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Managing Socio-Ecological Systems to Achieve Sustainability: A Study of Resilience and Robustness Stephanie Domptail, 1 Marcos H. Easdale 2 * and Yuerlita 3 1 Institute for Agricultural Policy and Market Research, Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany 2 Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA-Bariloche), Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina 3 Andalas University, kampus Unand Limau Manis, West Sumatra, Indonesia ABSTRACT Growing symptoms of the mismanagement of socio-ecological systems (SESs) show that the long-term existence of these systems is threatened. SES management improvement is the aim of many policy measures. But how successful are these various simultaneous policy measures in achieving the sustainable management of SESs? A framework for analysing policy measures and the management actions of land users was developed by Leach et al. (2010): the authors postulate that the sustainability of an SES depends on four system properties stability, resilience, durability and robustness and that external shocks and stresses affect these properties differently. The aim of this contribution is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the approach by applying it to three case studies, in Namibia, Argentina and Indonesia. We found that (1) more actions were directed towards resilience and robustness than towards command and control, (2) actions directed at stability and durability were generally undertaken at the national level and (3) the introduction of the concept of robustness to illustrate the property of adaptability enables the identi cation of trade-offs among properties, but (4) issues of ecological degradation were dif cult to address explicitly. We consider that the framework can make a useful contribution to policy making by framing the impact of a given intervention on SESs on the four key system properties. Yet, the framework provides a structure to make ex-post assessment of SES management or to formulate assumptions about potential synergies/trade-offs among impacts on system properties. However, we suggest using it as complementary to other policy impact assessment methods. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 12 November 2010; revised 17 August 2012; accepted 15 October 2012 Keywords: socio-ecosystems; governance; arid rangelands; shery; Patagonia; Lake Singkarak; Namibia; system thinking Introduction R ESOURCE DEGRADATION AND POVERTY ARE SYMPTOMS OF THE DIFFICULTIES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL systems (SESs) and threaten their existence in the long term. While searching for immediate remediation strategies seems essential for maintaining the livelihoods of resource users, it is of equal importance to follow up with long-term strategies for a sustainable management of the SES. Increasing globalization *Correspondence to: Marcos Easdale, Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA-Bariloche), Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Environmental Policy and Governance Env. Pol. Gov. 23, 3045 (2013) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/eet.1604

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Managing Socio-Ecological Systems to AchieveSustainability: A Study of Resilience and Robustness

Stephanie Domptail,1 Marcos H. Easdale2* and Yuerlita31Institute for Agricultural Policy andMarket Research, Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany

2Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA-Bariloche), Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina3Andalas University, kampus Unand Limau Manis, West Sumatra, Indonesia

ABSTRACTGrowing symptoms of the mismanagement of socio-ecological systems (SESs) show that thelong-term existence of these systems is threatened. SES management improvement is theaim of many policy measures. But how successful are these various simultaneous policymeasures in achieving the sustainable management of SESs? A framework for analysing policymeasures and the management actions of land users was developed by Leach et al. (2010): theauthors postulate that the sustainability of an SES depends on four system properties – stability,resilience, durability and robustness – and that external shocks and stresses affect theseproperties differently. The aim of this contribution is to identify the strengths and weaknessesof the approach by applying it to three case studies, in Namibia, Argentina and Indonesia. Wefound that (1) more actions were directed towards resilience and robustness than towardscommand and control, (2) actions directed at stability and durability were generally undertakenat the national level and (3) the introduction of the concept of robustness to illustrate the propertyof adaptability enables the identification of trade-offs among properties, but (4) issues of ecologicaldegradation were difficult to address explicitly. We consider that the framework can make a usefulcontribution to policy making by framing the impact of a given intervention on SESs on the fourkey system properties. Yet, the framework provides a structure to make ex-post assessment ofSES management or to formulate assumptions about potential synergies/trade-offs amongimpacts on system properties. However, we suggest using it as complementary to other policyimpact assessmentmethods. Copyright© 2013 JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Received 12 November 2010; revised 17 August 2012; accepted 15 October 2012

Keywords: socio-ecosystems; governance; arid rangelands; fishery; Patagonia; Lake Singkarak; Namibia; system thinking

Introduction

RESOURCE DEGRADATION AND POVERTY ARE SYMPTOMS OF THE DIFFICULTIES IN THEMANAGEMENT OF SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL

systems (SESs) and threaten their existence in the long term. While searching for immediate remediationstrategies seems essential for maintaining the livelihoods of resource users, it is of equal importance tofollow up with long-term strategies for a sustainable management of the SES. Increasing globalization

*Correspondence to: Marcos Easdale, Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA-Bariloche), Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina. E-mail:[email protected]

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Environmental Policy and GovernanceEnv. Pol. Gov. 23, 30–45 (2013)Published online in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/eet.1604

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has instigated increasingly control-oriented SES management strategies (see, e.g., Gomez-Baggethun et al., 2009).Command-and-control approaches tend to try and reduce variability, which differentiates them from approachespromoting flexibility and directly addressing the resilience of the managed SES. Thus, controlling actions negativelyinfluence the resilience of SESs (Cumming and Peterson, 2005).

While a system’s resilience does not necessarily imply its sustainability (Derissen et al., 2009), the capacity of a systemto sustainably manage short disturbances (shocks) and long-term pressures (stresses) is related to its properties, includingthe property of resilience. According to the Resilience Alliance, resilience comprises two properties: withstanding shocks(resilience in the structure of the SES) and adaptability (resilience of the SES in providing the function) (Walker et al.,2006). Yet, actions enhancing the ability of an SES to maintain its structure when facing a shock might in some casescounteract the adaptive capacity or transformability needed to sustain its function in the face of long-term pressures(Walker et al., 2006; Scoones et al., 2007). Scoones et al. (2007) argue that distinguishing between the two propertiesin the analysis of SESs is useful in the context of policy making. They developed a conceptual framework distinguishing‘control and command management’ measures versus responses and defining the resilience property as the mainte-nance of the function and structure of an SES, while robustness designates a change in the structure of the SESto maintain its function (Leach et al., 2010).

Specifically, our aim is to explore whether the use of a method distinguishing between resilience and robustness prop-erties in SESs brings additional insights in taking effective management measures to achieve sustainability. In our searchfor patterns in the effectiveness of different measures in delivering sustainability by improving the resilience and/orrobustness of SESs experiencing shocks and stresses, we formulate three hypotheses. (1) There will be tendencies forpowerful actors to favour controlling actions and thus decrease the resilience or robustness of the SES. (2) It is possibleand useful to distinguish between responses to stresses and responses to shocks. (3) A trade-off between robustnessand resiliencemay exist: policies strengthening resilience can sometimes exacerbate vulnerability to stress by reducing ro-bustness. The hypotheses are discussed thoroughly in order to identify whether the conceptual framework of Leach et al.(2010) may help identify policy measures which have conflicting effects, and thereby could be useful in policy making.

In order to test the general applicability of the theoretical framework proposed by Leach et al. (2010) as an operationaltool for the evaluation of the sustainability of policy measures addressing all types of SES, we choose three case studies,which differ with respect to their (i) political, economic and cultural characteristics and (ii) biophysical conditions andproductive systems. These are (1) a commercial farming region in southern Namibia, (2) a smallholder region inPatagonia, Argentina, and (3) a lake community in West Sumatra, Indonesia. All cases are located in developingcountries, where sustainability solutions are needed more urgently.

Theoretical Foundations

Resilience of Social–Ecological Systems (SESs)

An SES is an ecological system influenced by one or more social systems, where interdependencies among humansare influenced by biophysical and non-human biological units (Anderies et al., 2004). Establishing a diagnosis whenfaced with a problem in an SES requires the study of complex multi-variable non-linear and cross-scale interactions,and the contemplation of how the system changes in time (Ostrom, 2007).

During the last ten years, the concept of resilience has been widely explored and case studies have shown theexistence of relationships among resilience, diversity and sustainability in SESs (Folke et al., 2002). Yet, in theliterature, definitions of SES resilience differ greatly in the conceptual frameworks for the landscape scale chosen.A first group of studies defined resilience in opposition to vulnerability and as a key to sustainable SESs (Elashaet al., 2005; Armitage and Johnson, 2006; Dearing, 2008; Dougill et al., 2009). This definition of resilience doesnot perfectly coincide with system thinking theory, where resilience is a specific property of a system, as mentionedabove. Another group of scholars, including the Resilience Alliance, defines the resilience of an SES as the capacityof a system to experience shocks while retaining essentially the same function, structure, feedbacks and thereforeidentity (Gunderson et al., 2006; Marshall and Marshall, 2007; Darnhofer, 2010; Folke et al., 2003, cited byDarnhofer, 2010). The key element here is whether a system maintains its control over its function, and by ‘function’we mean the direction and nature of the feedbacks. A last group of authors retains the definition given for ecological

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systems, which states that resilience is the ability to maintain both structure and function (Holling, 1973; Gundersonand Holling, 2002). Pending this last and strictest definition of resilience in SESs, complementary concepts weredeveloped: adaptation (Leach et al., 2010) or transformability (Walker et al., 2006), both of which assume that onlythe function is maintained, possibly with a re-arrangement in the SES’s structure.

Conceptual Framework Adopted

The conceptual framework adopted in this article is the one proposed by Scoones et al. (2007) and Leach et al. (2010) andprovides a clear interface between science and policymaking. The conceptual framework is rooted in a distinction betweenstructure and function of the SES. It first assumes that resilience is the property of maintaining the function of an SES bykeeping the same structure. Second, it introduces the complementary concept of ‘robustness’ to explicitly refer to the prop-erty of maintaining the function of an SES through a re-arrangement in its structure, especially as an adaptation responseto long-term stresses. Leach et al. (2010) claim that the distinction is useful because some policy measures may enhanceresilience while at the same time undermining the robustness of the system. Walker et al. (2006), conversely, underlinethat efforts to deliberately enhance adaptability can (unintentionally) lead to loss of resilience.

This differentiation between resilience and robustness relies on a preliminary distinction among drivers betweenshocks and stresses (Elasha et al., 2005; Leach et al., 2010), as can be visualized on the vertical axis of Figure 1.Shocks are defined as ‘transient disruption in an otherwise continuous trajectory’, while stresses are ‘enduringand pervasive cellular long run shifts’ (Scoones et al., 2007). The conceptual framework assumes that (re)actionsto shocks and to stresses generally address two different system properties, respectively resilience and robustness.

The horizontal axis of Figure 1 shows the additional strength of this conceptual framework for policy making,namely the classification of policy measures and land use actions in the face of drivers of change into two broadcategories. Actions aiming at preventing or controlling variability are tagged as command-and-control reactionsand address the properties of stability and durability, while actions promoting flexibility and change are taggedas responses and address the properties of resilience and robustness. Here, we refer to the ‘command-and-control’approach as the conventional environmental management, rather top down (McCarthy, 2006), and aiming to reducenatural variation in an effort tomake an ecosystemmore productive, predictable, economically efficient and controllable(Berkes et al., 2003). Suppressing natural disturbances, such as droughts or fires, is a common example of the attemptsto control ecosystems and of socioeconomic institutions that respond to erratic or surprising ecosystem behavior withmore control (Holling and Meffe, 1996). Command-and-control management approaches often decrease theresilience of the system (Cumming and Peterson, 2005), which becomes more vulnerable to external perturbations,resulting in crises and surprises (Olsson, 2003; Holling and Meffe, 1996).

Figure 1. Dynamic property of sustainability (Leach et al., 2010)

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While many of the policy measures in the last half century have focused on command-and-control, a departurefrom this position towards new approaches for the management of complex SESs are emerging (Cumming andPeterson, 2005). In particular, they foster system flexibility (Carpenter and Brock, 2008) and include resiliencemanagement, scenario planning and adaptive management – the latter having a stronger focus on societal learning(see, e.g., Cumming and Peterson, 2005; Rammel et al., 2007). Their appropriateness depends on the level ofuncertainty and controllability of the SES. In this paper, we consider all of management approaches as responses.

Case Study Approach

We applied the resilience/robustness framework to three SESs: two rangeland systems in Patagonia (Argentina) andNamibia and a lake system in Indonesia. This assured that diverse political, economic, socio-cultural and biophysicalcharacteristics would be included in the study.

Arid Southern RangelandsBoth rangeland case studies were made in drylands and the SESs considered are the individual farms and the managinghouseholds. The rangelands are characterized by remoteness, low rainfalls, extreme temperatures and poor soils, allhighly variable in space and time (Reynolds and Stafford Smith, 2002). Pastoralism with small stock is the main eco-nomic activity and is subject to prices set by the global market. Livestock production strongly relies on rangeland ecolog-ical dynamics. However, large rangeland areas are degraded (Lund, 2007). In south Namibia, the study concerns ahomogeneous 750 000ha suburban area around the town of Keetmanshoop in the Nama Karoo, characterized by sum-mer rainfalls of 140mm on average and recurring droughts. Large ranches of about 10 000ha are managed by commer-cial farmers for the production of Karakul sheep skins,mutton andmeat goats (Domptail, 2011). Since 1994, a land reformhas been slowly reorganizing this structure of land ownership, inherited from apartheid (Tapia-Garcia, 2004). The Patago-nianWesternDistrict is a winter rainfall area, which occupies 3.5million ha in the RíoNegro province. The climate is dry andcold, with mean annual precipitation varying spatially from 150 to 300mm (Prohaska, 1952; Paruelo et al., 1998). It snowsfrequently in the highlands. Most farms, which are the subject of analysis in this paper, are held by smallholders, andreach 2500ha in size on average (Easdale et al., 2009). They rely on family labour and produce Merino wool, Angorahair and meat, while cattle are associated with highly productive meadows (Easdale and Gaitán, 2010).

Singkarak Lake in West Sumatra, IndonesiaSingkarak Lake and its catchment area are the location of a complex land use pattern, which ensures the livelihoods ofabout 400 000 people living on its shores and on the slopes of the surrounding hills. The SES considered consisted ofthe lake and the communities directly depending on it for livelihoods. The inhabitants enjoy the benefits provided bythe lake: irrigation, fishing, navigation, water supply and a hydroelectric power plant. Singkarak Lake is now facingmany challenges, including pollution, the degradation of water quality in the catchment, the depletion of waterand eutrophication. Increased erosion in the catchment area has also accelerated sedimentation in the lake. Thevicious degradation cycle is undermining all economic activities.

Methods

The first step of the analysis consisted in the selection of relevant and typical drivers of change for the systems, andin the documentation and analysis of the reactions of resource users and governments to selected drivers of change.We defined drivers as any change affecting the system considered, either endogenous or exogenous. For each casestudy, we identified and selected important drivers based on our expert knowledge, on literature and data sourcesdocumenting the functioning of the selected socio-ecological systems and their reactions towards change in theidentified drivers. The drivers were classified into shocks and stresses as defined by Scoones et al. (2007) accordingto the perceptions of the authors of the data sources or of the interviewees (Table 1).

The second step consisted in the identification of all actions or reactions undertaken by the land users or governmentsin order to maintain livelihoods and/or the resource base at the level of each SES. Material used was local magazine

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articles, local scientific journal articles, government communications, personal communication with farmers, withexperts and with government members, local websites, data collected and observations made by the authors (seeTable SM1, Supplementary Material). The search for and compilation of information was done during the year 2009.The information itself stemmed from various time frames: (i) written information from at least the last two decadesand (ii) personal communications and non-structured interviews carried out during 2008 and 2009 in Patagonia andSumatra and from 2005 to 2007 in Namibia. Interviews mostly served to identify key drivers and guide our searchfor literature and material, as well as to support and improve some arguments regarding drivers and actions, withinan iterative process. They were open in structure. The literature consulted and the interviews concerned livelihoodand farming/fishing strategies in the face of shocks and stresses (in Namibia interviews concerned only shocks).

In a third step, the identified reactions undertaken by the land users or governments in order to maintainlivelihoods and/or the resource base were organized in relation to one of the four SES properties: durability,stability, resilience and robustness (Table 2). The classification was carried out according to the following rules.(1) Actions were classified as control measures when they aimed to act on and control the driver itself and as

Case study Driver Impact on SES

Southern Namibianrangelands

Shock. Drought Natural calamity: absence or extremely low amount of rainfall,occurring every 10–15 years and causing lack of biomass andwater and the death of livestock or their forced sale. Alsoaffects rangeland ecological state in the long term.

Stress 1. Increased land occupation Continuous increase in the number of farms from colonialtimes to 1984, leading to the disappearance of emergencylands and fixing herds in space, thus causing reducedmanagement options and a risk of degradation.

Stress 2. Persistent market crash Crash in the price of Karakul skins, sole product of southernpastoralism until 1979, leading to the loss of livelihoods ofmany farmers.

Stress 3. Land reform Redistribution of land resources to previously disadvantagedNamibians. Results in a multiplication of small farmownership and a turnover in land ownership and socialcapital (especially knowledge and networks).

Northern Patagonianrangelands

Shock. Drought Natural calamity: absence or extremely low amount of rainfall,occurring every 10–15 years and causing lack of biomass andwater and the death of livestock or their forced sale. Alsoaffects rangeland ecological state in the long term.

Stress 1. Increasing degradation Loss of soil and vegetation cover leading to reduction of forageproduction due in part to overgrazing. Leads to long-termloss of land productivity.

Stress 2. Decreasing farm netmargins

Due to decreasing wool prices on international markets andstate economic choices. Leads to negative profits and areduction of state social services and support, mainly duringthe 1990s.

Lake Singkarak,Indonesia

Shock. Bangai Natural calamity (upwelling of low lake waters containingsulphuric acids, nitrates and ammonia) causing massivedeath of fish. Occurs every 10–15 years.

Stress1. Water pollution Through pesticides, fertilizers, domestic and small scale industrialwastes. Impacts resource users’ health and fish stocks.

Stress 2. Depletion and fluctuationof lake level

Associated with water usage by hydro-electric power plant(HEPP), more variable rainfalls and erosion in the catchment.Affects fish reproduction and catch, as well as farming.

Stress 3. Increasing numberof fishermen

Decreases the available resource per user. May lead tooverfishing and resource depletion or poverty.

Table 1. Overview of the considered shocks and stresses, as well as their main impact on the SES in each case study

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responsive measures when they acted on the SES or a part of it. (2) Reactions to shocks were classified as contributingeither to the resilience or to the stability properties of the SES. (3) Reactions to stresses were classified as contributingto either the durability or robustness of the system. Special attention was given to abiding by the intention of theactors – local users and governments – and by the opinion of the stakeholder/author in the classification of eachreaction as controlling or responding.

However, reactions may affect more than one property of the system. Thus, in a fourth step we strived to identifytrade-offs or synergies between the different system properties, which may occur as a result of the implementationof a policy measure and land-user action. This is further explained in the results section.

Results

Figures 2–4 display how measures taken in each country in the case of the identified stresses and shocks contributeto the different properties of sustainability of each SES.

Control Source Response Source

Shocks

Government Bangai (Indonesia) Temporary prohibition of catchingthe existing endemic species:‘bilih fish’

Commanding research on theenvironmental status of the lake,regular monitoring of lake waterquality

c

Resourceusers

Bangai (Indonesia) Catch other resources from thelake (some type of fish thatsurvives bangai)

Livelihood diversification; moreintense farming activity

c

Collect and sell stones, sandfrom lake

c

StressesResourceusers

Water pollution Prohibition of using explosivedevices for fishing

c Creating fish sanctuary called rumponat the edge of the lake

c

Collecting rubbish floating on thelake, particularly after raining

Nagari (traditional village) providesbins for people to collect and burntheir rubbish

Government Water pollution Government regulation number 82of 2001 concerning control andmanagement of water quality

a Classifying the use of water into threemain groups, namely for drinking,recreation and irrigation

a

Lakeshore cleaning c Monitor water quality aProviding bins and encouragingpeople to collect and burn theirrubbish

c Promoting organic farming system andreducing the use of inorganic fertilizer

b

Promulgate rules that prohibitdumping waste and rubbishinto the lake

c Plan to establish autonomous institutionfor management of the lake

b

Plan to formulate development planning b,dDevelop simple and applicable technologyfor waste water treatment

b

Table 2. Excerpt of the classification of reactions of resource users and government to stresses and shocks: the case of Bangai andwater pollution at Lake Sangkarak (the full table and information sources are available in the Supplementary Material, Table SM1)List of sourcesA, Bapedalda, 2008; b, Ministry of Environment of Republic of Indonesia, 2006; c, own observations, interview and focus groupdiscussion with stakeholders, 2009; d, speech of governor of West Sumatra.

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Resource Users’ Level

In Indonesia, resource users used both responding and controlling actions. Controlling actions are made possible bythe social characteristics of the system, here the capacity of the fisher community to build organizations, therebyincreasing their power and apply controlling measures on the identified driver. For instance, the growing fishermanpopulation is met by a self-restrictive informal agreement to control fishing operations. Such controlling actionsmay even increase the resilience of the system. In the commercial and smallholder rangeland areas, controllingactions are fewer than the responses, as farmers are traditionally less organized and therefore have less power overdrivers at the scale of their occurrence. However, in both the Namibian and the Patagonian cases, communities haveformed to guarantee access to emergency pastures as a response to drought shocks, to improve sales prices orshare costs in order to improve their control on net margins (reaction to stress). Here, a restructuration of thesystem (social organization) was carried out: this shows the adaptation properties of the system. It is through thisadaptation that the system is capable of undertaking controlling measures. Not surprisingly, controlling a reactionto drought/fodder shortage was observed only on a few farms in both Namibia and Patagonia, with the productionof own fodder.

Responding actions are described in the following two sections.

ShocksBoth of the shocks under study (drought and Bangaï) are of an environmental nature and affect the ability of thefishers to generate income from their resources in the short term. Resource users opt for typical risk-reduction

Figure 2. Main actions taken for the management of SESs in the face of selected shocks and stresses, and relationships betweenactions in south Namibia. Data sources are listed in Table SM1, Supplementary Material

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responses such as income diversification with off-farm income, livestock or fish diversification, or a switch toresistant livestock or fish. This last option has the particularity that, while increasing the resilience of the SES,it may lead to resource depletion and to a loss in the long-term resilience and in the robustness of the SES. Inthe rangelands, strategies consist of two types of response. The acute response is to sell stock and/or purchasefodder, while enduring responses consist in keeping a buffer of biomass on the farm and/or of cash at the bankat all times. Enduring responses characterize farming systems that are adapted to managing shocks.

StressesThe stresses considered here are ecological (resource degradation), socio-ecological (the increased land occupation)or economic (decreasing sale prices), but have in the common that they all threaten the ability of land users tosurvive without changing their livelihood strategy. In the case of rangelands, responses include income, livestockand product diversification, and improved land management techniques, which increase the robustness ofthe SES by addressing the several types of stress. Other responses yet are land abandonment, rural exodus andeconomy of scale by increasing farm size. These reduce the stability of the farming community because theylead to the shrinking of the rural population. A too small population can be detrimental to agricultural and ruraldevelopment – which may jeopardize long-term robustness (O’Farrell et al., 2008). As individuals, fishers of thelake SES interestingly engage in the same responses as individual farmers in the rangeland: diversification in bothfishing (processing fish to increase sale price and added value) and non-fishing activities (merchant, more intensefarming) and in extreme cases outmigration. The lake system presents the additional challenge of organizing resourceuse among different user groups. Here, powerful users such as the government-owned hydro-electric power plant(HEPP) use control measures and may impose decisions on farmers at the downstream area. Yet, the fishing

Figure 3. Main actions taken for the management of SESs in the face of selected shocks and stresses, and relationships betweenactions in northwestern Patagonia. Data sources are listed in Table SM1, Supplementary Material

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communities organize themselves in order to gain power in communication with these other actors and learn throughmonitoring of water level and weather.

Authorities’ Level

As we expected, governments have made use of many more control measures than resource users in all threecase studies. Yet, governments have also used an even greater number of responsive measures. Both typesare described below.

ShocksIn Indonesia, the government recently became active in the management of Bangai by combining the preventiveresponse of investing in research and in monitoring the lake’s condition with the controlling measure of prohibitingthe fishing of endemic species sensitive to Bangai. The latter has a direct negative impact on fishermen’s incomesand reduces their resilience and robustness. In the case of droughts in rangelands, the Argentinean governmentfocuses on the income situation of the farmers and acts through measures alleviating the financial consequencesof drought (with fodder or financial aids), which may increase the resilience of pastoralists in the short term. Inthe long term, however, farmers may become dependent on government aid, which locks them in a given systeminstead of fostering adaptation to drought events. Subsidizing post-drought restocking was practiced in bothNamibia and Patagonia; yet, if too early, restocking may lead to land degradation, which affects both the resilienceand the robustness of the system. In Namibia, though, financial assistance and controlling options fell out offashion under the new Drought Policy of 1997 after peaking during the drought of 1993 with the creation ofmore than 100 boreholes throughout the country to increase water availability. In both Namibia and Patagonia,

Figure 4. Main actions taken for the management of SESs in the face of selected shocks and stresses, and relationships betweenactions in Indonesia. Data sources are listed in Table SM1, Supplementary Material

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measures now aim at helping farmers increase their endurance to drought (that is, their resilience) by investing inresearch on sustainable rangeland and water use (e.g. research on alternative grazing strategies) and strengthening theeconomic environment of the SES and its capacity of absorbing variability in cash availability and fodder (i.e. improvingmarketing channels, saving possibilities).

StressesWhen faced with endogenous and long-term environmental problems (stresses), governments make much use ofrespondingmeasures including R&D to improve or transform the existing systems and stop environmental degradation(re-forestation, improved grazing strategies). The adoption of the strategies is strengthened through the enhancementof knowledge transfer with extension services and the development of appropriate infrastructure with subsidies. Thismore systemic or holistic approach backs up controllingmeasures aiming at preventing immediate further degradation(e.g. prohibition of throwing waste in the lake, introducing conditionality in loans based on the land condition). Yet, inIndonesia, local initiatives in waste collection or the prohibited use of explosives for fishing may fail due to the lack offinancial support from the government (no trucks to drive rubbish to dumps, no control of fishers’ practices). Insofar asthe two rangelands are concerned, governments cope with economic or political stresses, usually external to the SES,through major controlling interventions such as long-term subsidies and even currency devaluation in Argentinain order to maintain the viability of land-use activities and the durability of the system. Meanwhile, they invest inmarketing structures or technological improvement, which may improve the systems’ structure and lead to fundamentaladaptation (robustness). For example, in Patagonia there are incentives for water redistribution in meadows to restorehydrological functions and productivity, and a shift to more intensive livestock systems in order to promote productdiversification such as meat (e.g. including pre-birth ewe supplementation, shelters for lambing). In the specialcase of land reform in Namibia, the government has backed up many local initiatives by financing the exchangeof farmer knowledge, by transparently monitoring the land reform process and by looking at alternatives for moreintensive uses of the land.

Synergies and Trade-offs in the Effect of Actions on Sustainability Properties of SESs

Trade-offs and synergies in the effect of the implementation of actions in the face of given drivers on thedifferent system properties were not checked empirically; rather, they are highlighted here as potentiallyoccurring. Although an exhaustive analysis of all possible effects was not possible, some major trends couldbe inferred from the analysis.

Our assumptions concerning the effect of measures on the four system properties are the following.

(1) Actions aiming at increasing the flexibility and adaptation capacity of the system (versus inertia) foster the resilienceand robustness of an SES.

(2) As generally recognized now, large portfolios of options and diversification contribute to the resilience of an SESand contribute to robustness by maintaining social capital in relation to different possible development paths.

(3) Social–human and natural capital are essential assets to enhance both the resilience and robustness propertiesof an SES (Folke, 2006; Schouten et al., 2009).

The resulting identified synergies are marked with arrows with (+) signs in Figures 2–4. The data illustrate thatall actions enhancing flexibility, protecting the natural, human and social capital and supporting a diverse portfolioof activities at the SES level have multiple positive effects.

In contrast, trade-offs were found among the effect of some options (marked with arrows with (�) signs inFigures 2–4). A first trend is that actions aiming at enhancing stability/durability by masking shocks/stresses(e.g. through subvention programmes) support a rigid management and thereby may create a de-coupling be-tween the system and its environment, itself characterized by variability (Roe et al., 1998; Domptail, 2011). Thisdecoupling can lead to a loss of natural capital (degradation through artificially maintained high stocking rates)and does not favour social reorganization (inertia), thereby affecting both the resilience and robustness propertiesof the system. Second, actions aiming at maintaining the structure in place (stability/durability) at the expense ofthe natural capital of the SES also reduce its resilience and robustness. These responses include the switch fromthe use of one resource to another (another fish, another breed, another unique product), which increases neither

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the economic nor the ecological resilience to shocks, and may even deplete a further resource. Examples includefishermen turning to the exploitation of other lake resources after fish depletion, or the conversion of marginallands to farmland to accommodate the social demand for private ranches in Namibia.

Third, a key challenge here was to identify trade-offs between the enhancement of resilience and robustness inorder to justify the distinction between the two properties. Here, we have no assumption and worked inductively.We found that, in some cases, actions aiming at increasing the resilience of the system may also affect negativelyits robustness. One effect noticed was that actions targeting increased resilience may affect the social capital ofthe system and thereby its ability to adapt in the long term. For instance, temporary outmigration related to incomediversification of fishermen as a response to pollution shocks may lead to the gradual loss of social cohesion andmanagement knowledge. Another example consists in destocking subsidies, which help farmers to be flexible inthe face of drought, yet they incite inertia in the system as farmers do not seek for ways to manage variability withinresources stemming from their own farming system. Conversely, a case of negative effect of responses to stressesaiming at robustness on the resilience property was identified. Rural exodus and corresponding economy of scalethrough increasingly large farms affects the social capital by weakening the social tissue and favouring the erosionof local knowledge, and thus possibly resilience. Here though, the question remains among the authors as towhether seeking a solution outside the system consists in an adaptation response at all, as the SES may eventuallynot assume its function in the long term.

Discussion

Hypotheses

Our first hypothesis suggests that powerful actors favour controlling actions. We distinguished mainly betweenthe scale of the resource user and the national/state scale, and found first that, when the social system is sociallyorganized (state or communities), more controlling measures are possible and thus indeed carried out. In fact, atboth the state and community levels, controlling actions were undertaken to a much greater degree than at theindividual level. In the case of the lake SES, the social structure based on nagari1 (village communities) and thefurther establishment of interest groups facilitated a concentration of power helpful in achieving control overcertain stresses. Controlling measures were found to a far lesser extent in the context of ‘private’ pastoralism.The social complexity and the system’s capacity to organize (i.e. its social capital) seem to play an important roleas to whether or not controlling measures can take place. Interestingly, the response to given stresses by enhancingthe robustness property of the SES through a restructuration (e.g. the creation of farmer groups/unions in Patagonia)has been a step towards the use of other measures of a command-and-control nature (such as price control). Thus,there is an evolutionary dynamic taking place within the SES systems where some properties may support thestrengthening of others.

Second, we proposed that it is possible and useful to distinguish between responses to stresses and responsesto shocks. The application of the distinction to empirical cases was challenging because there is a large domainwhere the borderline between the two concepts is fuzzy. Shocks may be the trigger for a long-term stress, to whichadaptation strategies will be needed to survive. An example is the case of a tsunami: the impact of this radicalshock on the long-term development path of the island of Trinket, India, was investigated based on the conceptof social–ecological transitions (see, e.g., Singh, 2008). Conversely, stresses might consist of a series of shockevents occurring with an increasing frequency. For instance, climate change is a stress, which in the rangelandscould be manifested through the increasing occurrence of extreme rainfall events, especially droughts. Therecurrence of shocks may bring the system below a threshold of stability, where feedbacks invert and the systemshifts towards a new state (see, e.g., López et al., 2013). Therefore, identifying a given driver of change as ashock or stress may be a matter of perspective. Not surprisingly, a related difficulty was that some responsesto shocks appeared as both resilience and robustness seeking. Long-term adaptations especially, aiming at

1Nagari is the name of the traditional village, pre-colonial political units of the Minangkabau political organization (von Benda-Beckmann and vonBenda-Beckmann, 2001).

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mitigating the effects of recurrent shocks, contribute to the robustness of the system by maintaining a largeportfolio of development pathways.

In this analysis, we solved the problem by keeping to the perspective of the information source, often the actorundertaking the action. This is in our view a good solution because it reflects the perspective of the actor and theaim of his actions is clarified. If there is evidence that shocks are increasing in frequency, becoming stresses, whilethe only actions undertaken target the increase of resilience under given conditions, this shortcoming will berevealed by the use of the Leach et al. (2010) framework.

Nevertheless, the distinction between stresses and shocks appears very useful for two further reasons. First, inthe Namibian and Patagonian cases, it appeared that stresses shaped the changing background: they were partof the context in which the SES had to manage itself and constrained its reactions to shocks. For instance, landdegradation (stress) increases the felt impact of droughts (shock) on the SES. In such cases, a distinction couldbe made between slow variables and short-term variables. It becomes clear that slow variables (the stresses)interact with short-time variables, but need to be tackled with different kinds of tool or action or in complementaritywith other tools/actions. Here, the discrimination between shocks and stresses does provide clarity in the analysis ofthe management of the SES.

Second, we could identify a pattern in the responses to shocks versus the responses to stresses. As suggested by theconcept of resilience management (Cumming and Peterson, 2005), actions directed towards resilience building weremore of a technical or practical nature, both within (example of the rangelands: buffering the effect of drought with cashand biomass stocks) and in the context (e.g. create new markets for hoodia plants in the context of a diversification ofagricultural activities) of the system. They are based on a fairly sound understanding of the system. Actions aimed atfavouring robustness and adaptation on the other hand were rather of another nature, such as investment in pro-activeresearch and development programmes, capacity-building and learning programmes all aimed at increasing theknowledge and social capital of the system. This is probably because it is very difficult to predict how slow variableswill influence the system and means to reduce our uncertainty about ways to cope with the future are sought. Thisresult again supports the statement that distinguishing shocks from stresses can be helpful in policy making,because they address different types of property, but maybe also different levels of uncertainty.

Our third hypothesis states that enhancing the resilience of a systemdoes not necessarily improve its robustness.Wehave found evidence of this in the Namibian and Patagonian cases, where states tried to increase the resilience offarming systems with destocking and restocking incentives, which increases the dependency of the farmers onstate revenues and may lead to degradation (Illius and O’Connor, 1999). In the Indonesian case, the response oftemporary migration may also be prejudicial to robustness because it may reduce the capacity of the humancomponent of the SES to find solutions within the SES. While the actions mitigate the impact of the shock, theytend to annihilate incentives for a structural change in the resource use system.

Assessing Sustainability

This section comments on our perception of our ability to use the framework to assess the sustainability ofgiven policy measures or land use management actions. A first contribution of the framework for sustainabilityassessment is the shock/robustness differentiation (rather than dichotomy). This helps in raising awarenessamong the actors of whether a strategy aims at the maintenance of a given system or at the adaptation of thesystem towards a new state.

A second point is that we found that not all controlling actions had negative impacts on the other systemproperties or on their efficiency to deal with the stress/shock. Some (e.g. the self-restrictive agreement on fishingreached by the nagaris in Singkarak) are very helpful in combination with others to act towards a more sustainableuse of resources in the short term. This brings us to our main suggestion of the use of the framework forsustainability assessment. We propose that the identification of synergies and trade-offs between the effects ofmanagement actions on the four system properties (step four of our methodology) is the key to the assessmentof sustainability. Using the framework helps to identify how given actions are targeting a given property andtherefore also how this could theoretically affect the others. In this paper we used and proposed the followingheuristics to assess sustainability: (i) policy measures need to be both controlling to deal with short-term impactsand responsive to enhance flexibility and long-term adaptation and (ii) measures enhancing one property that do

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not impact negatively on the three other system properties are more effective in reaching the aim of sustainablemanagement. This is an important methodological step, since the lack of a standardized methodological toolremains the object of current conceptual developments and a bottleneck for sustainability discussions and assessments.By using these (or improved) heuristics, the framework can also be used, in combination with others as wemention in the next section, for ex-ante policy measure assessment (Schleyer and Theesfeld, 2011).

Limitations

The framework in itself does not allow differentiating between strong and weak sustainability (sensu Ekinset al., 2003). Indeed, one adaptation strategy of people confronted with the degradation of their resources isto turn to another resource (e.g. next fish species, neighbouring land). While the strategy may prove successfulin the short term, we consider such a strategy to exhibit only weak sustainability, as natural resources areoften exchanged for other resources in the search for livelihoods. Following Anderies et al. (2004), we concurthat robust and sustainable adaptation strategies should only concern cases where both the social and theecological subsystems are maintained within an SES (i.e. strong sustainability). In addition, the differentiationbetween shock and stresses does not help in anticipating non-linear dynamics and the occurrence of long-termchanges as a result of small shocks.

Second, despite it being the aim of the framework, highlighting the conflicts or synergies between actionsremains challenging. While criteria to classify an action aiming at resilience, robustness, durability andstability are clear, the criteria to evaluate their impact on the other three system properties were not definedin the framework. Rather, the three assumptions developed to identify trade-offs and synergies among systemproperties in the results section are based on findings in the literature and logical reasoning. For instance,off-farm diversification could lead to the erosion of farmer knowledge and social networks, resulting in a lossin the adaptive capacity of the SES; but income diversification can also directly increase the robustness of theSES (Easdale and Rosso, 2010). Thus, the interpretation is largely based on (our) ‘expert judgement’, whichmay constitute the major weakness of the framework. This limitation is more critical when policy needs tobe designed and implemented.

A third limitation is that the framework does not provide help in visualizing interactions of subsystems withinthe SES. As an example, subsidies for restocking may increase the resilience of the economic subsystem whilereducing that of the ecological one.

When uncertainty is low and knowledge is existent (be it local, traditional, or scientific) and there is a need forex-ante policy assessment, these three limitations can be addressed by using complementary methods duringproject design and delivery (Raymond et al., 2010), and explicit models to test the assumptions on the impactof a given management action. For example, the state-and-transition model (STM) classifies land condition bydefining structural and functional features (states) and shifts (transitions) that might occur as a result of theimpact of disturbance factors (such as shocks or stresses) in combination with given management actions(Bestelmeyer et al., 2004; López et al., 2011). A challenge is to adapt such a framework to a system wider than onlynatural, towards an integral SES level analysis. This has already been attempted by e.g. Domptail (2011), whodeveloped a bio-economic model based on the state-and-transition model. Bio-economic modelling integratesbiophysical and socio-economic dynamics of a studied system, and provides opportunities to explore the implicationsand responses to policy changes (Janssen and van Ittersum, 2007; Domptail et al., 2012).

When uncertainty is greater, methods with a greater participatory character, including social learning, throughfor instance scenario building can be used to assess the potential impact of the policies (Cumming and Peterson,2005; Biggs et al., 2010). Some of the criteria to evaluate the scenarios may include, in addition to the usual variablesdepicting the ecological and economic state of the system under various scenarios, the SES’s four sustainabilityproperties. In addition to bringing together different types of knowledge (practical and scientific), scenarios areparticularly useful to deal with the uncertain occurrence of tipping points and sudden changes in the system. Thisaspect is not explicitly existent in the studied framework.

Finally, cross-scale interactions between actions do not appear explicitly. To consider the different scales ofmanagement more adequately, it is useful to consider using the method within a cross-scale framework, whichallows for the visualization of such interactions (Scoones et al., 2007).

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Conclusion

The paper contributes to the discussion highlighting the applicability of the concept of resilience of SESs to theunderstanding of the dynamics and adaptive capacity of complex systems. The resilience–robustness conceptualframework developed by Leach et al. (2010) is applied to three social–ecological systems in order to evaluate itsefficiency in analyzing the sustainable management of systems. By using the two concepts of robustness andresilience, we address the notions of function and structure of SESs separately (Stagl, 2009).

The findings from the Namibian case study showed that Namibia is evolving towards amore pro-activemanagementof rangelands, where both ecological and social resilience and robustness are aimed at by both farmer organizations andthe government. In Patagonia, except for the development of alternative grazing and production methods and thegeneration of scientific information, government actions have failed to address the degradation problem directly.However, emerging public support through financial assistance with more proactive monitoring and managementof rangelands, and resurgence of extension services, may reinforce SES robustness in the long run. As for SingkarakLake, fishing communities are moving to improve their resilience and robustness strengthened by a remarkable socialcapital, yet this strength has not been backed up by the government, who have failed to simultaneously address thevulnerability and resource degradation issues.

We suggest that the analysis should be carried out in the context of the historical, ecological and social background(especial organization) of a given SES and should necessarily include the identification of trade-offs and synergiesamong the impact of management actions on the four key system properties: stability, durability, resilienceand robustness. Applied in this way, the framework provides a valuable picture of the nature, coherence andsustainability of the measures taken to manage specific SES and contributes to policy making by providing anex-ante assessment of the sustainability of the measures. By applying the framework at different institutional levelsof management, comparisons can be made within one system or region, as well as between systems or amongdifferent regions. However, further developments would gain from addressing two main identified limitations.First, actions mitigating impacts of shocks are not necessarily resilience seeking. Rather, they may contribute torobustness if shocks are regular. Second, socio-ecological interactions are not explicitly considered, which mayrender it difficult to evaluate the contribution of a particular action towards sustainable management of SES.Therefore, we suggest using a framework complementary to other ex-ante policy impact analyses such as bio-economicmodelling, or scenario building.

Acknowledgments

This paper is a result of enriching interactions originally promoted by the Fourth THEMES Summer School (2009) – IntegratedAnalysis of Complex, Adaptive Systems, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, which was supported by the European Society forEcological Economics (ESEE), the International Human Dimension Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP)and the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE). We thank Andy Stirling and Sigrid Stagl for enrichingdiscussions during early stages of this article. We would also like to thank anonymous reviewers for their constructivecomments, and participants in the Ninth European International Farming System Association (IFSA) Symposium – 2009,Vienna, Austria. Special thanks go to Christine Domptail for English proof-reading.

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45Resilience and Robustness in Social-Ecological Systems

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