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xxii The third theme is one of adaptive change and learning. Cycles of slow accumulation of natural
and cultural capital - in an ecosystem, an institution, or a society - are interspersed with rapid phases
of reorganization where, for transient moments, novelty can emerge to become subsequently entrained.
p.5 our purpose is to develop an integrative theory to help us understand the changes occurring globally.
We seek to understand the source and role of change in systems - particularly the kinds of changes that are transforming,
in systems that are adaptive. Such changes are economic, ecological, social, and evolutionary. they concern rapidly unfolding
processes and slowly changing ones - gradual change and episodic change, local and global changes.
The theory we develop must of necessity transcend boundaries of scale and discipline.
It must be capable of organizing our understanding of economic, ecological, and institutional systems. And
it must explain situations where all three types of systems interact. The cross-scale, interdisciplinary, and dynamic nature
of the theory has lead us to coin the term panarchy for it [JLJ p.21 The term was coined as an antithesis
to the word hierarchy]. Its essential focus is to rationalize the interplay between change and persistence,
between the predictable and unpredictable. Thus, we drew upon the Greek god Pan to capture an image of unpredictable
change and upon notions of hierarchies across scales to represent structures that sustain experiments, test results, and allow
adaptive evolution.
p.9 Ecosystem ecologists, on the other hand, have made it plain for a long while
that some of the most telling properties of ecological systems emerge from the interactions between slow-moving and fast-moving
processes and between processes that have large spatial reach and processes that are relatively localized. Those
interactions are not only non-linear; they generate alternating stable states and normal journeys of biotic and abiotic variables
through these states... They maintain the resilience of ecological systems.
p.10 In order to plan for sustainability, we need to know, and we need to integrate, how
information is evaluated and counterproductive information rejected. How is new "knowledge" created from competing
information sources and incorporated with useful existing knowledge? Which processes create novelty, which smother innovation,
which foster it... Neither ecology, nor economics, nor institutional theory now deals well with these fundamental
questions of innovation, emergence, and opportunity. That is what evolutionary theory is about...
The emergence of novelty that creates unpredictable opportunity is at the heart of sustainable development...
Biological evolutionary theory... deals with just this process. The new field of complexity studies sees ecological,
economic, and social systems as being similar to biological processes that generate variability and expose the patterns that
result to selective forces... In this book we argue that the process of developing policies and investments for sustainability
requires a worldview that integrates ecological with economic with institutional with evolutionary theory - that overcomes
disconnects due to limitations of each field.
p.19 In our quest, we would like to discover ways to integrate and extend existing theory to achieve
a requisite level of simplicity, just complex enough to capture and explain the behaviors we see. Those include explanations
of discontinuous patterns in space, time, and structure and explanations for how novelty emerges, is
suppressed, or is entrained. For prescriptive purposes we also seek adaptive ways to deal with surprise and
the unpredictable. We concentrate on adaptive approaches that do not smother opportunity, in contrast
to control approaches that presume that knowledge is sufficient and that consequences of policy implementation are predictable.
p.21 Our goal for this book was to develop and test theories that explain transformational change
in systems of humans and nature, theories that are inherently integrative.
p.25-27 The accumulated body of empirical evidence concerning natural, disturbed, and managed ecosystems identifies
key features of ecosystem structure and function that can be distilled into the following points:
- Change is neither continuous and gradual nor consistently chaotic. Rather it is episodic, with periods
of slow accumulation of natural capital such as biomass, physical structures, and nutrients, punctuated by
sudden releases and reorganization of those biotic legacies... as the result of internal or external natural disturbances
or human-imposed catastrophes. Rare events... can unpredictably shape structure at critical times or at locations
of increased vulnerability.... once the system flips into such a state, only explicit management intervention can
return its previous self-sustaining state, and even then recovery is not assured...
- Spatial attributes are neither uniform nor scale invariant over all scales. Rather, productivity and textures
are patchy and discontinuous at all scales...
- Ecosystems do not have a single equilibrium with homeostatic controls to remain near it. Rather, multiple
equilibria commonly define functionally different states...
- Policies and management that apply fixed rules for achieving constant yields... independent of scale, lead
to systems that increasingly lose resilience... Ecosystems are moving targets, with multiple futures
that are uncertain and unpredictable. There, management has to be flexible, adaptive, and experimental at
scales compatible with the scales of critical ecosystem functions...
Those key features provide the minimal set of strategic criteria that need to be satisfied by any
theory of adaptive change appropriate for ecosystems. They lead to a view of ecosystems that can make sense only
if it is compatible with some vision of both Nature Resilient and Nature Evolving.
p.32 The purpose of theories such as panarchy is not to explain what is; it is to give sense to
what might be. We cannot predict the specifics of future possibilities, but we might be able to define the
conditions that limit or expand those future possibilities. As a consequence, the properties we need to choose
are not those chosen to describe the existing state of a system and its behaviors, but rather ones
chosen to identify the properties and processes that shape the future. This introductory exploration identifies three
requirements in our quest for a theory of adaptive change:
- First, the system must be productive, must acquire resources and accumulate them, not for the present, but
for the potential they offer for the future.
- Second, there must also be some sort of shifting balance between stabilizing and destabilizing forces reflecting
the degree and intensity of internal controls and the degree of influence of external variability.
- Third, somehow the resilience of the system must be a dynamic and changing quantity that generates
and sustains both options and novelty, providing a shifting balance between vulnerability and persistence.
p.32-33 three properties seemed to shape the future responses of the ecosystems, agencies, and people:
- the potential available for change...
- the degree of connectedness between internal controlling variables and processes...
- the resilience of the systems
p.89 The biosphere is a complex adaptive system in which the never ending generation of local variation
creates an environment of continual exploration, selection, and replacement.
p.108 Human beings are "sense making" animals. Through the use of communication,
language, and symbols they collectively invent and reinvent a meaningful order around them and then act in accordance
with that invented world, as if it were real.
p.115 Given the complexity of real world ecosystems, the cost to each agent of building workable predictive
models must surely rise with the level of complexity of the system being modeled by that agent. We can imagine agents in a
model who ignore forward-looking behavior (because it is cheaper to do so) and thereby have a simpler, cheaper, but less predictive
model.
p.132 Overlapping functional diversity increases the variety of possible alternative reorganization patterns
following disturbance and disruption.
p.143 The preferred response is to deal with the crisis while it is still a small disturbance at a lower
level in the panarchy, and not a full-blown, higher-level crisis
p.145-146 Instead of removing or eliminating disturbance altogether, local and traditional adaptations
seem to accept perturbations as an intrinsic part of ecosystem dynamics... Combining complex systems science with
useful insights and attributes of local and traditional systems dealing with complex ecosystem dynamics may enhance the adaptive
capacity for coping with disturbance and building social-ecological resilience.
p.176 A policy of maximization of the sustained yield can succeed only if information about changing conditions
is readily available, and if it is possible to make quick adjustments to changing conditions.
p.211 Obviously, dynamics of ecosystems and socioeconomic systems are strongly intertwined in practice.
Therefore, in order to be able to discuss with some realism how human-nature interactions could be made sustainable,
we need to understand not only the ecosystem properties, but also the main forces that drive the socioeconomic system.
p.352-354 Among the lessons or insights about adaptive management that emerge from these cases are the following:
- To manage adaptively requires strong values as opposed to rational analysis...
- To manage adaptively and respond to complexity, it is necessary to juggle multiple strategies and goals...
- To manage adaptively requires strong control of emotion, little fear of conflict, and great humility...
- In order to manage adaptively, the manager needs to capitalize on the energy and movement of others.
The experience of managing in complex adaptive systems is more similar to catching waves or looking for emergent corridors
for action than pulling strings or working levers.
p.392 Finally, if the adaptive cycle metaphor is applicable to the global system, and if it is true that
adaptive systems must operate sequentially between the phases that maximize production and accumulation and the phases that
maximize invention and reassortment: ... Is a New Sustainability Paradigm at all possible? ... is there a healthy strategy
to maintain an advanced level of civilization while keeping adaptive fitness? Is the deliberate setting of a smaller adaptive
cycle... one such strategy? The answers to these questions are crucial to planning for resilience as an approach to seeking
sustainable futures.
p.398 An adaptive cycle that aggregates resources and periodically restructures to create opportunities
for innovation is a fundamental unit for understanding complex systems from cells to ecosystems to societies to cultures
[JLJ - to humans or machines playing games]"
p.403 Levi-Strauss (1962) coined the term bricolage for this process of recombining existing
elements and new mutations and inventions to form something novel that solves a newly emerged problem or creates new opportunity.
The adaptive cycle accumulates those elements as potential and then, for transient moments, rearranges them for subsequent
testing in changing circumstances. Those of consequence can nucleate new opportunity and accumulate further potential. If
that accumulated potential exceeds a threshold, it can cascade upward in the panarchy and create new panarchial levels.
p.403 Panarchies succinctly summarize the property that we define as sustainability. The
fast, small levels invent, experiment, and test; the slower, larger levels stabilize and conserve accumulated memory of past
successful, surviving experiments. The whole panarchy is both creative and conserving... Sustainability is
the capacity to create, test, and maintain adaptive capability. Development is the process of creating, testing,
and maintaining opportunity.
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