Integration Research for Shaping Sustainable Regional Landscapes

Ecological and social systems are complex and entwined. Complex social-ecological systems interact in a multitude of ways at many spatial scales across time. Their interactions can contribute both positive and negative consequences in terms of sustainability and the context in which they exist affecting future landscape change. Non-metropolitan landscapes are the major theatre of interactions where large-scale alteration occurs precipitated by local to global forces of economic, social, and environmental change. Such regional landscape effects are critical also to local natural resource and social sustainability. The institutions contributing pressures and responses consequently shape future landscapes and in turn influence how social systems, resource users, governments, and policy makers perceive those landscapes and their future. Science and policy for "sustainable" futures need to be integrated at the applied "on-ground" level where products and effects of system interactions are fully included, even if unobserved. Government agencies and funding bodies often consider such research as "high-risk". This paper provides some examples of interdisciplinary research that has provided a level of holistic integration through close engagement with landholders and communities or through deliberately implementing integrative and innovative on-ground experimental models. In retrospect, such projects have to some degree integrated through spatial (if not temporal) synthesis, policy analysis, and (new or changed) institutional arrangements that are relevant locally and acceptable in business, as well as at broader levels of government and geography. This has provided transferable outcomes that can contribute real options and adaptive capacity for suitable positive futures.

[1]  W. Budd.  Land mosaics: The ecology of landscapes and regions , 1996 .

[2]  J. Lopreato,et al.  General system theory : foundations, development, applications , 1970 .

[3]  Tilbuster Commons: Synergies of theory and action in new agricultural commons on private land , 2003 .

[4]  L. Legendre.  Science, culture and eco-ethics , 2004 .

[5]  S. Carpenter,et al.  Coping with Collapse: Ecological and Social Dynamics in Ecosystem Management , 2001 .

[6]  Hanna J. Cortner,et al.  Institutions matter: the need to address the institutional challenges of ecosystem management , 1998 .

[7]  T. Brett.  Understanding organizations and institutions , 1999 .

[8]  J. Black.  New Institutionalism and Naturalism in Socio‐Legal Analysis: Institutionalist Approaches to Regulatory Decision Making , 1997 .

[9]  Carl Folke,et al.  Rights to nature : ecological, economic, cultural, and political principles of institutions for the environment , 1996 .

[10]  Arthur S. Lieberman,et al.  Landscape Ecology , 1994, Springer New York.

[11]  Barbara J. Dilly.  Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: The Search for a Value of Place , 2004 .

[12]  Robert E. Goodin,et al.  The Theory of Institutional Design , 1998 .

[13]  John Cairns,et al.  Integrating top-down/bottom-up sustainability strategies: an ethical challenge , 2003 .

[14]  S. Singleton.  Constructing Cooperation: The Evolution of Institutions of Comanagement , 1998 .

[15]  G. Brady.  Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , 1993 .

[16]  J. Walkup.  How institutions think , 1990 .

[17]  Robert V. O'Neill,et al.  A hierarchical perspective can help scientists understand spatial patterns , 2007 .

[18]  R. Challen.  Institutions, transaction costs and environmental policy : institutional reform for water resources , 2000 .

[19]  A. Goldberg.  General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. , 1969 .

[20]  A. D. Armand,et al.  Landscape boundaries: consequences for biotic diversity and ecological flows. , 1992 .

[21]  Robert G. Bailey,et al.  DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN WATERSHEDS AND ECOREGIONS 1 , 1997 .

[22]  R. Platt,et al.  Land use and society , 2004 .

[23]  Dorothy Shelston,et al.  The Culture of the Cities , 1990 .

[24]  D. Bromley,et al.  Environment and Economy: Property Rights and Public Policy , 1991 .

[25]  D. Brunckhorst,et al.  Institutions to sustain ecological and social systems , 2002 .

[26]  David de Meza,et al.  Economic Behaviour and Institutions. , 1992 .

[27]  Land Use and Society: Geography, Law, and Public Policy , 2005 .

[28]  D. Brunckhorst,et al.  Reinventing the common : cross-boundary farming for a sustainable future , 2003 .

[29]  D. Brunckhorst.  Building capital through bioregional planning and biosphere reserves , 2001 .

[30]  Carl J. Walters,et al.  Large‐Scale Management Experiments and Learning by Doing , 1990 .

[31]  Thomas Michael Power.  Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: The Search For A Value Of Place , 1996 .

[32]  L. Mumford.  The Culture of Cities , 1939, Nature.

[33]  Irwin Weintraub,et al.  Ecological Vignettes: Ecological Approaches to Dealing With Human Predictions , 1999 .

[34]  R. O'Neill,et al.  Landscape Ecology Explained@@@Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice: Pattern and Process , 2001 .

[35]  David Feeny,et al.  Making the commons work: theory, practice, and policy , 1995 .

[36]  Carl J. Walters,et al.  Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources , 1986 .

[37]  I. Reeve.  Property and participation: An Institutional analysis of rural resource management and Landcare in Australia. , 1996 .

[38]  R. O'Neill.  A Hierarchical Concept of Ecosystems. , 1986 .

[39]  Robert Costanza,et al.  Ecological economic systems analysis: order and chaos , 1993 .

[40]  D. Brunckhorst,et al.  Bioregional Planning: Resource Management Beyond the New Millennium , 2000 .

[41]  D. North.  Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance: Economic performance , 1990 .

[42]  J. Lyle.  Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use, and Natural Resources , 1985 .

[43]  Jianguo Wu.  Biodiversity and Landscapes: A Paradox of Humanity , 1995, Journal of Environmental Quality.

[44]  C. S. Holling.  Two Cultures of Ecology , 1998 .

[45]  Triumph of the Commons: Age-Old Participatory Practices Provide Lessons for Institutional Reform in the Rural Sector , 1999 .

[46]  M. Price.  Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems , 2003 .

[47]  Robert E. Ulanowicz,et al.  Scale and Biodiversity Policy: A Hierarchical Approach , 1994 .

[48]  S. Fisher.  River ecology and management: Lessons from the Pacific coastal ecoregion , 2000 .

[49]  R. Naiman,et al.  River ecology and management : lessons from the Pacific coastal ecoregion , 2000 .

[50]  K. Johnson,et al.  Bioregional assessments : science at the crossroads of management and policy , 1999 .

[51]  M. McKean.  Designing New Common Property Regimes for New Landscape Futures (revised, December 1999) , 1999 .

[52]  Howard Hunt Pattee,et al.  Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems , 1973 .

[53]  C. Holling,et al.  Command and Control and the Pathology of Natural Resource Management , 1996 .

[54]  C. Folke,et al.  Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience , 1998 .

[55]  Peter B. Landres,et al.  Stewardship across boundaries , 1998 .

[56]  B. Walker.  Conserving Biological Diversity through Ecosystem Resilience , 1995 .

[57]  E. Ostrom,et al.  Revisiting the commons: local lessons, global challenges. , 1999, Science.

[58]  I. Reeve,et al.  ‘Eco-civic’ optimisation: A nested framework for planning and managing landscapes , 2006 .

[59]  D. Slocombe.  Implementing Ecosystem-Based Management , 1993 .

[60]  D. M. Kilgour,et al.  designing institutions for environmental and resource management , 1998 .

[61]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions , 1997 .

[62]  R. Naiman,et al.  River Ecology and Management , 1998 .

[63]  Reed F. Noss,et al.  A Regional Landscape Approach to Maintain Diversity , 1983 .

[64]  C. Folke,et al.  Ecological practices and social mechanisms for building resilience and sustainability , 1998 .