Publications

Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, Raf Jansen, Daniel Avila Ortega, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Jonathan F. Donges, Henrik Österblom, Per Olsson, Magnus Nyström, Steve Lade, Thomas Hahn, Carl Folke, Garry Peterson, Anne-Sophie Crepin. 2024. Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21005

The Anthropocene is characterized by accelerating change and global challenges of increasing complexity and most recently by what some have called a polycrisis. Based on an adaptation of the evolutionary traps concept to a global human context, we explore whether the human trajectory of increasing complexity and influence on the Earth system could become a form of Anthropocene trap for humanity. We identify 14 Anthropocene tra...

Thomas E. Currie, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Laurel Fogarty, Maja Schlüter, Carl Folke, L. Jamila Haider, Guido Caniglia, Alessandro Tavoni, Raf E. V. Jansen, Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, Timothy M. Waring. 2024. Integrating evolutionary theory and social–ecological systems research to address the sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0262

The rapid, human-induced changes in the Earth system during the Anthropocene present humanity with critical sustainability challenges. Social–ecological systems (SES) research provides multiple approaches for understanding the complex interactions between humans, social systems, and environments and how we might direct them towards healthier and more resilient futures. However, general theories of SES change have yet to be ful...

Johan Rockström, Albert V. Norström, Nathanial Matthews, Reinette Biggs, Carl Folke, Ameil Harikishun, Saleemul Huq, Nisha Krishnan, Lila Warszawski, Deon Nel. 2023. Shaping a resilient future in response to COVID-19. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01105-9

Science today defines resilience as the capacity to live and develop with change and uncertainty, which is well beyond just the ability to ‘bounce back’ to the status quo. It involves the capacity to absorb shocks, avoid tipping points, navigate surprise and keep options alive, and the ability to innovate and transform in the face of crises and traps. Five attributes underlie this capacity: diversity, redundancy, connectivity,...

Johan Rockström, Albert V. Norström, Nathanial Matthews, Reinette Biggs, Carl Folke, Ameil Harikishun, Saleemul Huq, Nisha Krishnan, Lila Warszawski, Deon Nel. 2023. Shaping a resilient future in response to COVID-19. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01105-9

Science today defines resilience as the capacity to live and develop with change and uncertainty, which is well beyond just the ability to ‘bounce back’ to the status quo. It involves the capacity to absorb shocks, avoid tipping points, navigate surprise and keep options alive, and the ability to innovate and transform in the face of crises and traps. Five attributes underlie this capacity: diversity, redundancy, connectivity,...

Thomas Hahn, Giles B. Sioen, Alexandros Gasparatos, Thomas Elmqvist, Eduardo Brondizio, Erik Gómez-Baggethun, Carl Folke, Martiwi Diah Setiawati, Tri Atmaja, Enggar Yustisi Arini, Marcin Pawel Jarzebski, Kensuke Fukushi, Kazuhiko Takeuchi. 2023. Insurance value of biodiversity in the Anthropocene is the full resilience value. Ecological Economics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107799

Recently two distinctly different conceptualisations of insurance value of biodiversity/ ecosystems have been developed. The ecosystem framing addresses the full resilience value without singling out subjective risk preferences. Conversely, the economic framing focuses exactly on this subjective value of risk aversion, implying that the insurance value is zero for risk neutral persons. Here we analyse the differences conceptua...

Jonsson, A., Haider, J., Pereira, L., Fremier, A., Folke, C., Tengö, M., Gordon, L.J.. 2023. Nurturing gastronomic landscapes for biosphere stewardship. Global Food Security. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100789

As a result of years of increased rationalization and consolidation of food systems, the knowledge and skills of many actors in food value chains, especially those linked to smaller-scale traditional and artisanal production, processing, and cooking, have rapidly been eroded. Despite the resilience that such knowledge and skills can offer. In this paper, we use the lens of gastronomy to highlight how culinary craftsmanship and...

Norstrom, Albert, V, Agarwal, Bina, Balvanera, Patricia, Baptiste, Brigitte, Bennett, Elena M., Brondizio, Eduardo, Biggs, Reinette, Campbell, Bruce, Carpenter, Stephen R., Castilla, Juan Carlos, Castro, Antonio J., Cramer, Wolfgang, Cumming, Graeme S., Felipe-Lucia, Maria, Fischer, Joern, Folke, Carl, DeFries, Ruth, Gelcich, Stefan, Groth, Juliane, Speranza, Chinwe Ifejika, Jacobs, Sander, Hofmann, Johanna, Hughes, Terry P., Lam, David P. M., Loos, Jacqueline, Manyani, Amanda, Martin-Lopez, Berta, Meacham, Megan, Moersberger, Hannah, Nagendra, Harini, Pereira, Laura, Polasky, Stephen, Schoon, Michael, Schultz, Lisen, Selomane, Odirilwe, Spierenburg, Marja. 2022. The programme on ecosystem change and society (PECS) - a decade of deepening social-ecological research through a place-based focus. Ecosystems and People. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2022.2133173

The Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) was established in 2011, and is now one of the major international social-ecological systems (SES) research networks. During this time, SES research has undergone a phase of rapid growth and has grown into an influential branch of sustainability science. In this Perspective, we argue that SES research has also deepened over the past decade, and helped to shed light on key di...

Simon A. Levin, John M. Anderies, Neil Adger, Scott Barrett, Elena M. Bennett, Juan Camilo Cardenas, Stephen R. Carpenter, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Paul Ehrlich, Joern Fischer, Carl Folke, Nils Kautsky, Catherine Kling, Karine Nyborg, Stephen Polasky, Marten Scheffer, Kathleen Segerson, Jason Shogren, Jeroen van den Bergh, Brian Walker, Elke U. Weber, James Wilen. 2022. Governance in the Face of Extreme Events: Lessons from Evolutionary Processes for Structuring Interventions, and the Need to Go Beyond. Ecosystems. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-021-00680-2

The increasing frequency of extreme events, exogenous and endogenous, poses challenges for our societies. The current pandemic is a case in point; but "once-in-a-century" weather events are also becoming more common, leading to erosion, wildfire and even volcanic events that change ecosystems and disturbance regimes, threaten the sustainability of our life-support systems, and challenge the robustness and resilience of societi...

H. Österblom, J. Bebbington, R. Blasiak, M. Sobkowiak, C. Folke. 2022. Transnational Corporations, Biosphere Stewardship, and Sustainable Futures. Annual Review of Environment and Resources. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-120120-052845

Corporations are perceived as increasingly powerful and critically important to ensuring that irreversible climatological or ecological tipping points on Earth are not crossed. Environmental impacts of corporate activities include pollution of soils, freshwater and the ocean, depletion of ecosystems and species, unsustainable use of resources, changes to air quality, and alteration of the global climate. Negative social impact...

Carl Folke, Nils Kautsky. 2022. Aquaculture and ocean stewardship. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01528-8

In the mid-1980s contemporary aquaculture had emerged as a new way of producing seafood. It was often portrayed as a new technology that would replace overfished stocks and make humankind independent of nature’s fluctuations. Triggered by such claims, we decided to investigate the fast expanding aquaculture industry, which resulted in the 1989 Ambio paper ‘The role of ecosystems for a sustainable development of aquaculture’...