The Evolution of an Ecosystem Approach: the Diamond Schematic and an Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health

Over the past 15 yr, an international network of researchers has developed and tested a methodology for integrating complex systems theories into sustainable development projects. Drawing on our best theoretical understanding of complex systems and combining it with best practices of community engagement drawn from a wide variety of sources, we have developed a methodology that is theoretically sound and practically effective. AMESH, an Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health, has emerged from, and been tested in, Nepal, Kenya, Canada, and Peru.

[1]  R. Lewis,et al.  Ciguatera: recent advances but the risk remains. , 2000, International journal of food microbiology.

[2]  José Morales González,et al.  Bruner, Jerome. (2002). Making stories. Law, literature, life. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. New York. , 2003 .

[3]  Peter Checkland,et al.  Soft Systems Methodology in Action , 1990 .

[4]  Jon Norberg,et al.  Resilience Management in Social-ecological Systems: a Working Hypothesis for a Participatory Approach , 2002 .

[5]  J. Bruner.  Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life , 2002 .

[6]  Peter Checkland,et al.  Systems Thinking, Systems Practice , 1981 .

[7]  David Waltner-Toews,et al.  Linking Human and Ecosystem Health on the Amazon Frontier , 2002 .

[8]  David Waltner-Toews,et al.  Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health (AMESH): An Introduction , 2004 .

[9]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Panarchy Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems , 2002 .

[10]  David Waltner-Toews,et al.  Development and Application of an Integrated Conceptual Framework to Tropical Agroecosystems Based on Complex Systems Theories: Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical–University of Guelph Project , 1997 .

[11]  James J. Kay,et al.  An ecosystem approach for sustainability: addressing the challenge of complexity , 1999 .

[12]  C. S. Holling.  Resilience of ecosystems: local surprise and global change. , 1985 .

[13]  Jerome R. Ravetz,et al.  Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy , 1990 .

[14]  James J. Kay,et al.  Ecosystems as Self-organizing Holarchic Open Systems : Narratives and the Second Law of Thermodynamics , 2000 .

[15]  James J. Kay,et al.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------Embracing Complexity : The Challenge of the Ecosystem Approach , 1994 .

[16]  David Waltner-Toews,et al.  Perspective changes everything: managing ecosystems from the inside out , 2003 .

[17]  Mario Giampietro,et al.  Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Agroecosystems , 2003 .

[18]  David Waltner-Toews,et al.  Agro-ecosystem health: principles and methods used in high-potential tropical agro-ecosystem , 2000 .

[19]  M. White,et al.  Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends , 1990 .

[20]  J. R. Ravets,et al.  Post-Normal Science , 2006 .

[21]  T. Allen,et al.  Dragnet Ecology—“Just the Facts, Ma'am”: The Privilege of Science in a Postmodern World , 2001 .

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

[23]  M. White,et al.  Narrative Practice and Community Assignments , 2003 .

[24]  Gilberto C. Gallopín.  Development and application of an integrated conceptual framework for tropical agroecosystem research based on complex systems theories , 1997 .

[25]  Ian Scoones,et al.  A trainer's guide for participatory learning and action , 1995 .

[26]  Arthur Koestler,et al.  Beyond Atomism and Holism—the Concept of the Holon , 2015 .

[27]  R. Ulanowicz.  Ecology, the ascendent perspective , 1997 .

[28]  Arthur Koestler,et al.  Janus: A Summing Up , 1978 .

[29]  C. Folke,et al.  Social-Ecological Transformation for Ecosystem Management: the Development of Adaptive Co-management of a Wetland Landscape in Southern Sweden , 2004 .

[30]  David Waltner-Toews,et al.  Agro-urban Ecosystem Health Assessment in Kathmandu, Nepal: Epidemiology, Systems, Narratives , 2005, EcoHealth.

[31]  La White,et al.  Community Operational Research: Systems Thinking for Community Development , 2004 .

[32]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  Science for the Post-Normal Age , 1993, Commonplace.