Presentation at the STEPS Conference 2010 - Pathways to Sustainability: Agendas for a new politics of environment, development and social justice http://www.steps-centre.org/events/stepsconference2010.html

1. Welcome to Stockholm Resilience Centre
– Research for Governance of Social-Ecological Systems
Critical thresholds and transformations
in social-ecological systems
Per Olsson
Stockholm Resilience Centre

2. Critical transitions or regime shifts

3. Valuable Ecosystem Services Loss of ecosystem services
(Desirable) (Undesirable)
1 4
coral dominance state shift algal dominance
2 3
• overfishing, coastal • disease,
eutrophication hurricane
clear water turbid water
• phosphorous accum- • flooding, warming,
ulation in soil and mud overexploitation
grassland of predators shrub-bushland
• fire prevention • good rains, continu-
ous heavy grazing

4. Regional-scale collapse -
connectivity and spatial resilience

6. Number of reef patches
t

7. www.regimeshifts.org

10. Thresholds of Potential Concern (TPC)

12. Humanity’s period of grace
– the last 10000 years
Migrations of Great European
First migration of Aborigines Beginning civilisations:
fully modern humans arrive in fully modern humans of agriculture
from South Asia Greek, Roman
out of Africa Australia
to Europe
Source: GRIP ice core data (Greenland) and S. Oppenheimer, ”Out of Eden”, 2004

13. Understanding transformations
in social-ecological systems
Window of
opportunity
Preparing Navigating the Stabilizing
transition
a)
b)
Olsson et al 2004, Olsson et al 2006

14. Key factors for SES
transformations
• Experimentation and innovation
• Shadow networks
• Opportunity context (i.e. the role of
crisis)
• Institutional entrepreneurs (the role
of individuals)
• Paradigms shifts

15. Combining social-ecological,
socio-technological, socio-political
perspectives
Transitions, Resilience and Governance:
Linking Technological, Ecological and Political
Systems (Special issue in E&S with Andy
Sterling and Adrian Smith)

16. Combining Transition, Social
Innovation, and Resilience Theories
To increase our understanding of
transformations in Social-Ecological systems

17. The role of resilience thinking
• add the ecological dimension of transformation
– addressing only the social dimension will not be sufficient
to guide society toward sustainable outcomes.
– societies may undergo major transformations without
improving their capacity to learn from, respond to, and
manage environmental feedback from dynamic ecosystems
• for example, a systemic shift to biofuels might slow
climate change but lead to destructive land-use change
and biodiversity loss
– can lead to further ecological degradation, regime shifts
and lock-in traps in social-ecological systems that are
difficult to get out of

18. Ongoing and future activities
• Agency and leadership strategies for innovation
and transformation of social-ecological systems
(manuscript in review)
–Experiments, Innovation and Opportunity Context,
Institutional Entrepreneurs
• Tipping towards sustainability: emerging pathways
of transformation (manuscript in progress)
–Framing ongoing change

19. Ongoing and future activities
• Innovation and transformation in Social-
Ecological Systems (workshop series, PhD
Course)
– Links to planetary boundaries and missing
institutions at global level
• Crossing the chasm - crisis, opportunity, and
transformation (panel at Resilience 2011, with
John Thompson)
– Crisis as triggers for large-scale transformations

20. Thank You!

23. Social-ecological innovation
• New strategies, concepts, ideas and organizations
that enhance the capacity of ecosystems to generate
(bundles of) services
• have the potential to build resilience in SES, increase
human well-being, and reduce vulnerability to present and
future challenges
• can enhance the fit between ecosystems and governance
systems and help can help break self-reinforcing
feedbacks, unlock social-ecological systems’ lock-ins,
escape traps and move to new trajectories of
sustainability
Olsson and Galaz in review

24. The Regime Shifts Database
• To provide a high quality synthesis of different types of
regime shifts documented in social-ecological systems
• Focus: Regime shifts that have large impacts on
ecosystem services – ie matter to people
• Users:
– Research projects on regime shifts
– Resource for students and practitioners
– Resilience assessments in particular areas

25. Outline
Part I Understanding and
identifying critical transitions
Part II Detecting and monitoring
thresholds
Part III Transformations and
purposefully steer away
from thresholds and connect
to the resource base

26. Combined perspectives and social-
ecological system analysis
• Initiatives for large-scale transformations
- New Green Economy
- Green revolution in Africa
- Energy and Biofuels
• Networks for change
- Rework the World www.reworktheworld.org
- World Ecological Forum www.worldecologicalforum.com
- Baltic Sea Action Group http://en.bsag.fi
• Navigating transformations - planetary
stewardship, sustainability and human well-being