LINKING SOCIAL AND
ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
Management practices and social mechanisms
for building resilience
Edited by
FIKRET BERKES
‘Natural Resources Institute, The University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Canada
and
CARL FOLKE
Department of Systems Ecology and Centre for Research on Natural Resources
and the Environment, Stockholm University Sweden,
‘and The Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics,
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden
and with the editorial assistance of
JOHAN COLDING
The Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics,
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, and
Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, Sweden
n
Reviving the social system-ecosystem links in
the Himalayas |
NARPAT S. JODHA
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
1998. 11
Reviving the social system—ecosystem links in
the Himalayas
NARPAT S. JODHA
Introduction
This chapter deals with the natural resource-friendly traditional patterns of
resource use in the Hindukush-Himalaya (HK-H) region, their progressive
decline under present-day circumstances, and possible approaches to their
revival (Figure 11.1). This formulation of resource use, without getting into
finer definitional issues, represents the operational dimensions of ecosys-
tem-social system links in the context of fragile mountain areas, The
chapter draws on the broad synthesis of inferences and understanding
generated by more than 50 studies by different agencies in different parts of
the region. It is often inferred that present-day society ~ particularly the
Figure 11.1. ‘The Hindukush-Himalayas.
285286 Narpat S. Jodha
policy makers, planners, and their technica! advisors dealing with the
mountain regions — is better equipped than the traditional communities in
terms of knowledge of ecosystems and their functional dynamics. And yet,
it is unable to design and implement a social framework (covering norms
and mechanisms to govern a community's approach and interactions with
nature) which could more appropriately respond to the imperatives of the
natural resource base. Traditional communities, without the knowiedge of
formal principles of ecosystem (or natural resource system) dynamics, did
understand the manifestations of these dynamics, largely in terms of the
myriad opportunities and constraints for the community's survival.
Consequently, they evolved norms and practices to regulate individual and
collective behaviour (vis-a-vis nature) as well as technical and institutional
mechanisms to support them. This in turn helped in shaping and su:
ing positive ecosystem-social system links. The traces of such links, though
under severe strain, can still be found in several parts of the HK-H region
(or other relatively inaccessible ecosystems), where modern changes
causing disruption of such linkages are yet to have their full impact.
n-
Objectives
The chapter primarily focuses on the following aspects of human-nature
interactions in the HK-K region.
(1) The circumstances and processes responsible for positive ecosystem-
social system links, their manifestations and implications.
(2) The process of gradual disruption of ecosystem-social system links,
and its underlying causes and consequences.
(3) Possible approaches to arrest the disruption and restore the above links
by learning from (i) and (ii) above.
Basic premises
The central argument of the chapter can be briefly stated
(i) Ecosystem-social system links are discussed in terms of dynamics of
nature-society interactions manifested through a two-way adaptation
process, i.e. society adapting its needs (including mechanisms to fit
them) to the features of its natural resources base and adapting or
amending the natural resource base to suit its needs (Jochim, 1981;
Gadgil and Berkes, 1991).
(ii) In a given social-ecological context, the nature and composition of