Ecosystem Sustainability and Health: A Practical Approach

✍ Scribed by David Waltner-Toews

• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 152
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume focuses on solutions to complex ecological problems with the objective of developing a new science for sustainability. Improving the health of people and animals, and improving the health, integrity or sustainability of ecosystems are laudable and important objectives. Can we do both? No ecosystems are untouched by human activity, and it appears that the world's ecosystems are reaching the limits of their ability to adapt to human impacts. The book draws on fields as diverse as epidemiology and participatory action research, philosophy and environmental sciences to examine this vital issue.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Figures......Page 11
Tables......Page 13
Introduction......Page 15
What are the clinical signs?......Page 20
1. Disease treatments don’t work......Page 22
Same scale......Page 23
Cross scale......Page 24
5. Biomedical disciplinarity causes blindness and inhibits effective sustainable health promotion......Page 25
What do these clinical signs mean?......Page 27
Feedback loops, self-organization, attractors and surprise......Page 28
Holonocracy and contradictions......Page 31
Multiple perspectives......Page 33
Who is the patient? Using clinical signs to define the boundaries......Page 34
Questions......Page 41
Streams of inquiry......Page 42
Starting with the problems (who, what, when)......Page 45
Getting the picture (where)......Page 52
Ecological studies......Page 54
Participatory methods (who and why)......Page 55
Soft Systems Methodology......Page 58
Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management (AEAM)......Page 61
Investigating the non-problems......Page 64
Beyond management participation......Page 65
Questions......Page 68
Making sense in a post-normal world......Page 70
Looking inside the boundaries: the idea of systems......Page 72
Assessing external relations......Page 80
Understanding feedback loops – from Rich Pictures to influence diagrams......Page 81
C. S. Holling’s Lazy-8 and Ulanowicz’s partial G clef......Page 89
Catastrophe models......Page 93
More sophisticated tools: their uses and limitations – dynamic systems models, spatial models......Page 94
Other ways of seeing......Page 95
Triangulation: informing clinical judgement......Page 98
Questions......Page 100
Setting goals......Page 102
Health as a supergoal......Page 103
What are the constraints to health?......Page 104
What are the positive attributes of health?......Page 109
Understanding trade-offs – amoeba diagrams......Page 116
Agreeing on the goals......Page 118
Questions......Page 119
5 Achieving goals: managing and monitoring......Page 121
Agro-ecosystem health management: what can we learn?......Page 123
What to monitor?......Page 126
Criteria for selecting indicators......Page 128
Different indicators for different purposes – long and short term, qualitative and quantitative......Page 129
Who will monitor?......Page 131
Questions......Page 133
6 Responding to change: AMESH and the never-ending story......Page 134
Presenting issues......Page 136
Who is telling the story?......Page 137
Multiple system stories: freeing the narratives......Page 138
Systems analysis......Page 139
Synthesizing whole-system descriptions: constraining the narratives......Page 140
Making the story happen......Page 141
Questions......Page 142
References......Page 144
Index......Page 149