Left to right: Carl Folke, Per Olsson, Thomas Hahn, & Jon Norberg

Our article explores the broader social context that is required to make adaptive management of ecosystems possible. The approach focuses on experimentation and learning among people and brings together research on institutions and organizations for collaboration, collective action, and conflict resolution, in relation to the management of natural resources and ecosystem services.

This is a new way of looking at ecosystem management that has major implications for science and policy and also moves into new transdisciplinary ground. In this synthesis article we also combine the roles of individuals in ecosystem management (e.g., leadership, trust building, vision, and meaning), their social relations (e.g., actor groups, knowledge systems, social memory), and find that social networks serve as the web which ties together the adaptive governance system.

We also explore the social tipping points and transitions that shift governance towards ecosystem-based management. We guess that the interest in the article is due to its novel approach which combines insights from both the social and natural sciences, stressing the need for governance to be adaptive to change and surprise. Such adaptation is in increasing demand in an era of social and economic development confronted with rapid climatic and global changes.