Stockholm Resilience Centre, situated in Kräftriket at the northern entrance to Stockholm, was inaugurated a year ago. The centre is an amalgamation of Centre for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research at Stockholm University, Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics at Royal Academy of Sciences, and Stockholm Environment Institute SEI. Its Executive Director is Johan Rockström, and he is the person who receives me for an interview for the journal “Miljöforskning”.
What must SRC give the world that nobody else is doing? is my first question. He explains that it is four insights that resulted in the establishment of SRC.
- Human societies are dependent on a functioning biosphere and its ecological systems, while at the same time we are exhausting the resources of the planet.
- Sixty per cent of the investigated ecosystem services have deteriorated and are unsustainably exploited. Functions such as climate regulation, buffers against natural disasters, biodiversity, drinking water and food are in a powerful downturn.
- Humans and nature are intimately interconnected. Controlling and predicting changes in natural or human systems is very difficult. Stable processes can be changed with sudden threshold effects, while the administration systems and economy of today are designed for a world that changes gradually.
- In view of the other insights, a new form of interdisciplinary research is essential for dealing with future challenges. A new bridge between natural science and social science research must be developed.
The task of SRC is to contribute new insights which may form the basis for a new type of governance in a turbulent era, says Johan Rockström. We must reconsider how to formulate our national economy. Small scale calibration of society is not sufficient. Radical changes are required. And the biosphere must be an integral part of this!
As examples of fields where research has progressed furthest he lists urban socio-ecological systems, management of wetlands (Kristianstad Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve) and sea areas (Great Barrier Reef, Sustainability web journal, Issue No 3, Nov 2008).
- We have come a long way as regards water. We have redefined water, from its quite recent meaning of supply of fresh water, to the role of water in the landscape and for ecosystem services. This approach has been adopted, for example, in the management of Lake Victoria. Local administrations there take into consideration the local biodiversities in dealing with problems connected with drought and flooding.
Global changes
Global changes are a constant theme in research at SRC. The basis of the work is the insight into the interplay between social and ecological systems. Fundamentally, research at the Centre concentrates on analysing how societal development and the economy depend on the global ecosystems.
- We are trying to apply a systematic approach to the question whether there are global boundaries which humanity cannot cross without triggering a catastrophic development. As regards the climate, there is an estimated limit for how high the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can grow. We are now trying to establish new boundaries for e.g. ocean acidity, biodiversity and fresh water extraction. All innovation and social development must be kept within the boundaries of the biosphere. In collaboration with world class researchers from other universities, SRC is analysing what these boundaries are, what areas must be subjected to diagnosis and how they depend on one another. It is essential to manage ecosystem services, otherwise societies may have great difficulties in functioning.
Renaissance of small scale agriculture
What do you think of the ongoing food crisis, with more and more people starving?
- We have been looking at areas that are associated with the food crisis, e.g. Africa, and we have found that agriculture is the greatest culprit. Research into landscape structure has shown that focus on better agriculture has often resulted in a deterioration of ecosystems. At the same time, ecosystems are part of the agricultural landscape, where, with their great biodiversity, it is possible to bring about more stable water flows and to deal with drought more easily. Large scale agriculture is extremely vulnerable. A new green revolution is probably needed. It must be environmentally sustainable and resistant to deal with a more turbulent future, with alternating extreme droughts and floods in Africa.
The world a complex system
At the Beijer Institute which is part of SRC, ecology and economy are joined up. Ecosystem researchers and economists work together to see how humanity and nature interact. This is described by Carl Folke who is the head of the institute and director of research at SRC.
- It is a matter of describing a new economy where we consider the world to be an intertwined complex system. How do the global economy, on the one hand, and financial crises, climate changes etc, on the other, influence one another? What does it mean for the economy that an ecological system is changing? Threshold effects produce sudden changes and can influence the extraction of e.g. timber and fish.
Urban populations do not understand
One global problem is that over fifty per cent of the world's population live in towns. This means that more people than ever before fail to understand the feedbacks in food production, and are ignorant as regards their dependence on ecosystem services. On Bali, rice has been cultivated since the 11th century. The villagers keep an eye on their plots and know when they can sow and harvest at just the right time in relation to the prevailing weather conditions. Large scale production systems lack this sensitivity and flexibility.
Carl Folke describes the framework for research concerning socio-ecological systems. Societal and natural systems belong together and influence one another. As an example, he refers to lobster fishing in Maine. This is carried out by many individual fishermen. They have an organisation for lobster fishing and make sure that the lobsters that live in the waters of the archipelago are not overfished. Because of this, lobster fishing is very successful. The problem is that lobsters have increased because the entire coastal zone is depleted of fish. In this way, lobsters are free of their predators in the form of fishes which eat lobsters or compete for the same food. A monoculture has now been created in the Maine coastal waters, with lobsters dominating. There is a great risk that disease will break out. Lobster diseases which can wipe out the entire lobster stock are approaching from the south.
If attention is directed only to the relationship between society and the economy, as in this case where the actual lobster fishing was strictly regulated because it is an important means of livelihood for many fishermen in Maine, sudden changes in the ecological systems, which can hit the economic systems and thus society, may be overlooked.
- In our research we postulate that the world is complex. The basis for today's management of natural resources is that the world is stable. We now know that the climate in some parts of the world is undergoing powerful changes, and this makes monocultures very vulnerable. Research in earlier years was based on the view that there are stable systems that can be controlled. We now know that changes can be drastic in complex systems where domino effects may have entirely unforeseen effects.
From coral reef to algal reef
The Great Barrier Reef along the east coast of Australia is another example of how complex the problems are when natural resources are managed. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Australia and is an important source of income. A few per cent of the reef were therefore designated as a nature reserve so that they could remain undisturbed, as it was thought. Gradually it was realised that overfishing, climate changes and fertilisers affected the reef also. Fish graze on algae on the rock which enables the corals to become established there. With a decreasing number of fishes, algae have begun to take over, and the reef has changed from a coral reef to an algal reef.
Fifty per cent of the world's population lives in towns. Many people do not know what is happening in the countryside. How do we receive signals from our markets? Is the work of nature valued? China and India need a set of rules where the prices capture a large number of important indicators: human capital, capital, labour, land and resources.
Palm oil plantations a threat
When El Nino comes to Borneo, it becomes humid and hot. For the rain forests in Borneo it is essential that they broadcast their seeds just at the right time in relation to El Nino in order to achieve regeneration. The timing of this phenomenon that has gone on as long as rain forests have been in existence has been disrupted. In Borneo, permission has been given for the clearance of large areas of rain forest to make way for oil palm plantations. This has had catastrophic consequences for Borneo which, in the absence of regeneration of rain forests, has in recent years been hit by extensive forest fires which have contributed to the greenhouse effect. This illustrates how everything is interconnected, human management of natural resources and the large global systems.
Another example is the Baltic Sea where cod can return if the stocks of sprat are reduced, since sprat like eating cod eggs and fry. This type of knowledge of the ecosystem is essential in order that we may be able secure the services humans get from them. In earlier days, it was possible to catch any amount of fish. Now we must understand that everything is interconnected. In the project Baltic Nest, researchers at SRC are now developing a model for how the Baltic Sea functions.
The new global economy
- The aim of the new economy is to find new ways of dealing with this type of problem. For example, Niclas Stern (Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change, 2006) couples the economy to the future and whether or not it has a high value. Economic models have lost sight of all the physical dimension of the planet. We want to bring back this dimension.
If climate changes continue and the mean temperature of Earth rises, the areas around the Mediterranean may become too hot for life there to be pleasant. How do we prepare for this? In order to deal with dramatic changes in the climate and population migrations, we must provide safe access to water and food. How will the global economy manage to tackle such changes?
In the view of Carl Folke, sustainable development is of crucial importance.
- It is amazing that the academic world is still divided up into natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities, with limited capacity to help deal with the large global issues. There ought to be many centres such as we are. Now, most researchers work in small groups or individually.
Networks instead of authorities
Victor Galaz is a political scientist at SRC and is researching into how dynamic systems can produce surprises, both locally and globally, that challenge the political system. What types of institutions are needed to manage ecological systems that are dynamic and undergoing constant change?
He is just now studying epidemics "Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases" that are associated with changes in the ecosystem, such as ebola, avian influenza and others which move rapidly over the globe. In order to deal with these rapid changes, we need governance models which rapidly capture early warning signals and are sufficiently flexible to deal with surprises, i.e. adaptive control systems. This means, inter alia, that
- The governance organisations must have the capacity to be flexible and to learn from crises.
- Networks of players and not only authorities must make up the backbone in activities in which experiences and knowledge are gathered and rejected
- Activists must be fostered and administration adapted so that activists are attracted
The question is what the institutional structure of this state apparatus will be like.
A new generation of crises will have to tackled. Crises to do with food, oil, water are already receiving a lot of attention. Victor Galaz is looking more at crises that people do not talk much about, such as the threatened collapse of coral reefs.
Water shortage with the wrong agriculture
Another group at SRC has its focus on land use under the theme "Water and agriculture". Agriculture is the largest user of water, says Line Gordon. For instance, the idea that the climate crisis can largely be solved with the production of bioenergy is counterproductive, since bioenergy is produced with crops that need water.
By looking at a lot of ecosystem services at the same time, researchers are trying to find which type of landscape planning will produce more of everything. For example, Swedish landscape is compared with that in South Africa. As an example of how important it is to plan the various ecosystem services of the landscape, Line Gordon describes the urbanised agricultural landscape outside Montreal in Canada. There, two dominant industries have been developed in the landscape, tourism of apple plantations and large scale pig production. Two activities that do not match. Once a certain development has been put into action, it is difficult to break it. It would have been better if the difficulties that have arisen had been foreseen.
Previous research at SRC shows that in arid areas to the south of the Sahara harvests can be increased by 300 per cent (Sustainability 2008/1) if, in small scale farming, rainwater is stored and saved to dry periods (rainwater harvesting). One challenge with these systems that are now studied is that in years with little rain they may face serious problems. Another challenge is that in good years harvests can be increased quite a lot. In such a situation, however, the availability of crops increases, and the prices drop.
In years when harvests are bad, farmers must support themselves in some other way. They can then resort to ecosystem services. They produce charcoal, sell cattle, make bricks. A large proportion of the farmers' income comes from the surrounding landscape. It is therefore essential not to destroy the ecosystems by increasing agriculture with methods which devastate large parts of the existing landscape. The landscape must be cared for. It is easy to destroy systems whose existence people do not know about.
- We have a large project whose aim is to understand how much green water is globally available for agriculture. Green water is water in the root zone, and it is this which is essential for food production. We are now working on devising a definition for green water shortage and have invited researchers from all over the world who are engaged on modelling land use and water.
Several international research teams are taking part and working on this. In the spring of 2008 a workshop was held in Stockholm. We expect that in December the first results will start coming through. Line Gordon says that researchers at SRC cannot do it all on their own. They want to establish a platform to promote research. A melting pot for research teams from different disciplines and places in the world.