Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet.
Ecosystem stewardship is an action-oriented framework intended to foster the social-ecological sustainability of a rapidly changing planet. Recent developments identify three strategies that make optimal use of current understanding in an environment of inevitable uncertainty and abrupt change: reducing the magnitude of, and exposure and sensitivity to, known stresses; focusing on proactive policies that shape change; and avoiding or escaping unsustainable social-ecological traps. As we discuss here, all social-ecological systems are vulnerable to recent and projected changes but have sources of adaptive capacity and resilience that can sustain ecosystem services and human well-being through active ecosystem stewardship.
Chapin
F Stuart
FS
Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA. terry.chapin@alaska.edu
Carpenter
Stephen R
SR
Kofinas
Gary P
GP
Folke
Carl
C
Abel
Nick
N
Clark
William C
WC
Olsson
Per
P
Smith
D Mark Stafford
DM
Walker
Brian
B
Young
Oran R
OR
Berkes
Fikret
F
Biggs
Reinette
R
Grove
J Morgan
JM
Naylor
Rosamond L
RL
Pinkerton
Evelyn
E
Steffen
Will
W
Swanson
Frederick J
FJ
D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D006801:Humans