The Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society: an emergent community of practice
- Authors: Biggs, Reinette , Reyers, Belinda , Blanchard, Ryan , Clements, Hayley S , Cockburn, Jessica J , Cumming, Graeme S , Cundill, Georgina , de Vos, Alta , Dziba, Luthando E , Esler, Karen J , Fabricius, Christo , Hamann, Maike , Henriksson, Rebecka , Kotschy, Karen , Lindborg, Regina , Luvuno, Linda , Masterson, Vanessa A , Nel, Jeanne L , O'Farrell, Patrick , Palmer, Carolyn G , Pereira, Laura , Pollard, Sharon , Preiser, Rika , Roux, Dirk J , Scholes, Robert J , Selomane, Odirlwe , Shackleton, Charlie M , Shackleton, Sheona E , Sitas, Nadia , Slingsby, Jasper A , Spierenburg, Marja , Tengö, Maria
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/401330 , vital:69726 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2022.2150317"
- Description: Sustainability-focused research networks and communities of practice have emerged as a key response and strategy to build capacity and knowledge to support transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. This paper synthesises insights from the development of a community of practice on social-ecological systems (SES) research in southern Africa over the past decade, linked to the international Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). This community consists of a network of researchers who carry out place-based SES research in the southern African region. They interact through various cross-cutting working groups and also host a variety of public colloquia and student and practitioner training events. Known as the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), its core objectives are to: (1) derive new approaches and empirical insights on SES dynamics in the southern African context; (2) have a tangible impact by mainstreaming knowledge into policy and practice; and (3) grow the community of practice engaged in SES research and governance, including researchers, students and practitioners. This paper reflects on experiences in building the SAPECS community, with the aim of supporting the development of similar networks elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Global South.
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- Date Issued: 2023
Social-ecological change: insights from the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society
- Authors: Biggs, Reinette , Clements, Hayley S , Cumming, Graeme S , Cundill, Georgina , de Vos, Alta , Hamann, Maike , Luvuno, Linda , Roux, Dirk J , Selomane, Odirlwe , Blanchard, Ryan , Cockburn, Jessica J , Dziba, Luthando E , Esler, Karen J , Fabricius, Christo , Henriksson, Rebecka , Kotschy, Karen , Lindborg, Regina , Masterson, Vanessa A , Nel, Jeanne L , O'Farrell, Patrick , Palmer, Carolyn G , Pereira, Laura , Pollard, Sharon , Preiser, Rika , Scholes, Robert J , Shackleton, Charlie M , Shackleton, Sheona E , Sitas, Nadia , Slingsby, Jasper A , Spierenburg, Maria , Tengö, Maria , Reyers, Belinda
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/399817 , vital:69561 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2022.2097478"
- Description: Social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as an important area of sustainability science, informing and supporting pressing issues of transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. To date, much SES research has been done in or from the Global North, where the challenges and contexts for supporting sustainability transformations are substantially different from the Global South. This paper synthesises emerging insights on SES dynamics that can inform actions and advance research to support sustainability transformations specifically in the southern African context. The paper draws on work linked to members of the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), a leading SES research network in the region, synthesizing key insights with respect to the five core themes of SAPECS: (i) transdisciplinary and engaged research, (ii) ecosystem services and human well-being, (iii) governance institutions and management practices, (iv) spatial relationships and cross-scale connections, and (v) regime shifts, traps and transformations. For each theme, we focus on insights that are particularly novel, interesting or important in the southern African context, and reflect on key research gaps and emerging frontiers for SES research in the region going forward. Such place-based insights are important for understanding the variation in SES dynamics around the world, and are crucial for informing a context-sensitive global agenda to foster sustainability transformations at local to global scales.
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- Date Issued: 2022
How to think and act in ways that make Adaptive IWRM practically possible
- Authors: Palmer, Carolyn G , Biggs, Harry , Rogers, Kevin H , du Toit, Derick , Pollard, Sharon
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437937 , vital:73423 , ISBN 978-1 4312-0984-2 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/SP 116-18 web.pdf
- Description: “We cross the river by feeling the stones with our feet” (Chinese proverb). Most of the ideas in this handbook you already know from living your life. Here we put your everyday experience and knowledge into the language of managing water. In the last twenty years, there has been a lot of talk about new ways to make Integrated Water Resource Management or “IWRM” work, but not nearly as much useful knowledge about how to put those ideas into practice. We now know how to use a set of ideas and ways of understanding that help us to make IWRM really work prac-tically. We call this practical way of working: Adaptive IWRM. This is the first in a series of handbooks to come out of a WRC project Practising Adaptive IWRM (Inte-grated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in South Africa: towards practising a new paradigm* [TPNP]). The TPNP project researchers have had experience with many different situations in southern Africa, where people have grappled* with put-ting the ideas of complexity* and integration into practice.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Practising Adaptive IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management) in South Africa
- Authors: Palmer, Carolyn G , Munnik, Victor , du Toit, Derick , Rogers, Kevin H , Pollard, Sharon , Hamer, Nick , Weaver, Matthew J T , Retief, Hugo , Sahula, Asiphe , O’Keeffe, Jay H
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/438005 , vital:73428 , ISBN 978-1-4312-0983-5 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2248-1-18.pdf
- Description: This chapter serves as a general introduction to the TPNP case stud-ies, with feedback from the progress of the RESILIM-O project. We draw attention here, and note clearly, that each case is set in a different context and scale, and proceeded in different ways, as well as combin-ing in use different discourses/practices and methodologies. To ensure a basis for comparability, each case study was required to use the Adaptive IWRM approach and methodologies, while not being required to record results in the same format. Case studies were designed to enable an exploration of scale effects–a core theoretical concept in complex social-ecological systems. We will be in a position to write a scholarly paper on a scale-comparison of practice-based Adaptive IWRM learning at different spatial and governance (institutional and social) scales, as a result of these findings.
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- Date Issued: 2018