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Learning for sustainability (LfS) site update (February 2009)

Focus on managing complex systems - governance, adaptive management and resilience

The Learning for Sustainability site - http://learningforsustainability.net - brings together resources that help address the social and capacity building aspects of managing collective interests within complex and adapting systems. The site highlights the wide range of social skills and processes that are needed to support constructive collaboration, and indicates how these skills and processes can be interwoven to achieve more integrated and effective outcomes. This site brings links to several hundred annotated on-line resources from different sectors and geographic areas together in one easy to access site.

This portal site has been substantially revised and updated over the past few months. This newsletter provides a brief introduction to new resources that have been added.

• New portal sections, pages, and links added
• Interesting reading: Recent reports and research papers
• Thoughts for the day
• Subscribing and unsubscribing
• Other ideas for browsing and reading

New portal sections, pages, and links added

A new section on governance has now been developed. This is accessible directly off the front page menu system, and provides managers, policy makers and others with links to governance resources that support adaptation and adaptive management. Other new resource sections link to resources to support thinking and practice around managing complex systems, community resilience, and participation.

Most pages have been expanded with new resource links added. A central guides, tools and checklists section provides practical guidance to help readers address issues involved in managing multi-stakeholder participation and engagement initiatives. Lessons are drawn from different sectors including catchments and watersheds, natural resources, HIV/AIDS, climate change, and disasters. A new page in this section now covers tools, tips and techniques for facilitators and other social engagement specialists. Other site sections provide links to best and emerging practice in specific areas including social learning, adaptive management, network building and mapping, dialogue, knowledge management, and evaluation and reflection. Research links cover action research, systems thinking, participation, integration and interdisciplinarity. One page lists on-line resources for both post-graduate research students and their supervisors.

At the same time the site has been given a new CSS-based menu system. For most of you this won't make any difference. However, this should improve the use of the site greatly for those of you using Safari and Chrome browsers.

Interesting research papers and reports

The featured links for this issue are drawn from some of the new sections added recently. As the pages in this portal shows there is a lot of really good material available � so this newsletter section is is by no means intended as an award list, it just lists some recent additions that are good sites to share.

• Managing in an age of complexity This web article by Jean Boulton reviews thinking around complex systems which suggests predictability is the exception rather than the norm and that, to make organisations adaptable and able to learn, change and develop, we must emphasise interconnections, networks, crossfunctional processes, informality and relationships as well as encouraging diversity in the broadest sense. Jean points to emerging competencies for managing change as being scanning, handling complexity, weaving a vision, using judgement, empowering others, collaborating and adapting. Click here for more resources on complex systems.


• Achieving Water Conservation: Strategies for Good Governance This policy report by Karen Bakker and Kathryn Furlong summarizes lessons learned about the links between �good governance� and water conservation, and explores how different governance models can both constrain and enable water conservation. in Ontario, Canada. It points out that governance issues are generally overlooked in favour of a purely technical approach. Key governance barriers include short-term thinking, lack of co-operation and assistance across different levels of government, limited opportunities for delegation. Key strategies for good governance include setting a long-term vision that is developed co-operatively among stakeholders, deriving key principles from that vision to guide progress, and applying three key governance principles: (1) accountability, (2) fairness, and (3) shared governance.Click here for more resources on governance.


• Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review This working paper by Mark Reed points to the need to focus on participation as a process. It then identifies a number of best practice features from the literature. Finally, it argues that to overcome many of its limitations, stakeholder participation must be institutionalised, creating organisational cultures that can facilitate processes where goals are negotiated and outcomes are necessarily uncertain. The paper acknowledges that seen in this light, participatory processes may seem very risky, but there is growing evidence that if well designed, these perceived risks may be well worth taking. Click here for more resources on participation.

And the following reports are now hosted on the LfS site:

• Transdisciplinary research (TDR) and sustainability This report by Karen Cronin looks at the emergence of transdisciplinary research, including theoretical and practical developments internationally and in New Zealand, and its potential to contribute to sustainability outcomes. It provides a good overview of definitions and outlines the characteristics and steps involved in TDR. Attention is paid to both challenges and benefits of this way of working, and its potential use in the future is discussed. Click here for more resources on integration, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.


• Building Resilience in Rural Communities: Toolkit This toolkit is the outcome of a three year research project examining resilience in the rural community of Stanthorpe in Queensland. It consists of a series of information sheets explaining the purpose of the toolkit and outlining 11 resilience concepts found to be pivotal in enhancing individual and community resilience. The toolkit is designed to be used by program co-ordinators such as community workers, health professionals, and others working with individuals and groups and community leaders. Click here for more resources on building community resilience.

Thoughts for the day

Remembering Arne Naess (1912-2009: Arne N�ss, who has died aged 96, was Norway's best-known philosopher, whose concept of deep ecology enriched and divided the environmental movement. Guardian obituary (15 January 2009)

• "By and large, it is painful to think." - Naess
• "The movement is not mainly one of professional philosophers and other academic specialists, but of a large public in many countries and cultures." - Naess

Others

• "Participation is not something that can be conjured up or created artificially...Participation is a feeling on the part of the people, not just the mechanical act of being called in to take part in discussions." -- Lawrence, P.R. (1954 May-June). "How to Deal with Resistance to Change" Harvard Business Review, 32(3), pp. 49-57.

Sharing, feedback, subscribing and unsubscribing

Please forward this site to interested colleagues. Feedback is welcomed, and visitors are encouraged to suggest sites to add. Thanks to those of you who have pointed to papers and other material for inclusion, and sharing among the wider global community of practice in this area. Last month the site averaged over 450 visitors each day. The highest number of visits in any one day was 1560.

Newsletter postings advise of major changes and additions to this site, and will be sent out as an LfS site update e-mail to those of you who wish every couple of months. These postings will indicate the major changes on the site during that time. Each posting will also include links to 5-6 feature articles, so it is a good way to gain an overview of material in this area which cuts across the health, environment and development sectors. Just click here to add your name to this list through the newsletter update subscription page. If you have received this newsletter electronically and you wish to unsubscribe you can also do this from the LfS site update page. Alternatively you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to [email protected] or unsubscribe by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. If all else fails just contact me directly through the link in the footer of this page.

Other ideas for browsing and reading

If you have time to browse the web then the talks provided through the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) site - www.ted.com - are always good value and thought provoking. The TED talks involve the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). If you want to use the Internet in a more active and involved way then you may be interested in the following links to sites that let you help just by using click throughs or donating to support different causes. You choose the cause, and it only takes a few minutes of your time.

And if you want some real book reading, or to buy a gift for yourself or someone else, then visit Amazon. Below I have listed a couple of books that were highlighted through the site or mentioned on the IntSci - Integrated science for sustainability discussion forum in recent months.