This situation creates a dilemma in planning for the future because we cannot assume that the future world will behave as we have known it in the past. How do we manage systems sustainably when the past no longer serves as a valid reference point for the future?

I use the impacts of climate warming in Alaska to illustrate a framework for sustainability science that integrates approaches from research on vulnerability, resilience, and adaptability.

These observations suggest four general policy strategies:

(1) enhance adaptability through learning and innovation;

(2) enhance resilience by strengthening negative feedbacks and enhancing diversity in the context of events happening at other scales;

(3) reduce vulnerability by sustaining slow variables and mitigating the forces for change; and

(4) foster transformation by using crises as an opportunity for change. None of these approaches is individually sufficient, so the challenge is to integrate them to manage the dynamics of sustainability in a changing world.

About Terry Chapin
Terry Chapin is a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His background is primarily in plant physiological ecology and ecosystem ecology.

His current research in Alaska addresses changes in social-ecological systems in response to climatic warming, especially changes related to increasing extent of wildfi re. He directs the Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research program and an interdisciplinary graduate education program in Resilience and Adaptation.

He is visiting Carl Folke and the Beijer Institute as an opportunity to learn about resilience and to work on a textbook on resilience-based resource management.