Integration Research for Shaping Sustainable Regional Landscapes

Ecological and social systems are complex and entwined. Complex social-ecological systems interact in a multitude of ways at many spatial scales across time. Their interactions can contribute both positive and negative consequences in terms of sustainability and the context in which they exist affecting future landscape change. Non-metropolitan landscapes are the major theatre of interactions where large-scale alteration occurs precipitated by local to global forces of economic, social, and environmental change. Such regional landscape effects are critical also to local natural resource and social sustainability. The institutions contributing pressures and responses consequently shape future landscapes and in turn influence how social systems, resource users, governments, and policy makers perceive those landscapes and their future. Science and policy for "sustainable" futures need to be integrated at the applied "on-ground" level where products and effects of system interactions are fully included, even if unobserved. Government agencies and funding bodies often consider such research as "high-risk". This paper provides some examples of interdisciplinary research that has provided a level of holistic integration through close engagement with landholders and communities or through deliberately implementing integrative and innovative on-ground experimental models. In retrospect, such projects have to some degree integrated through spatial (if not temporal) synthesis, policy analysis, and (new or changed) institutional arrangements that are relevant locally and acceptable in business, as well as at broader levels of government and geography. This has provided transferable outcomes that can contribute real options and adaptive capacity for suitable positive futures

Landscapes Shaped by People and Place Institutions Require a New Conservation Agenda

Formal protected area systems will always be insufficient to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem processes. The largest proportions of endangered ecosystems and rare species remain outside public conservation areas on private land, and the political and financial costs of strategic acquisitions of these areas for conservation estate are becoming unaffordable. Although biologists quite rightly continue to call for development of more comprehensive and representative reserve networks, the reality is that the coverage, connectivity, and size of protected areas will remain inadequate (Shaffer et al. 2002). Many authors and participants, as well as the conclusions, of the very comprehensive 30-year review of the Endangered Species Act (Scott et al. 2006) noted the continuing challenge and urgency of extending the conservation agenda more comprehensively across natural and working landscapes (matrix lands), most of which will remain outside any formal reserve system. New integrative approaches are needed

Landscape Loopholes: Moments for Change

Social-ecological systems are breaking down at local, regional, and global scales, and sustainability seems an increasingly distant aspiration. Social harmony and economic systems are connected to ecological systems and climate, in multiple complex ways, at many scales. Adapting research practice to match integration opportunities within social-ecological systems could contribute foresight capabilities emerging from landscape change studies, which can be coupled with emerging policy transformation opportunities. The shaping of landscapes by human imagination and physical action creates meaningful contexts for building sustainability. However, the policy landscape is often dominated by circularity and “lock-in” to unsustainable pathways that are hard to escape. Moments for change emerge through timely convergence of circumstances, within a landscape context, that provide a window of opportunity—a “landscape loophole”—through which the transformation to more sustainable social-ecological relationships might be achieved. Creating future options redundancy (FOR) plans, a variety of possible pathways and alternative landscape futures within the characteristics and capacity of a region, could facilitate policy shifts and adaptive capacity, and reduce risk through reflexive future options. The convergence of circumstances providing loophole opportunities to escape existing lock-in might be understood, and even predicted, by closely coupling landscape sciences and policy research

A comparative study on the analysis of hemodynamics in the athlete's heart

The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the development of the athlete's heart are still poorly understood. To characterize the intracavitary blood flows in the right ventricle (RV) and right-ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) in 2 healthy probands, patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) and 2 endurance athletes, we performed 4D-MRI flow measurements to assess differences in kinetic energy and shear stresses. Time evolution of velocity magnitude, mean kinetic energy (MKE), turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and viscous shear stress (VSS) were measured both along the whole RV and in the RVOT. RVOT regions had higher kinetic energy values and higher shear stresses levels compared to the global averaging over RV among all subjects. Endurance athletes had relatively lower kinetic energy and shear stresses in the RVOT regions compared to both healthy probands and ARVC patients. The athlete's heart is characterized by lower kinetic energy and shear stresses in the RVOT, which might be explained by a higher diastolic compliance of the R

Building capital through bioregional planning and biosphere reserves

ABSTRACT: The need to implement innovative approaches to sustainability is now more critical than ever. This discussion draws on parts of the puzzle that must be assembled to achieve integrated, cross-tenure and jurisdictional management of whole regions and their peoples for a sustainable future. A regional, landscape ecology approach helps us to move on from theory and historical lessons to boldly design and adaptively develop novel on-ground models. To take an entirely different approach from conventional thinking, I draw from Common Property Resource (CPR) theory and experience, together with practical experience from the Bookmark Biosphere project. The characteristics of successful enduring Common Property regimes are identified and discussed in light of critical needs to maintain and restore social and ecological capital. I then highlight the concepts and logistical objectives behind the 30-year-old UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Program, which appears to have great potential as an operational framework within which these changes can be made. The Biosphere Reserve Program is maturing through integration of cultural needs and aspirations for quality of life, while conserving natural values and ecosystem processes. In particular, progress is being made through bioregional planning and management incorporating a variety of IUCN protected area types with novel, sustainable, resource-use diversification. The novel arrangements, experience and lessons from one developing model, Bookmark Biosphere Reserve in South Australia, are described as an example. I wish to encourage more models like the Bookmark experiment to evolve through even greater creativity and engagement with public and private partners. On-ground models that demonstrate innovative alternative land use management in the rangelands or integration across the coastal-marine interface are especially needed

The 'Commons' Revisited: Learning from the Past for More Resilient Social and Ecological Communities in the Future

The collapse of the natural resource base can in part be seen as the result of the inherited European system. However it is possible to achieve efficient and sustaining systems, leading to better outcomes, as is shown in southern England, as well as on a tableland in the high country of northern New South Wales. The core of the project there, as elsewhere, indicates that better results, the possibility of eco-tourism, and 'a real sense of community' are all possible and invaluable consequences of CPR, the open access as developed in a common property management system (CPRM)

Exploring New Approaches to Community Governance

'Commons' researchers, historical experience and literature have a lot to offer the considerable challenge of global resource management and environmental degradation. Researchers and policy makers not only need a more seamless dialogue and understanding, we also need to be willing to be bold and innovative in using the available knowledge to address community governance issues in operational and practical ways. In turn, these become 'learning laboratories' building new, practical knowledge and adaptive capacity. This 'Commons Forum' is, hopefully, a conversation piece aimed at stimulating thoughts and discussion. I must declare up front however, where I am coming from – my biases. As a landscape ecologist interested in resource governance issues and therefore society, community and collaborative mechanisms, I am interested in innovation and knowledge building towards "integrative" resource governance that build resilience and sustainability capacity within and across landscapes and regions