While scientists usually examine either ecological systems or social systems, the need exists for an interdisciplinary approach to the problems of environmental management and sustainable development. Developed under the auspices of the Beijer Institute in Stockholm, this volume analyzes social and ecological linkages in selected ecosystems using an international and interdisciplinary case study approach. The chapters provide detailed information on a variety of management practices for dealing with environmental change. Taken as a whole, the book contributes to the greater understanding of essential social responses to changes in ecosystems. A key feature is a set of new, or rediscovered, principles for sustainable ecosystem management.

1. Linking social and ecological systems for resilience and sustainability Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke; Part I. Learning from Locally Devised Systems: 2. People, refugia and resilience Madhav Gadgil, Natabar S. Hemam and B. Mohan Reddy; 3. Learning by fishing: practical engagement and environemntal concerns Gíslí Palsson; 4. Dalecarlia in Central Sweden before 1800: a society of social and ecological resilience Ulf Sporrong; Part II. Emergence of Resource Management Adaptations: 5. Learning to design reslilient resource management: indigenous systems in the Canadian subarctic Fikret Berkes; 6. Resilience and neotraditional populations: the caiçaras of the Atlantic forest and caboclos of the Amazon (Brazil) Alpina Begossi; 7. Indigenous African resource management of a tropical rain forest ecosystem: a case study of the Yoruba of Ara, Nigeria D. Michael Warren and Jennifer Pinkson; 8. Managing for human and ecological context in the Maine soft shell clam fishery Susan S. Hanna; Part III. Success and Failure in Regional Systems: 9. Resilient resource management in Mexico's forest ecosystems: the contribution of property rights Janis B. Alcorn and Victor M. Toledo; 10. The resilience of pastoral herding in Sahelian Africa Maryam Niamir-Fuller; 11. Reviving the social system-ecosystem links in the Himalayas Narpat S. Jodha; 12. Crossing the threshold of ecosystem resilience: the commercial extinction of northern cod A. Christopher Finlayson and Bonnie J. McCay; Part IV. Designing New Approaches to Management: 13. Science, sustainability and resource management C. S. Holling, Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke; 14. Integrated management of a temperate montane forest ecosystem through holistic forestry: a British Columbia example Evelyn Pinkerton; 15. Managing chaotic fisheries James M. Acheson, James A. Wilson and Robert S. Steneck; 16. Social mechanisms and institutional learning for resilience and sustainability Carl Folke, Fikret Berkes and Johan Colding; Index.