SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL THEORIES AND EMPIRICAL RESEARCH (SETER):

LEARNING FROM AN INTERACTION PROCESS

Francois BOUSQUET, Martine ANTONA, Denis GAUTIER, Nancy PELUSO, Paul ROBBINS, Tor BENJAMINSSEN, Tom BASSETT, Lance GUNDERSON, Allyson QUINLAN, Colin POLSKY, Marco JANSSEN, Olivier BONATO, Jean-Michel VASSAL, Michel LECOQ, Raphael MATHEVET, Monica CASTRO, Tim LYNAM, Charles PERRINGS, Ann KINZIG Abstract — For the last twenty years, the research units based in Montpellier participating in the SETER project have been developing research activities on socio-ecological systems aiming at understanding relationships between agriculture and biodiversity, policies and landscapes dynamics, watershed management, ecosystem management and health risk, etc. At the same time, diverse schools of thought, especially in Europe, USA and Australia, have developed theories and frameworks to analyse the dynamics and management of socio-ecological systems. The objective of the SETER project is to assess the complementarities of these theoretical frameworks by applying and testing them in the case of several empirical research case studies developed by the participating units based in Montpellier for the last twenty years. The method is to host senior researchers for short periods (from one to two months each) during which they interact with the participating units. The same case studies were presented to all invited researchers. Thus the objectives and methods of the theoretical frameworks proposed by the visiting fellows are concretely expressed and analysed. Each case study is analysed from a different angle leading to progress in the understanding of the dynamics and management of the socio-ecological system under study. In this paper we present four different approaches and as a preliminary result, how the researchers using these approaches have analysed one case study. Out of the four case studies we have selected one case study, the locust control in Sahelian region. We present here the case study; and for each approach a brief presentation and then the analysis of the case study. We conclude with some perspectives.

ISDA 2010, Montpellier, June 28-30, 2010

Socio-ecological theories and empirical research (SETER): Learning from an interaction process

Francois Bousquet, Martine Antona, Denis Gautier, Nancy Peluso, Paul Robbins, Tor Benjaminssen, Tom Bassett, Lance Gunderson, Allyson Quinlan, Colin Polsky, Marco Janssen, Olivier Bonato, Jean-Michel Vassal, Michel Lecoq, Raphael Mathevet, Monica Castro, Tim Lynam, Charles Perrings, Ann Kinzig,

1. Introduction For the last twenty years, the research units based in Montpellier participating in this project have been developing research activities on socio-ecological systems 1 aiming at understanding relationships between agriculture and biodiversity, policies and landscapes dynamics, watershed management, ecosystem management and health risk, etc. At the same time, diverse schools of thought, especially in Europe, USA and Australia, have developed theories and frameworks to analyse the dynamics and management of socio-ecological systems.

The objective of this project is to assess the complementarities of these theoretical frameworks by applying and testing them in the case of several empirical research case studies developed by the participating units based in Montpellier for the last twenty years. The method is to host senior researchers for short periods (from one to two months each) during which they interact with the participating units. The same case studies were presented to all invited researchers. Thus the objectives and methods of the theoretical frameworks proposed by the visiting fellows are concretely expressed and analysed. Each case study is analysed from a different angle leading to progress in the understanding of the dynamics and management of the socio-ecological system under study. In this paper we present four different approaches and as a preliminary result, how the researchers using these approaches have analysed one case study. Out of the four case studies we have selected one case study, the locust control in Sahelian region. We present here the case study; and for each approach a brief presentation and then the analysis of the case study. We conclude with some perspectives.

2 The case study: Locust control in the Sahelian region Since the distant past, for many of the poorest countries of Africa, Desert Locust has been one of the most serious crop pest (Steedman 19902). People living in these countries have been seriously hampered by damage caused by this insect. This is a very ancient and regularly occurring phenomenon. The basic scientific locust control principles were first outlined by Boris Uvarov as early as 1937 during an international conference on natural disasters (Uvarov, 19383). To mitigate the risk of crop losses, the requirements are a good understanding of the species' ecology in order to be able to locate outbreak source areas and carry out preventive

1 In this project we use the concept of socio-ecological system (which is more precise than “nature and society”) defined as co-evolving systems that include interdependent social and ecological sub-systems. The concept of socio-ecological system incorporates an integrated focus on the various linkages between these two sides of human-nature interactions (figure 1). 2 Steedman A. (Ed) 1990 - Locust Handbook. Natural resources Institute, Chatham, United Kingdom. 3 Uvarov B.P., 1938. Locust as a world problem. In : Première Conférence internationale pour la protection contre les Calamités naturelles, Paris, 13-17 septembre 1937. Published by « Commission française d'études des calamités » with the support of « Union Internationale de Secours », 1938, pp. 376-382.

control, and also an excellent international cooperation, which is essential due to the high migration potential of this locust.

Research efforts undertaken for a long time resulted in the set up of a preventive control strategy (FAO 19724; Hafraoui & McCulloch 19935). During the first half of the 20th century, there was a rapid increase in knowledge following Uvarov's discovery of the phase polymorphism phenomenon. During the 1930s, the main outbreak areas—which were still unknown—were sought. Then in the late 1930s, the outbreak source areas were generally outlined (for the desert locust and the other main locust species). From that time it was possible to develop a preventive strategy for controlling populations in outbreak source areas. Preventive control organizations were created in various countries. Then, the ecological conditions that facilitate the transformation from the solitary phase to the gregarious phase were slowly better understood. As a result of all this research, invasions are now rare and brief. The control strategy implies monitoring ecological conditions and the locust in its outbreak areas, and conducting preventive treatments against the first gregarious locusts. Regularly applied and improved, this strategy made it possible to reduce the frequency and the duration of the invasions since the 1960s (Lecoq 20016; Skaf et al. 19907).

However, these invasions persist. The most recent one occurred in 2003-2005 and the previous one in 1987-98. Once more, although it was announced by the experts, it could not be stopped on time. Why? And why some plagues cannot be avoided? Of course, the problem can be solved, but only at the cost of heavy expenses, much energy, and the application of large quantities of pesticides in the environment, all of which could have been avoided. Could the problem be better controlled?

The latest plague indicates that it is now essential to radically change our way of thinking, perceiving and dealing with this problem, and to introduce new and innovative approaches to locust issues. Ecological research is no longer the key factor with respect to plague control. The current limiting factors are mainly organizational in nature. The recent plagues were the result of major malfunctions in the desert locust preventive control strategy, and it is clear that current problems in the management of this natural risk are mainly organizational. These organizational issues should be prioritized, otherwise research findings will be wasted. In other words, every time there has been an outbreak over the last 50 years, the main root cause of the problem involved the human organization, and rarely a lack of knowledge. This means that ecological research must be supplemented with research in alternative and less traditional fields.

Strengthening of national locust control units is still far from being sufficient. This is not the real solution to the problem. We must deal with flexibility, a key to the sustainability of the international control organization. For this, we need to consider the locust problem not solely in terms of crop protection, but as a natural hazard with many impacts: agricultural, economic, social, environmental, and political. To deal with this multidimensional problem, it is necessary to build an effective locust risk management plan, developed at different levels - international, regional and national - and include several warning levels, with a specific

4 FAO 1972. Projet relatif au Criquet pèlerin. Rapport complémentaire (juillet 1966-décembre 1970). Report n° FAO/SF:34/DLC. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.

5 Hafraoui A., McCulloch L. 1993 - Present Practices of Controlling Desert Locust Outbreaks. In : Atelier international de la FAO sur la recherche et la planification en matière de lutte contre le Criquet pèlerin tenu à Marrakech (Maroc) du 24 au 28 mai 1993. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.

6 Lecoq M. 2001 - Recent progress in Desert and Migratory Locust management in Africa. Are preventative actions possible ? Journal of Orthoptera Research, 10, 277-291.

7 Skaf R., Popov G.B., Roffey J. 1990 - The Desert Locust : an international challenge. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B328, 525-538.

organization for each one, in order to stall crises before they worsen. This type of instrument could provide a suitable extent of flexibility and reaction potential. But it will only work if funding is readily available to deal with locust situations, and if the needs are clearly known in advance. This would require the creation of an international reserve fund and mobilize countries and donors on a long term basis (Lecoq 20038).

Focus should also be placed on another key point that was recently noticed: the numerous stakeholders involved in desert locust control. The rationales and strategies of these diverse stakeholders can differ markedly. They can be convergent or divergent, and enhance or hamper efficient locust control. A lack of recognition and understanding concerning the many different stakeholders involved in desert locust management - and their operational rationales - is a critical shortcoming. This is a major cause of the malfunctioning of locust management and is detrimental to control efficacy.

Nowadays, desert locust problems should clearly be seen as a risk management system for a natural disaster, still considering standard biological and ecological mechanisms as in the past, while also integrating studies on social, economic, organizational, and cultural mechanisms that were generally overlooked in the past. This is one of the keys to ensuring the sustainability of the locust management system. We have surely to turn towards a more anthropological approach to locust issues and consider them as a component of dynamic social-ecosystems. What are the most adapted theoretical frameworks in the field of complex and dynamic SES, and their resilience, to be applied in the case of desert locust management in the future?

3 The different approaches

3.1 Political ecology9 Coming from a confluence between the ecologically rooted social science and the principles of political economy (Peet and Watts, 1996) in the 70’s to deal with the political circumstances that forced people into activities which caused environmental changes and struggles, the PE is nowadays a very broad and luxuriant approach of the social dynamics about environmental resource access, uses and control. The four professors dealing with PE who kindly answered to our invitation to participate to SETER adventure have not been selected because they were supposed to represent a stream of thought within the PE approach. All of them are able to think and to formulate questions on Nature-Society interactions issues in any of the different streams of though existing in the PE approach (political economy, chain of explanation, following the money, environmental narratives, etc…).

• Nancy Lee Peluso, Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Society & Environment Chair,

● Tom Bassett, Professor of geography and affiliate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Center for African Studies,

8 Lecoq M., 2003 - Desert Locust Threat to Agricultural Development and Food Security and FAO/ International Role in its Control. Arab Journal of Plant Protection, 21, 188-193. 9 For a comprehensive understanding of the Political Ecology approach, its history and emergence over the last century, the conceptual and methodological challenges facing political ecologists, the major questions and controversies that PE addresses and the major challenges it aims to face, it is very helpful to refer to Paul’s Robbins didactic book : ‘Political Ecology’ (2004, Blackwell). This volume, which may be considered as ‘the’ textbook on PE, shows how burgeoning is the field of political ecology.

● Tor Benjaminsen, Associate Professor at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway,

● Paul Robbins, Professor and Department of Geography and Regional Development at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

However, despite their broad view and practices of PE, we have asked them to present the PE with a specific angle, even if their researches are not restricted to a specific approach.

3.1.1 A brief introduction to Politial ecology approach In a first broad approach, Tor Benjaminsen gave us some few key words of introduction to PE. PE can be loosely defined as: the study of power relations in land and environmental management (unequal costs and benefits, winners and losers). The approach put an emphasis on the power relations, thus on the conflicts (which is a main difference with the ’commons’ approach). PE deals with struggles over meanings as well as over land and resources. In term of methodology, PE focuses on empirical knowledge production, with an historical perspective and a combination of various scales. At least, PE is explicitly normative and political (in contrast to ’apolitical ecology’), at the border between science and policy.

Three periods can be distinguished in the history of the PE, corresponding to three paradigms which are still co-existing nowadays.

• 1970s -1985: neo-Marxism

• 1985 -1995: eclectic, structure & agency approach

• 1995 - present: poststructuralism

3.1.2 The theoretical roots of PE It is useful at this point to precise that PE is not a theory but an approach. According to Nancy Peluso, this approach examines:

• The Society-nature dialectics • The Socio-spatial relations inflected with power, manifesting at and influencing

multiple scales ● The Situated-ness: e.g., place-based and non-place based aspects of resource access

and control.

Before developing the theoretical roots of the PE approach, Nancy Peluso gave us a definition of PE from Blaikie and Brookfield (1987) that is in line with what PE examines: “Political Ecology combines the concerns of ecology and a broadly defined political economy”, with an emphasis on: “the constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based resources, and…within society itself”, and an emphasis on the politics of situated-ness in access to resources/nature/environment. Nancy Peluso also precisely defined “Society-Nature dialectic” as a key-concept to understand the theoretical roots of PE. The Society-Nature dialectic is a socio-natural phenomena seen in relation to each other; it is constructed and changing in relation to each other; it is constantly remaking each other through articulations. This dialectic between Society and Nature may lead to consider “socio-natures” as central in PE approaches. Society-Nature Dialectics may be understood through three lenses that correspond to paradigms:

• The Cultural Ecology and Environmental History, that is focused on the concept of adaptation;

• The Political Economy with historical perspectives that is focused on the processes of access/control and accumulation;

● The Post-Structuralism, deconstruction, and science studies that are based on the analysis of the discourses, knowledges, representations, with feminist perspectives throughout. And all, through relationships: being situated

In details, the keys questions for each of these three paradigms help to precise the theoretical roots of PE that is emerging from across these paradigms.

For the cultural ecology, the key questions are:

• What are the patterns and practices of resource use of various users? • How are these use patterns affected by the ecological and biological characteristics of

the resources? ● What are some basic institutions for use and management of the resources?

● How do these patterns and practices of use represent adaptation to a changing social or physical environment?

For the political economy, the key questions are:

• What changes have taken place in the ways the resource is produced, extracted, used, or managed? (practices)

• How does accumulation take place? • How are access to and control of the resource regulated? ● What kinds of marginalization or dispossession take place?

For the post-structural PE, the key questions are:

• What are the claims and counterclaims around this conflict? • What are the larger discourses people draw on to legitimate their claims? • What are the brief histories or origins of these discourses? ● What narratives do the various parties tell to justify their claims?

According to Nancy Peluso, the key questions in PE that are emerging from across these 3 paradigms are the following:

● What difference does nature make?

● What difference does access make?

● What difference does “difference” make?

3.1.3 The philosophical lenses in PE Complementary to the statement of the theoretical roots of PE approach by Nancy Peluso, Tor Benjaminsen brings an enlighting on two possible philosophical ‘postures’ that exist in PE. He illustrates these two postures by the case of cotton and soil fertility in Mali.

The first ‘posture’ is PE as epistemology. This ‘posture’ emphasises the analysis of the nature of knowledge and the production of knowledge, includes scepticism about different knowledge claims, as well as reflectivity, open-ended (Blaikie and Brookfield (eds), 1987; Leach and Mearns, 1996; Forsyth 2003). The typical issues that this PE lens is dealing with are:

- What do we know about environmental change?

- How is this knowledge acquired?

The second ‘posture’ is Political ecology as ontology, an ontological approach implying knowledge and certainty about reality. In the lens, no fundamental questions asked about environmental change. Research seems to be carried out to confirm a certain world view but not to question the changes at run.

Two examples of this ‘posture’ are:

- ‘the evidence from the Sahel famine shows that ecological deterioration and food shortages are not only linked with each other but also structurally related to a specific form of production – international capitalism – and the many secondary effects it produces in even the most marginal and faraway environments’ (Franke and Chasin, 1980: 5)

- Political ecologists ‘must begin with an accurate understanding of capitalist dynamics for the simple and profound reason that they lie at the roots of most problems with which political ecology concerns itself’ (Watts and McCarthy, 1997: 85)

3.1.4 PE as a method, or… something else PE as method is dealing with techniques and modes of explanation. Among the techniques, Paul Robbins quoted the most used in PE, that himself has applied on his study field of Rajasthan: ethnography, field ecology, land cover analysis, environmental and oral history, institutional analysis. Among the modes of explanation, Paul Robbins quoted: chain of explanation, discursive analysis of accepted wisdom?, critical analysis of impacts. However, Paul Robbins gave us an original way to understand what is PE by defining it has a Text. Considering the fact that a Political Ecologist is writing to the heart of contradictions and that she/he using objective as well as subjective elements: Tropes, Arguments, Moods, Ironies, Moral Imperatives… the political ecologist may be considered as an author as much as a researcher.

3.1.5 PE as a critique of environmental orthodoxies Considering that environment and ecology are generally the poor relation of PE, despite PE has emerged in reaction to ‘apolitical ecology’, Tom Bassett gave us a talk on how to integrate ecological data in political ecology approach. For Tom Bassett, Political ecology’s critique of environmental orthodoxies reveals the interplay of science and politics by showing how knowledge is produced by “boundary organizations” (e.g. IPCC, IFCs) that allow certain voices to speak and questions to be asked. In line with Forsyth definition of PE (2003) (i.e. “exploring the way in which science and politics are intertwined in the production of scientific knowledge”), the key questions that Tom Bassett is addressing are the following:

- How do we know that we have environmental problems?

- Who has the authority to make such assessments and declarations?

The natural world has an ontological basis and plays a dynamic role in environmental change, but its agency is socially mediated. That is, how biophysical processes are represented or the storylines that are told (e.g. forest succession) construct nature’s reality into discourses that limit the types of statements that can be made about environmental change dynamics. At the intersection of social and ecological processes, political ecology disrupts conventional views of environmental problems with alternative explanations and perspectives on human-environment relationships. This position of PE as a disruption makes PE a challenging (holistic) analytical approach since it combines positivist and non-positivist epistemologies and methodologies (Blaikie 1999). The process of integrating ecological data into PE analysis begins with an examination of the assumptions and explanations of environmental

orthodoxies, or “received wisdoms”; followed by a reframing of the problem that makes the co-production of science and policy transparent, and incorporates alternative voices, views and data.

3.1.6. Political ecology and locust control In general terms, political ecology approaches this problem from the following position:

The problem is rooted in:

– Spatial/territorial mismatch of political territories and locust breeding sites (micro) and invasion paths (international)

– Significant impacts matched with massively mobilized capital resources – Diverse and divergent interests in control and impact – Politics of Knowledge

• Development and legitimization of expertise and expert power • The “vacuum” of local knowledge

– “Problematization” of locusts in colonial history and transformation of governance in the modern era

This feeds different debates in the field – Globalization exacerbating international problems: trans-boundary problems

unsolved by trans-boundary organizations • Scale • Commons • Geopolitics

– Dispersed governance of dispersed ecologies : How states respond and evolve in response to new ecological challenges?

– The crisis chain of assistance and response: Where does development capital from locusts accumulate?

Several themes were identified

Theme 1: Herders & Agencies

Knowledge & Problem Definition

• Problem/Concept: Herders are distributed across the landscape in areas of locust outbreaks – but information and coordination with these communities is poor

• Theoretical lens: – local ecological knowledge (metis) versus state knowledge (techne) – Assembling networks of knowledge amongst diverse publics – Proximity of experience of local people and its conditioning

Goal: Understanding local actors, perspectives, and narratives

Theme 2: Situating the locust, An historical political ecology

• Concept/Justification – Previous ordering of the locust problem and relationships between local people

and varying institutions are not the same as the ones that exist now. – Yet we know little about how problems were dealt with in previous periods,

how locusts and people were governed (and indeed current relations between the actors have concretized over time.)

– Two Key goals: • Can we learn from the past to cope in the present? • How did present dysfunctions come to be and how might they be

undone

• Theoretical lens – Colonialism and capitalism transformed the “crisis” owing to the larger

political economy – Modern expert power has come to crystallize in the institutional relations of

the present • Question: What happened during previous management regimes and what were the

socio-ecological effects? Theme 3 Geopolitics of Insects

• Observations: – Morocco (wealthy invasion state with agriculture) donates to Mauritania (poor

outbreak state) but Saudi Arabia (wealthy outbreak state without agriculture) does not donate to Yemen (poor invasion state with agriculture).

– Morocco and Mauritania are NOT historically friendly, but this provides an entry point for relations

• Question: – What geopolitical and agro-economic conditions prefigure cooperation or

cooperative failure? – To what degree does locust cooperation generate new openings for

cooperation? Theme 4: Cycles of Remembering and Forgetting

• Problem / Justification – Momentum and resources are mobilized during outbreaks and invasions, but

knowledge goes into remission – Hypothesis: invasion areas remember & outbreak areas forget?

• Theoretical lens: – Institutions do the remembering and the forgetting.

Theme 5: Cycles of Resource Generation and Dissipation

• Problem / Conception: – While locusts go through a cycle of outbreak and invasion, and the

international community goes through a cycle of motivation and oblivion… – the donor and receiver countries and institutions go through a cycle of

“resource generation” and “dissipation” – Hypothesis: Crisis generates conditions for “remembering” locusts that are

mediated by increasingly available capital and institutional conduits • Method: Follow the money

– Social Autopsy – Study the decision-making process within agencies: what other actors are at

work in the decisions and where are they located – Careful accounting of when funds flowed, what was bought, and where did the

materiel go?

3.2 Vulnerability

3.2.1 A brief introduction to vulnerability approach. Colin Polsky is a geographer at Clark University specializing in the study of vulnerability of coupled human-environment systems. This text below is a mix between a text given by C. Polsky for the project and his oral presentation at Agropolis in June 2009.

Taking the example of Katrina hurricane the classical impact model would be based on the following model.

The decision-based approach requires knowing the risk of the event, defined as the probability of future loss multiplied by magnitude of loss. This corresponds to the rational actor paradigm, based on the concept of invisible hand (Adam Smith) or the definition of John Stuart Mill of Political Economy which presupposes “an arbitrary definition of man, as a being who invariably does that by which he may obtain the greatest amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries, with the smallest quantity of labor,” and “who is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of means for obtaining that end.” There is enough evidence in the history of floods to reject this model. Consequently another model was proposed by Turner et al in 2003:

There were some antecedents in the literature: risk/hazards (eg, White, Kasperson), food security/political ecology (eg, Downing, Watts), climate change impacts (eg, Kates, Easterling), ecological resilience (eg, Holling, Berkes)

A graphical view of the proposed framework

hurricane landfall

impacts and responses

individual citizen’s

decisions AND

CONSTRAINTS ON THOSE DECISIONS

levees break

Σ

hurricane landfall impact

individual citizen’s

decisions

levees break

Σ

Vulnerability is the degree to which a system, subsystem, or system component is likely to experience harm due to exposure to a hazard, either a perturbation or stress. There is a growing interest in this approach as it is closely linked to research on major challenges such as poverty eradication, mitigation of the effects of climate change, inequity and social consequences of sharing rules applied to scarce resources, etc.

Vulnerability has emerged in recent years as one of the central organizing concepts for research on global environmental change (cf. Downing, 200010; Schröter et al., 200511). This concept is appealing because it is inclusive. From this perspective, humans and the natural environment are not independent systems, homogeneous and unable to adapt to threats, be they anticipated, realized, or perceived but not realized. Instead, human and natural systems are viewed as intimately coupled, and differentially exposed, sensitive, and adaptable to threats. This logic, followed to its natural conclusion, means that adopting a ‘‘vulnerability’’ perspective demands a thorough investigation of biophysical, cognitive, and social dimensions of human–environment interactions. Strictly speaking, therefore, to conduct vulnerability assessment means that no element of the human–environment system may be simplified away or considered a mere boundary condition. This conceptual inclusiveness complicates the analytical task (compared to the simpler impacts-only approach), which partially explains why there are few, if any, studies that deeply engage this vast set of intellectual dimensions. This inclusiveness also raises important methodological questions.

10 Downing, T.E., 2000. Human dimensions research: toward a vulnerability science? International Human Dimensions Program Update 00 (3), 16–17. 11 Schroter, D., Polsky, C., Patt, A., 2005. Assessing vulnerabilities to the effects of global change: an eight step approach. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 10 (4), 573–595.

10

Human Influences outside the Place Macro political economy, institutions,

global trends and transitions

SSttrreesssseess,, SSttrreessssoorrss,, PPeerrttuurrbbaattiioonnss CCoonnsseeqquueenncceess

Variability & change in environmental

conditions

Environmental Influences outside the Place

State of Biosphere; State of Nature Global Environmental Changes

Place-Based Human-Environment System

Human conditions

Environmental conditions

Vulnerability Sensitivity Adaptive Capacity Exposure

System operates at multiple spatial, functional, and temporal scales

Responses beyond place:

impacts

Responses in place:

Interactions of stressors, stresses & perturbations Responses in

place: adjustments

& adaptations

Responses beyond place: adjustments &

adaptations

cross-scale in place beyond place

Dynamics

Characteristics & components

of exposure

Variability & change in human conditions

Place

Worl Regio

Source: Turner et al., 2003

Schröter et al. (2005), propose that researchers will capture the vulnerability perspective if they adopt an overarching approach comprising eight general steps (Fig. 2).

Geographers have pushed our understanding not only on places, as described above, but also on this concept of vulnerability (e.g. Bohle et al., 199412; Turner et al., 200313). This concept calls attention to not only the exposure of a place to a given set of stresses, but also to the associated sensitivities and adaptive capacities. Thus a vulnerability perspective on inequality would demand a high spatial-resolution understanding of, for a given place:

(a) the inequalities (i.e., exposures),

(b) the impacts and the factors that modulate the impacts of the inequalities (i.e., sensitivities), and

(c) the ways in which local populations will respond – or would like to respond but are unable to – to the impacts, in anticipatory or reactive modes, plus reasons for the (in)abilities to respond (i.e., adaptive capacities). This perspective therefore highlights those sectoral and geographic areas where the effects of inequalities may be expected to be relatively fleeting (given robust adaptive capacities) versus those areas where the impacts may be lasting given weak adaptive capacities.

Fig 2. Assessing vulnerabilities to the effects of global change: an eight step approach. (Schröter et al. (2005)).

The Vulnerability scoping diagram (fig below) helps categorizing the dimensions of vulnerability, the components of these dimensions, and the measures of the components.

12 Bohle, H.G., Downing, T.E., Watts, M., 1994. Climate Change and Social Vulnerability: toward a Sociology and Geography of Food Insecurity. Global Environmental Change 4 (1), 37–48. 13 Turner, B.L., Kasperson, R.E., Matson, P., McCarthy, J.J., Corell, R.W., Christensen, L., Eckley, N., Kasperson, J.X., Luers, A., Martello, M.L., Polsky, C., Pulsipher, A., Schiller, A., 2003. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences 100 (14), 8074–8079.

3.2.2 Vulnerability and Locust control C. Polsky introduced the frame for analysis which was used during this project. 7 questions are asked:

The overarching research question is: What explains the vulnerabilities of the [exposure unit] associated with the [hazard]?

• Exposure unit: For 2003-05, 10 Mauritanian herder groups, chosen because they (a) occupy the outbreak zone, & (b) represent variation on a measure that may influence vulnerability (e.g., average age of the group).

• Hazards: the one or more stresses (Development of swarms; socio-economic instability; climate change) threatening the socio-ecological system.

Exposure: description of the intersection of the hazard with the exposure unit

1. What was the climate during/preceding this period? 2. What was the vegetation during/preceding this period? 3. What was the livestock type/composition in the herder groups prior to the swarm?

Sensitivity: the short-term impacts/responses & conditions mediating the production of the impacts following the exposure

1. How fast was the solitary / gregarious transition? 2. How was the vegetation managed before the swarm? 3. Were the herder groups, prior to the swarm high/low social status?

numerous/small? old/young? 4. What was the socio-political stability of the country prior to the swarm? 5. Were areas of instability co-incident with: 6. the herder group traditional areas? 7. the migration traditional areas? 8. How many livestock/people were lost/killed? Injured? 9. What short-term responses (eg, migrations) did herders implement? 10. Were there social conflicts following the swarm?

11. What short-term responses (eg, insecticide spraying, financial compensation, food aid) were implemented by responsible institutions (eg, FAO, equipe de reponse rapide)?

Adaptive capacity: current/future abilities & inabilities to implement effective, long-term responses, determined in part by an understanding of previous impacts/responses

1. After the swarm ended, did the vegetation re-emerge? If so, after how long? 2. How extensive/heterogeneous/dense was the vegetation after the swarm? 3. What long-term social assistance programs were provided by:

a. the government? b. another collective action institution (eg, FAO)? c. were these macro-level social assistance programs effective?

4. What long-term responses did herders: a. implement? b. wish to implement but could not implement? c. were these individual-level long-term responses effective?

3.3 Resilience

3.3.1 Brief story of the resilience concept. Allyson Quinlan is in charge of the development of the “Resilience workbook” which aims at giving a guideline for scientists and managers. Lance Gunderson is a systems ecologist who is interested in how people assess, understand and manage large ecosystems. They work with colleagues from around the world in the Resilience Alliance to understand the theory and practice of managing surprising systems and how scientific understanding influences resource policy and management.

The resilience perspective emerged from ecology in the 1960s and early 1970s through studies of interacting populations like predators and prey and their functional responses in relation to ecological stability theory. Ecologist C.S. Holling in his paper on resilience and stability in ecological systems illustrated the existence of multiple stability domains or multiple basins of attraction in natural systems and how they relate to ecological processes, random events (e.g. disturbance) and heterogeneity of temporal and spatial scales (Holling, 197314). With this new conception research has to focus on transitions between the stability domains. Attention is more on variability than sustainability. He introduced resilience as the capacity to persist within such a domain in the face of change and proposed that ‘‘resilience determines the persistence of relationships within a system and is a measure of the ability of these systems to absorb changes of state variables, driving variables, and parameters, and still persist’’ (Holling, 1973, p. 17). Early applications of the findings were generated from the resource ecology group at University of British Columbia, particularly in relation to the insect spruce budworm and its role in boreal forest dynamics of North America (Holling, 197815; followed by examples from the dynamics and management of rangelands, freshwater systems and fisheries (Walters, 198616). Applied mathematics, modeling and applied resource ecology

14 Holling (1973). "Resilience and stability of ecological systems." Annual Review of Ecological Systems 4: 1-23.

15 Holling, C. S. (1978). Adaptive environmental assessment and management. London, John Wiley. 16Walters, C. J. (1986). Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources. New York, McGraw Hill.

at the scale of ecosystems were combined with inductive science and experience from field work and large scale management disturbances.

After several years of research and interactions with social scientists who work on governance issues, new theoretical models were proposed (adaptive cycle, panarchy) and the definition of resilience will be adapted. Following Carpenter et al. (2001)17 social–ecological resilience is interpreted as (1) the amount of disturbance a system can absorb and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction, (2) the degree to which the system is capable of self organization (versus lack of organization, or organization forced by external factors), and (3) the degree to which the system can build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation. There is an increased emphasis on transformability into improved social–ecological systems as opposed to adaptation to the current situation. An emphasis on transformability implies extending the focus in social–ecological research to systems of adaptive governance (Dietz et al., 2003)18 in order to explore the broader social dimension that enables adaptive ecosystem-based management. An adaptive governance framework relies critically on the collaboration of a diverse set of stakeholders operating at different social and ecological scales in multi-level institutions and organizations .

Since the seminal paper of Holling in 1973 different concepts were introduced. It is important to differentiate:

• Persistence: “the persistence of relationships within a system”

• Adaptability: “ability of systems to absorb changes of state variables, driving variables and parameters, and still persist”.

• Transformability: “the size of a stability domain or the amount of disturbance a system could take before it shifted into alternative configuration”

A lot of ideas came from modeling.

• In semi arid rangelands, the combination of climate and grazing pressure drive the system between two regimes, the shrubby regime and the grassy regime (Walker (1981)19).

• In north American forest, the density of the budworm is dependent on the maturity of the forest. The more mature the forest the more the insect can be protected , so growth rate increases

After a decade of documenting regime shifts and multiple states

To understand system dynamics one has to differentiate the driving variables through their pace (C.S. Holling. 198620). (

17 Carpenter,S., B. Walker, J. M. Anderies, and N. Abel. 2001. From metaphor to measurement: Resilience of what to what? Ecosystems 4:765-781 18 Dietz, T., E. Ostrom and P. Stern (2003). "The Struggle to Govern the Commons."

Science 302(5652): 1907 - 1912. 19 Walker, B. H., Ludwig, D., Holling, C.S. and Peterman, R. M. (1981), Stability of semi-arid savanna grazing systems, Journal of Ecology, 69, 473-498 20 The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: local surprise and global change. Pages 292-320 in Sustainable development of the biosphere: W. C. Clark and R. E. Munn (eds).

The System

Fast Variables

Intermediate Variables

Slow Variables

Forest insect outbreak

Insect Foliage Trees

Forest fire Ignition Fuel Climate

Fishery Phytoplankton Zooplankton Fish

Savanna Grasses Shrubs Herbivores

Disease Disease organism

Vector and susceptible

Human population

Several examples on coral reefs (Pandolfi21 ), (Hughes, T.P. 199422) and marine ecosystems presenting research on the shift between diffrenet regimes following the change of different drivers. Carl Folke23, presented a synthesis on this aspect showing that the combination of an alteration (slow variable often) triggered by an event make the transition to another regime (figure below)

21 Pandolfi , John M., Jackson, Jeremy B.C., Baron, N., Bradbury, Roger H., Guzman, Hector M., Hughes, Terence P., Kappel, C.V., Micheli, F., Ogden, John C. , Possingham, H.P. and Sala, Enric. 2005. Are U.S. coral reefs on the slippery slope to slime?. Science 307(5716): 1725-1726. 22 Hughes, T.P. 1994. Catastrophes, Phase Shifts, and Large-Scale Degradation of a Caribbean Coral Reef. Science, 265(5178): 1547-1551 23 , Steve Carpenter, Brian Walker, Marten Scheffer, Thomas Elmqvist, Lance Gunderson, and C.S. Holling. 2004. Regime Shifts, Resilience, And Biodiversity In Ecosystem Management. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 35:557–81

The loss of ecological resilience is due to (L. H. Gunderson and L. Pritchard. 200224):

• Decline in functional diversity trophic shifts (fishing, predator control) or removal key biota (selective grazing)

• Acceleration of slow variables such as Increase in nutrients/pollution

• Alteration of disturbance regimes in magnitude, frequency, timing

• Uniform spatial patterns for instance even aged stands of timber

. The adaptive cycle is the model of how a given system moves from one regime to another, being in different phases. The exploitation phase between r and K regimes is driven by slow variables which modify (alterate) the system, and the release phase is triggered by some events. The reorganisation phase is also rapid leading to a new regime

24 L. H. Gunderson and L. Pritchard. 2002. Resilience and the Behavior of Large Scale Ecosystems . Island Press: Washington DC

Regime Alteration Trigger New Regime

Briefly said, the panarchy model indicates that dynamics at one scale is influenced by what happens at upper and lower scales

The management which comes with the resilience theory focus on thresholds and the way to detect them and cross them (or not). If the regime shift is irreversible, then the objective will be to adapt to the new state, fostering experiments for adaptation. Resilience is not always a good thing, the system being trapped in an undesirable state.

3.3.2 Resilience and locust control The presentation was divided in several parts, the outline is

• Key variables By Scale and Sector • Panarchies • Regimes

– Regime Management • Questions/Hypotheses • Next Steps

The following figure introduces the key variables by scale and sector

The following figure illustrates how resilience would see the transition from a regime A to a regime B for three different transitions

Key variables by scale & sector

Patch Region International

Control Program Coordination

Monitoring of Locust Population

Transportation System- Move Pesticides/control resources

Swarm Phase

Vegetation Patch Dynamics

Rainfall, Temperature

Solitary Phase

Fiscal Capital

Habitat /Source areas

Cooperation

Applying the panarchy model one would see the top down (memory) composed of Fiscal resources, Pesticides, Command/control management, Institutional arrangements while the revolt from the bottom up would be Swarm/Outbreak, Information on density The final questions are :

• What are competing models that explain long term cycles of outbreaks? • What are alternative institutional settings for managing outbreaks? • Links between traditional knowledge and modern monitoring? • Functional role of Locusts in system ?

– recycle nutrients? • How have land uses altered resilience?

– Have grazing, farming enhanced outbreaks? – Long term effects of pesticides?

The following steps would be

• Modeling effort outbreaks (10-15 year cycle) • Comparative institutional assessment:

– International centers for disease control – US Interagency fire fighting

• Proposal development for land use/resilience study

3.4 Institutional diversity & complexity

3.4.1 Presentation of the approach Marco Janssen studies the interactions between institutions, cognitive processes and ecological dynamics to understand the fit between institutions and ecological dynamics. His research combines agent-based modelling, decision making experiments and analysis of case studies. For the last couple of years ha has been working with E. Ostrom on institutional diversity bringing his expertise on complexity approach. Recently they synthesized this work in a book to be published in 2010, (Poteete, Janssen, Ostrom 201025). The general frame is the common dilemma frame. There is a dilemma between individual and group interests. The group interest would be to cooperate while individuals interest is to free ride on effort of others. The well known metaphor was given by Hardin , the tragedy of the commons. Rational selfish agents will overharvest common pool resources. They will not invest in public good. People are trapped and cannot solve the collective action problem. Therefore, the conventional theory says that we need to privatize the common property or have the government control the commons. But, scholars from many disciplines reported examples of long-lasting success cases of communities who solved collective action problems. In 1985 a meeting was organized by the National Research Council to synthesize the empirical evidence. Since then the study of the commons is an international collaborative effort of different disciplines using different methods. Besides finding that self-governance does happen, and often lead to better results than imposed regulations, scholars start to develop a better understanding of the factors that contribute to success of collective action.

Although every case is unique, we need to have a framework that is general but recognize the complexity. Among other papers, a set of papers in a recent issue of PNAS (Going beyond panaceas) focused on the problem of fit between ecological dynamics and institutional arrangements. The question is: how do appropriators craft institutions and what helps them to fit it to the social-ecological context? Potete, Janssen et Ostrom produced a framework

25 Poteete, Janssen, Ostrom 2010 Multiple Methods in Practice: Collective Action and the Commons, Princeton University Press

proposed different core relationships in social dilemma, which are presented in figure below. In behavioral theory, cooperation in social dilemmas depends on individual differences and context.

The set of micro-situational variables that affect trust and cooperation are represented in the figure below.

Within this framework many methods should be combined

• Case studies

• Large N studies

• Meta-analysis

• Experiments (lab, field and role games)

• Agent-based modeling

Based on comparative analysis of many case studies we can identify broad categories of resource systems with mobile resources (fisheries, pastoralism) and resource systems with build up infrastructure (irrigation systems). Many types of institutional arrangements (transhuman, nomadic) who adapted to spatial variability of rainfall, varying from Swiss Alps to Kenya and India. Current trend on privatization leads to mismatch of social and ecological dynamics.

Concerning the adaptation to variability, there is high investment to coordinate activities of extraction and concentration. Many social-ecological systems are adapted to particular variability regimes. These systems are robust, yet fragile to a change in variability regimes, such as effects of globalization. Comparative over-time analysis of forest management (more than 40 forests are visited at least twice using the same methods of measurement and analysis)

Ostrom E, Nagendra H (2006)26, show that all institutional arrangements have examples of success and failure. The main red line in examples of success is the involvement of at least one user group in regular monitoring of conformance to the rules related to entry and use patterns is significant.

As for experiments, the main goal is to test hypotheses, and provide data to contrast different behavioral theories. There are different types of experiments:

• laboratory experiments (abstract with students),

• artifactual field experiment (different types of participants),

• framed field experiments (more context),

• natural field experiments (participants not aware to be in an experiment) Marco then presented some results about experiments on public goods and CPR. Public Good is a provision problem. N players have X endowment and the decision how much to invest in public good and how much to keep. The investments in public good is increased by experimenter and shared among players. Common Pool Resource is an extraction problem. N players have X endowment. The decision is how much to invest in CPR extraction and how much to invest in risk free asset. High extraction by group lead to lower per unit benefit. Usually in public good we observe initially around 50% investment, decreasing over time to low investment level. In CPR experiments we observe initially overharvesting, evolving over time to Nash equilibrium. The two research directions concentrated on cheap talk (without the ability to enforce promises) and costly punishment. (to pay to reduce earnings of others) Both are observed in field studies to be used to enforce regulations, but according to conventional non-cooperative game theory it should not make a difference. In experiments both proved to be effective.

Typically experiments are abstract. There are no dynamics, no space, round by round. Consequently in an on-going project focus has been to test hypotheses on cooperation, not crafting rules related to different resource dynamics. New generation of experiments include more relevant ecological dynamics. The preliminary conclusions of these experiments show that:

• Without communication, costly punishment or elected rules have limited impact on improving earnings.

• Social capital and equity are important considerations affecting behavior of the participants.

• Resource specific knowledge has limited impact on behavior in experiments.

• Disclaimer: Replications in other countries lead to slightly results, raising the importance of understanding local institutional context.

Last part of Marco’s presentation was dedicated to agent-based models. Agent-based modeling is a way to study the interactions of large numbers of agents and the macro-level consequences of these interactions. The components of an agent

• Decisions (how to make a choice)

• Knowledge and perception (what is known, or what does the agent think (s)he knows)

• Topology of interactions (interactions with other agents and environment)

26 Ostrom E, Nagendra H (2006) Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 103:19224–19231

• Information exchange (what information is exchanged between agents)

There is a large literature on the quest how cooperation could evolve using ABM. Among egoist (Axelrod), using indirect reciprocity (markers & symbols), in different spatial configurations, and is applied to for example P2P systems. But the problem is not binary: cooperate or defect. It is important is defining the rules of the games and enforcing them, simulating the evolution of rule structures. Concerning the rules, they are defined as shared understanding about enforced prescriptions, concerning what actions (or outcomes) are required, prohibited, or permitted. She makes the difference between Rules in use vs rules on paper and between formal rules vs informal rules (formal rules have explicit consequences defined for when the rules are broken (sanctions) and can be enforced by a third party)

The dynamics is represented in the following figure

In conclusion,

• Conventional theory of collective action is inadequate to explain empirical evidence of case studies and experiments.

• We need to develop frameworks that include more explicitly current understanding human behavior, micro-situational variables and broader context.

• Agent-based models can be an appropriate way to formalize the framework.

3.4.2 Institutional diversity & complexity and locust control management The questions identified were:

• Why is the control of desert locust too little too late, even though scientists can now provide accurate warnings ahead of time?

• Public good provision problem at international scale. But with important asymmetries of costs and benefits.

• What are the consequences of climate change and land use/cover change?

Marco Janssen proposes an empirical analysis of incentive structure of different stakeholders of the social-ecological system. This is linked to the question on who benefits (Locust research, National governments and control centers, Pest control industry) and who loses (Unorganized farmers). He also identifies the “disturbances (Rainfall events, Insecurity/conflict areas, Perverse incentives to report bands (no co-production), FAO report too late (new reports), Rapid turnover in decision makers of those who make decisions on money).

An important point is the institutional memory. What is causing the delay and loss of institutional memory? There is possibly a perverse effect if policy is effective, leading to a loss of memory and motivation. Two scales can be observed. Local outbreaks are tackled by national centers. It is at regional level that we observe slow response.

In terms of research on management, one could use role games to train decision makers at local and national level.

The locust problem is a transboundary problem, with asymmetry of costs and benefits. The occurrence is uncertain and is dependent on changes of the environment. A model could be developed. It would be a spatial explicit model with locust bands, rainfall events, and different levels of local control. Countries would be “human agents” controlling desert locust. The question is: what would be long term evolving strategies of agents to different types of institutional arrangements and ecological dynamics?

4. Conclusion and perspectives We presented here the analysis of different approaches for one case study. The same material is available for three other case studies and two other approaches were also used: the biodiversity & ecosystem services and the robustness approach. The next steps of the project will be to work on thematic papers based on the four case studies and the different approaches. We have chosen three thematic: the concept of crisis, the relation between knowledge & action, and the role of institutions.