationallyrenowned scientists proposed that globalbiophysical boundaries, identified on the basisof scientific understanding of the Earth system,could define a safe planetary operating space for

humanity.

The planetary boundaries concept wasalso presented at a second side-event by theEU Commission. Entitled Solving the climatechallenge within the planetary boundaries,Eric Lambin, Professor at the Departmentof Geography at the University of Louvainin Belgium and co-author of the article onplanetary boundaries, gave a presentation ofthe planetary boundaries concept, with special

focus on deforestation and land use changes. WillSteffen, Centre theme leader and co-author of thearticle on planetary boundaries, contributed toa panel discussion following Professor Lambinspresentation.


Johan Rockstrm giving a presentation on biodiversity and climate change as part of an EU side eventduring COP-15



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Manna exhibition in Washington

The Centre-affiliated exhibition Manna Foodin a new light was displayed at the SwedishEmbassy, House of Sweden, in Washingtonbetween 1 April and 7 June, 2009.

The exhibition, which shows the connectionbetween ecosystem services and the food on ourtables, was part of a two-month programmecalled Living Green which focused on climatechange and sustainable living. Organized by

the Swedish Embassy in the US, the exhibitionconsisted of a range of seminars, exhibitionsand events with both Swedish and Americanparticipants.

As part of the Living Green programme,Centre researcher Jonas Ebbesson took part inthe seminar A New Climate Change Accord -Legal Character and Commitments.

Photo: C.Clifstock

Photo: C.Clifstock

How do you fit several hundred litres of water into one bottle of beer? Resource use discussed at the Manna exhibition.

How many cows a day does it take to feed a large city with beef? Illustration at the Manna exhibition.


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The strength of a dedicated few

Ecosystem managers strong on networking skills can make a difference.

On 4 June, Centre researcher Lisen Schultzdefended her doctoral thesis NurturingResilience in Social-Ecological Systems: LessonsLearned from Bridging Organizations. Based oninterviews with dedicated practitioners behindsuccessful conservation projects, she presentednew management practices that live up to thedemands of today, while simultaneously curbingthe unsustainable tapping into the worlds natural

resources.One example is the Swedish biosphere reserveKristianstads Vattenrike a former water-logged swamp that has now been designated byUNESCO as a model for sustainable developmentand biodiversity conservation.

Lisen Schultzs thesis analyzes how thededicated work of a few individuals has mobilizedlocal farmers, birdwatchers, entrepreneursand politicians to join forces in transformingthe wetland into an asset for the district ofKristianstad. This case study is then compared

with similar UNESCO-designated experienceselsewhere in the world. Unlike the more well-

known World Heritage designation, the BiosphereReserves are meant to protect biodiversity andsimultaneously encourage local developmentby sustaining ecosystem services for humanwellbeing.

The results presented in the thesis showthat those who succeed are as good at readingpeople as they are at reading nature itself. Byfirst listening to the needs of potential partners,

and then communicating an attractive visionfor their project (which goes beyond the mereinterest of nature conservation), these dedicatedindividuals are able to build trust and involvekey stakeholders such as politicians, localassociations, landowners and financiers. In manycases, they form bridging organizations thatconnect actors across scales and sectors.

Photo: P.Olofsson, S-E Magnusson

The Swedish biosphere reserve Kristianstads Vattenrike, with the town Kristianstad surrounded by wetlands,home to around 700 nationally red-listed species of flora and fauna.


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Centre researcher Lisen Schultz formedpart of the Swedish delegation, and assisted informulating statements and discussion pointsboth before and during the Nairobi meeting,emphasizing e.g. that the IPBES should bescientifically credible, politically relevant andfocused on ecosystem services. In the end, theviews on what the IPBES should comprise werestill too divergent for the Nairobi meeting to

reach a final decision on whether to establish it ornot. However, the discussion is far from over, asit was decided that a third and f inal meetingwould be convened by UNEP during 2010.

IPBES a new platform for biodiversityand ecosystem services

During 2009 the centre was actively involvedin establishing the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and EcosystemServices (IPBES). Envisioned to be an IPCCfor biodiversity and ecosystem services or apermanent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,the IPBES could provide an important mechanismfor dialogue between scientists and policymakersthat would ultimately contribute to realizing the

vision of the Stockholm Resilience Centre.The IPBES has been discussed since theMillennium Assessment was completed, but ithas been difficult to find global agreement on theexact function of such a mechanism, as well aswhat would be the best governance structure andhow to fund it. With the Swedish EU Presidency, awindow of opportunity opened for the Centre tomake an effective contribution to the discussion,as the Centre was asked to assist the SwedishEnvironmental Ministry in formulating a commonEU position to be presented at the 2nd ad hoc

Intergovernmental and Multi-Stakeholder Meetingon IPBES held by UNEP in Nairobi on 59 Oct.

Download Report

Reports of the Nairobi meeting can befound at http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/biodiv/ipbes2/

Photo: S-E Magnusson


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Building a sustainable urban campusCentre researchers help build visions for a new university campus based on principles of sustainable

urban development.

urban environment and how a science city canbe built in a climate-smart way. The new campusshould enable production of ecosystem services,conservation of historical values and enhancetransdisciplinary knowledge. This can potentiallyfurther establish Stockholm as an internationallyattractive hub for research and serve as a modelfor sustainable urban development.

Developing the Albano area is considered to

be a unique opportunity. It is the last piece ofland available for development under the general

Project participants

Johan Colding, Stockholm Resilience CentreStefan Barthel, Stockholm Resilience CentreHenrik Ernstson, Stockholm Resilience CentreLars Marcus, KTHHanna Erixon, KTHKIT architects

Stockholm University is in dire need of morecampus space and the Albano area betweenStockholm University, the Karolinska Instituteand the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) hasbeen singled out as a strategically prime location.Located within the worlds first national urbanpark, the Royal National Urban Park, the Albanoarea has very strong potential to become a world-class campus that will work as a model both in

urban planning and university development all overthe world. It will also work as a reference point inframing the concept of sustainable city quarters.

With that in mind, researchers fromStockholm Resilience Centre and the RoyalInstitute of Technology have joined forces witharchitects from KIT-arkitektur to develop avision for a new Albano Sustainable Campus.Their proposal was presented at the conferenceGreen urbanism at Albano which was held inStockholm in October 2009.

The proposal, entitled Patchwork, investigateshow ecosystem services can support a better


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plan for the Royal National Urban Park. Whatis done here has the potential to enhance theecological, cultural and social values of the area.It can potentially contribute to putting Stockholmon the world map as an attractive learningenvironment.

The proposal also points out that Albanocan serve as a gateway between the city and the

national urban park for birds and other migratinganimals. Other suggestions include buildingaqueducts and creating a link for bringing aquaticwildlife to the park.

The Green urbanism at Albanoconference

On 29 October 2009, Stockholm ResilienceCentre organised the conference Green urbanismat Albano with the aim of providing planningadvice for development of the Albano areaby three major universities in Stockholm. Anadditional aim was to make the conference astarting point for a long-term multi-disciplinaryand multi-stakeholder learning process that caninspire others around the globe. The conferencewas arranged in a collaboration betweenAkademiska Hus (the land owner in the Albanoarea); Stockholm Resilience Centre (contributor

of transdisciplinary knowledge); and StockholmUniversity (the main tenant in the area).

Folded meadow. The Patchwork proposal shows howan existing bridge can be transformed into an ecoduct.

Green contact surface is maximized by folding thestructure over itself. Illustration: KIT arkitektur

The sustainable vision for a new campus area at Stockholm University encompass the latest urbanecology research and aims promoting the creation of ecosystem services and institutions to enhancethe social, ecological and cultural values. The proposal includes strong stakeholder participation in themanagement of green areas. Illustration: KIT arkitektur


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Urban Atlas: A new tool for futureurban planning

Urban Theme at the Stockholm Resilience Centreas a consortium of research groups in twelvecities around the world: Bangalore, Canberra,Cape Town, Chicago, Helsinki, Istanbul, NewDelhi, New Orleans, New York, Phoenix,Shanghai and Stockholm. Within the consortium,the Urban Atlas will be used to address acommon set of research questions including:

What are the effects of urbandevelopment and land use change onbiodiversity and ecosystem services?How are different socio-economic groups

affected by environmental changes inurban regions?How do we facilitate an understanding ofcomplexity and uncertainty?How do we capture information abouturban dynamics and urban developmenttrajectories important for understandingadaptive and transformative capacity?

www.urbanatlasportal.org

Celebration of the 100th Stockholm Seminar

The Urban Atlas is an open internet tool that

allows citizens, planners and scientists tovisualize ecosystems in cities, social-ecologicalconnections and scenarios for climate changeadaptation. It is an international collaborationto develop new tools for determining the social-ecological capacity to sustain and provideaccess to ecosystem services during periods ofuncertainty and change.

In phase one, students (aged 16-19) andteachers are invited to formulate questions forfuture urban planning that are relevant for theircity neighbourhood. By providing innovativeways of visualizing science in society, theUrban Atlas can be used to involve citizens incollaborative green urban planning and learning.

In phase two, urban planners and researcherswill be targeted. The Urban Atlas will make itpossible for citizens, policymakers and scientiststo analyze and have a dialogue about differenturban development scenarios.

The Urban Atlas is under development by the

On a sunny April day, the 100th StockholmSeminar was celebrated with a half-daysymposium focusing on the global challengesof climate change, ecosystem management andhuman welfare. The symposium, featuring a starcast of scientific minds, filled up the Beijer Hall atthe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.Originally initiated by Centre Science DirectorCarl Folke, the Stockholm Seminars can bedescribed as an opportunistic institution, as they

exploit the windows of opportunity that openwhen interesting researchers visit Stockholm. Thelectures are open to a transdisciplinary audienceand span a wide range of subjects, with theawareness that human societies and the worldsnatural systems are truly interdependent as acommon theme. The Stockholm Seminars areco-arranged by Albaeco, Stockholm Resilience

Centre and IGBP. For more information seewww.albaeco.com



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Too many vessels, too few sh

The current fisheries policy is dangerously close to depleting the Baltic Sea of fish. A recent project used

fisheries management practices from Norway, the USA and Canada in an attempt to curb that trend.

European fisheries have changed dramaticallyover recent decades. Fleets have become moreefficient and the fishing capacity has improvedsignificantly, but at a high price. Years ofmismanagement have led to overfishing,bycatches and disgraceful discards. The EuropeanCommission has estimated that 80 percent ofEuropean stocks are overfished, and the BalticSea stocks are no exception.

Much blame has been attributed to theCommon Fisheries Policy, the European Unionsinstrument for the management of fisheries and

aquaculture. Despite several reforms and reviewssince its inception in the early 1970s, the policyis short of admirers. References to the blunt,remote, highly bureaucratic and top-downnature of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)are common within the literature and the EU isviewed as ineffective in its management of thefisheries sector.

Getting Into the Right Lane for 2050:

A Primer for EU DebateThis report, prepared by the NetherlandsEnvironmental Assessment Agency incollaboration with the Stockholm ResilienceCentre, presents a positive vision for a sustainableEurope in 2050, drawing on current EU policydiscussions.

Based on this vision, the report also highlightskey policy actions that need to be taken withinthe next five to ten years in order for the EU

to meet these long-term goals. Getting Intothe Right Lane for 2050 focuses on producing

sufficient food for a global population of ninebillion while minimizing biodiversity loss;mitigating climate change and enhancing energysecurity for the EU; as well as developingpractical and workable solutions for a low carbonEU transport system. The report is designed tocontribute to the debate on the long-term agendaof the next European Commission and thecoming presidencies.

Photo: A.Lf/azote.se

The recent project Best Practice ofFisheries Management aimed to improvethis management. Centre partner Baltic Nesttogether with Baltic Sea 2020 and the Institutefor European Environmental Policy convenedinternationally recognized scientists from thenatural sciences, economics and social sciencesto investigate known examples of successfulmanagement that could help the Baltic Sea backonto a sustainable trajectory.

The conclusion from their final report, whichwas presented in April 2009, is clear:

The current fisheries management hasfailed to deliver on its social, economic andenvironmental goals under the existing EuropeanCommon Fisheries Policy. Centralized decision-making must be replaced by regional stakeholdermanagement in order to adapt to regionalecosystem conditions.


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Teaching & Training

Stockholm Resilience Centre offers a varietyof transdisciplinary courses and programmeson environmental and sustainable developmentissues. We have one undergraduate and twoMasters programmes and a PhD-level ResearchSchool with special emphasis on resilience.The courses are developed and promoted incollaboration with several departments atStockholm University. Courses are offered at all

levels: undergraduate, Masters and PhD.

Resilience Research School at theStockholm Resilience Centre

In 2009 a new Resilience Research School wasestablished with the aim of training the nextgeneration of transdisciplinary thinkers and doerson social-ecological resilience and sustainabledevelopment. Ten new PhD students joined theCentre when the Research School was launched inAugust. Seven of the students are affiliated with

the Department of Systems Ecology at Stockholm

University, while the others are hosted by theDepartments of Political Science, Economics, andPhysical Geography and Quaternary Geology.These new students will follow the Centres owngeneral study plan as well as that of their hostDepartment. The twelve PhD students who wereenrolled prior to August 2009 are also part of thenew Research School.

Each year we offer a number of ad hoc PhD

courses. In 2009, these were: Community-conserved areas, multi-level governance andadaptation to climate change by Fikret Berkes,University of Manitoba, Canada, and ComplexAdaptive Systems by Jon Norberg, StockholmUniversity. Two compulsory PhD courses in theResearch School will start in January 2010.

Photo: L.Karlsson/azote.se


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Teaching and traning

Ecosystems, Governance andGlobalisation, 120 credits.

An interdisciplinary Masters Programmein cooperation with several departmentsat Stockholm University. The programmeincludes seven courses: Resilience, Adaptability,Transformability; Philosophy of Science forInterdisciplinary Environmental Research;Ecosystem Management; Adaptive Governanceof Social-ecological Systems; Social-ecologicalResilience: Applications; InternationalGovernance of Ecosystems; and Methods forTransdisciplinary Environmental Research.

Sustainable Enterprising,120 credits.

An interdisciplinary Masters Programmein cooperation with several departments atStockholm University. The programme includesfive courses: Resilience, Adaptability andTransformability; Management Tools andChange Management; Environmental Law; SocialResponsibility for Sustainable Enterprising; andAcademic Theory, Methods, and Writing forTransdisciplinary Research.

In order to attract top international and Swedishstudents and keep the focus on our primary goals,the Centre decided to split the two programmes

into one research-orientated Masters programmeand one programme designed to train practitionersand managers. As a consequence, the Centrereduced the number of new students who startedthe EGG and SE programmes in order to prioritizeprogramme development. The new programmes,with new selection criteria and new courses, will beannounced in 2010.

Photo: B.Christensen/azote.se


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Teaching and traning

Photo: E.Wisniewska/azote.se

Other programmes and courses at theStockholm Resilience Centre

Hllbarsamhllsutveckling,60credits.

This one-year introductory level programmeon sustainable development gives a basic

understanding of the complex interactions betweennature and society. Co-coordinated in co-operationwith the Department of Physical Geography andQuaternary Geology. Given in Swedish.

VrldensEko,7.5credits.An introductory course on sustainabledevelopment, initiated and driven by students,featuring some of Swedens most qualifiedresearchers and debaters. Given in Swedish.

SustainableDevelopmentfroma

ResiliencePerspective,5credits.

An introductory course for undergraduateexchange students from the USA. Within theSwedish Programme at Stockholm University.

Stockholm Resilience CentreMaster Theses 2009

Ecosystems, Governance andGlobalisation

AbdulBaten,MohammedProperty rights in mangroves: A case study of theMahakam Delta, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Ahammad,RonjuUnderstanding institutional changes for reducingsocial vulnerability to landslides: A case study inthe Chittagong city, Bangladesh

Brand,AnnelieDefining and utilizing indicators of Coral ReefResilience in the Red Sea

Dobom,AvitalIllegal Chinese Fishing in West African Waters:A study on Chinese IUU Activities and itsConsequences to Socio-Ecological Systems

Gingrich,MargaretThe Greening of Trade Unions? Factors affectingblue-collar unions action on climate and energyissues in the United States and Sweden

Meacham,MeganPath dependency of infrastructure investment:Implications for the sanitation system of PhnomPenh, Cambodia

Moriel,LosSocio-economic drivers influencing sustainabilityin a social-ecological system: Insights from wha

Documents

Stockholm Resilience Centre Annual Report 2009