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Barriers to change

Key challenges to those working in this area are the need to overcome the barriers to learning such as the following: fragmented information bases, poor information flows, a tendency to discount non-scientific forms of knowledge, lack of adequate processes to develop shared understandings among diverse stakeholders, an unwillingness to adequately address conflict, and institutional cultures within research and policy making that work against genuine participatory approaches. In turn, and especially within the natural management arena, these problems are compounded by current economic frameworks in which short-term rationality outcompetes longer-term ecological realities. The following papers provide a good overview of the lessons learnt to date ... and the challenges still to overcome.