The document discusses the concepts of resilience and vulnerability in ecological and social systems. It defines resilience as the capacity of a system to withstand shocks while still maintaining its basic functions and structure. Vulnerability refers to the exposure of human populations to shocks due to a loss of resilience. The document advocates applying a resilience lens to development in order to foster systems that can adapt to changes while maintaining desirable functions and states. It provides examples of factors that increase social-ecological resilience, like diversity, knowledge sharing, and self-organization across scales.

1. http://www.un.org/gsp/report

2. Resilience for VBDC
Contribute to poverty alleviation and resilient livelihood improvement
V4: resilience /adaptability
V3: ecological states and transformations
linked to social factors

3. WHAT ? In ecological research
resilience is the capacity of a system to respond to
a disturbance by resisting damage and recovering
quickly
vulnerability : is the level of exposure to shocks of
humans and comes from the loss of resilience
WHY ? Complex world today , need new glasses…
• Non linear processes/relations
• Identify process and states more/less desirable developments
• Develop and maintain well or improved functioning systems
• Ensure positive reinforcing feedback loops/interactions
• Ability of system to adapt, adjust…

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

5. Global scale identified ‘high risk ‘ tipping points
Schellnhuber, J. 2007. Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research

6. Non linearity in agricultural systems
Enfors et al 2011
Lahmar et al 2011
Creating traps

7. Folke et al. (2003) defined four clusters of factors, that interact across temporal and
spatial scales which increase the resilience of SESs
• Learning to live with change and uncertainty
• Nurturing diversity in its various forms
• Combining different types of knowledge for learning
• Creating opportunity for self‐organization and cross‐scale
linkages

8. This session purpose:
Work towards a better and common
interpretation of resilience in the VBDC statement
• How do you understand resilience in the
context of the VBDC?
• What aspects of resilience are relevant in our
context and what scale is appropriate?
• How would you like to address resilience in
your project?

9. References
Folke et al. (2003)
http://www.gecafs.org/publications/Publications/Resilien
ce_and_Vulnerability.PDF
http://www.un.org/gsp/report

10. So far, most resilience research /academics focus on ecological large or
small systems
Increasing set of research experiences from social –ecological systems ,
incl. development context
Example: What processes and states can address both development and environmental
sustainability? Transforming landscapes with soil and water interventions
Barron & Keys, 2011