Conservation Success as a Function of Good Alignment of Social and Ecological Structures and Processes |
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Authors: | ÖRJAN BODIN BEATRICE CRONA MATILDA THYRESSON ANNA‐LEA GOLZ MARIA TENGÖ |
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Institution: | 1. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, , 10691 Stockholm, Sweden;2. Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, , Stockholm, Sweden;3. Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Science, Stockholm University, , 10691 Stockholm, Sweden |
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Abstract: | How to create and adjust governing institutions so that they align (fit) with complex ecosystem processes and structures across scales is an issue of increasing concern in conservation. It is argued that lack of such social‐ecological fit makes governance and conservation difficult, yet progress in explicitly defining and rigorously testing what constitutes a good fit has been limited. We used a novel modeling approach and data from case studies of fishery and forest conservation to empirically test presumed relationships between conservation outcomes and certain patterns of alignment of social‐ecological interdependences. Our approach made it possible to analyze conservation outcome on a systems level while also providing information on how individual actors are positioned in the complex web of social‐ecological interdependencies. We found that when actors who shared resources were also socially linked, conservation at the level of the whole social‐ecological system was positively affected. When the scales at which individual actors used resources and the scale at which ecological resources were interconnected to other ecological resources were aligned through tightened feedback loops, conservation outcome was better than when they were not aligned. The analysis of individual actors’ positions in the web of social‐ecological interdependencies was helpful in understanding why a system has a certain level of social‐ecological fit. Results of analysis of positions showed that different actors contributed in very different ways to achieve a certain fit and revealed some underlying difference between the actors, for example in terms of actors’ varying rights to access and use different ecological resources. El Éxito de la Conservación como Función de una Buena Alineación de Estructuras y Procesos Sociales y Ecológicos |
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Keywords: | common pool resource management environmental governance scale mismatch social‐ecological fit social‐ecological systems adecuació n socio‐ecoló gica desigualdad de escala gobernanza ambiental manejo comú n de recursos acumulados sistemas socio‐ecoló gicos |
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