7 Berkes, Fikret Folke, Carl Colding, Johan 1998 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 459 sustainability, ecosystem, indigenous knowledge (IK), traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), institution, common-property (common-pool) resources, feedback, resilience, capital (cultural capital, social capital, institutional capital) This book presents 13 case studies on the sustainability of resource management systems from around the world, including studies of fish, mammals, and plants. Both conventional and traditional (or newly emergent locally controlled) systems are examined. Each author addresses two objectives: ?how the local social system has developed management practices based on ecological knowledge for dealing with the dynamics of the ecosystem(s) in which it is located; and social mechanisms behind these management practices? (p.3). In an introductory chapter, Berkes and Folke define terms and phrases and lay out an analytical framework. As they point out, ?the research questions posed by the present study explicitly link ecology, economics and social science. They require an interdisciplinary, international, case-study approach? (p. 15). They propose three hypotheses: maintaining resilience is important for resources and social institutions; successful management systems will allow disturbance to enter at a low-level scale; and social mechanisms for sustainability co-evolve with local ecosystems. The book is organized into four parts. Part I includes three case studies on local systems. Part II includes four case studies on how some new adaptive systems arose. Part III includes four case studies that situate local experiences within regional concerns. In Part IV, the four chapters (two are case studies) examine designing new approaches to resource management. The emphasis is on combining traditional and conventional resource management systems. Two of the chapters in Part IV do not concentrate on case studies, but rather provide condensed arguments for thinking about (and changing) resource management. In Chapter 13, C. S. Holling, F. Berkes, and C. Folke (?Science, Sustainability and Resource Management?) explicitly meld together two resource management approaches that so far had been in different literatures. They propose to use a systems approach and adaptive management as the basis of a resource management science. But in addition, they propose to focus on cultural capital and property-rights systems. The human-ecological system is ?best seen as a co-evolutionary one, with changing functional controls in the ecosystem, in the economy and in the society? (p. 343). They contextualize their viewpoints by outlining the historical development of thought on science and sustainability. In the final synthesis chapter, Chapter 16, C. Folke, F. Berkes, and J.Colding (?Ecological Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience and Sustainability?) re-examine the three hypotheses proposed in the first chapter. They summarize how management practices and the social mechanisms behind them can contribute to ecosystem resilience. They collate common patterns and principles, upon which they propose some productive ways in which management systems can be made more resilient and sustainable. Prepared by: Gail E. Wagner [GEW], Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, July 2006.