Resilience principles and a leverage points perspective for sustainable woody vegetation management in a social-ecological system of southwestern Ethiopia
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In: Ecology and Society, Vol. 28, No. 2, 34, 01.06.2023.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Resilience principles and a leverage points perspective for sustainable woody vegetation management in a social-ecological system of southwestern Ethiopia
AU - Shumi, Girma
AU - Wahler, Hannah
AU - Riechers, Maraja
AU - Senbeta, Feyera
AU - Abson, David J.
AU - Schultner, Jannik
AU - Fischer, Joern
N1 - Funding Information: The study was funded through Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU), Project ID: Az 35333/01-43/0. We thank the Governments of Ethiopia and Oromia Regional State for their permission to conduct the research. We also thank the staff of kebele, woreda, and zone offices; Jimma University and the Biodiversity Research Institute; and the local farmers for their cooperation and participation. We thank local experts and our driver for their support during data collection. We acknowledge support by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Open Access Publication Fund of Leuphana University Lüneburg. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 by the author(s).
PY - 2023/6/1
Y1 - 2023/6/1
N2 - Addressing ecosystem destruction and unsustainable development requires appropriate frameworks to comprehensively investigate social-ecological systems. Focusing on woody plant management in southwestern Ethiopia, we combined social-ecological resilience and a leverage points perspective to (1) assess how stakeholders perceive and operationalize resilience principles; (2) investigate resilience challenges and solutions across different levels of systemic depth; and (3) assess how different stakeholder groups noted challenges and solutions at different levels of system depth. Data were collected in focus group discussions with multiple types of stakeholders and analyzed via quantitative content and descriptive analysis. All stakeholder groups identified two principles currently applied in the landscape, while other principles were not currently applied widely. In total, we identified 37 challenges and 44 solutions to resilience, mainly focused on “deeper” systemic change. This trend was noted across stakeholder groups, but particularly by local people. Based on our work, we suggest to foster bottom-up changes in system goals, rules, paradigms, and intent, drawing explicitly on local people and their knowledge. More broadly, we suggest that further research on combining social-ecological resilience and leverage points perspectives could be helpful to better navigate and transform social-ecological systems.
AB - Addressing ecosystem destruction and unsustainable development requires appropriate frameworks to comprehensively investigate social-ecological systems. Focusing on woody plant management in southwestern Ethiopia, we combined social-ecological resilience and a leverage points perspective to (1) assess how stakeholders perceive and operationalize resilience principles; (2) investigate resilience challenges and solutions across different levels of systemic depth; and (3) assess how different stakeholder groups noted challenges and solutions at different levels of system depth. Data were collected in focus group discussions with multiple types of stakeholders and analyzed via quantitative content and descriptive analysis. All stakeholder groups identified two principles currently applied in the landscape, while other principles were not currently applied widely. In total, we identified 37 challenges and 44 solutions to resilience, mainly focused on “deeper” systemic change. This trend was noted across stakeholder groups, but particularly by local people. Based on our work, we suggest to foster bottom-up changes in system goals, rules, paradigms, and intent, drawing explicitly on local people and their knowledge. More broadly, we suggest that further research on combining social-ecological resilience and leverage points perspectives could be helpful to better navigate and transform social-ecological systems.
KW - Leverage points
KW - Resilience principles
KW - Smallholder farming landscapes
KW - Social-ecological systems
KW - Sustainability transformation
KW - Woody vegetation diversity management
KW - Environmental planning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85172453313&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5751/ES-14209-280234
DO - 10.5751/ES-14209-280234
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85172453313
VL - 28
JO - Ecology and Society
JF - Ecology and Society
SN - 1708-3087
IS - 2
M1 - 34
ER -