Side Event
Community Based Approaches for Understanding Ecosystems and Building Capacity among Participants
Organizer
Resilience Alliance (RA)
Date and Time
16 February 2004 13:15 - 14:45
<br>The goal of this side-event is to give participants an understanding of resilience theory, panarchy, socio-ecological systems, adaptive ecosystem management and its application to ecosystem approaches to management of natural resources as developed by the Resilience Alliance (RA). These points will be illustrated by discussing the two main approaches used by the RA, development of case-based study programs and capacity-building courses focused on natural resources management issues. The RA is an international network of multidisciplinary research and management scientists that explores the dynamics of complex adaptive systems in order to discover foundations for sustainability. Through an international program connecting regional <a href=http://www.resalliance.org/ev.php?URL_ID=1059&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201&reload=1047492973>case studies </a>with theory development, the RA strives to provide novel solutions to managing resilience and coping with change, uncertainty, and surprise in complex social-ecological systems. <br><br> The presentation will be given by Dr. T. Douglas Beard, Jr., a member of the RA and the capacity-building director for the RA. He has lead development of a 5 day course that merges capacity-building exercises with the development of case-studies that are developed around regional natural resource management issues. In these courses, participants also act as instructors, helping to develop case-study approaches that allow further understanding of the environmental issue in question. Lessons learned from these workshops are then used to help further understanding of RA theoretical approaches and give practitioners more tools from which to help make decisions. For more information, please see <a href=http://www.resalliance.org>www.resalliance.org</a>